Let’s talk about BRAND PILLARS today!! But first, a brief intro —

 

Social media and content creation in general can be overwhelming, but you probably already know that.. Do you ever feel like you have no idea what to say or no strategy behind what you’re posting about? BEEN THERE!

Have you read my last couple posts about niching down and finding your ideal client? If so, now it’s time to narrow in on what exactly your brand stands for. You want to specify how you can engage with and serve that ideal client every single time you post anything anywhere!

(And if you haven’t read those posts yet, here they are – read them first!!)

• The Power of Finding Your Niche as a Creative
• Defining Your Ideal Client

 

 

What Are “Brand Pillars?”

I like to narrow down what I’m going to share on social media by coming up with 3-5 brand pillars. Nowww Kelsey, what on earth is a brand pillar?! You’re probably thinking of those tall white pillars that hold up official government buildings. We’re not talking about those, buuut keep in mind the way that those structurally hold up a building —

I define it as specific topics that you will share about, focus on, and can be known for consistently. These pillars will give you something to come back to every time you see that blinking cursor of a caption box. The 3-5 topics you revolve around in your social media posts will help you show up consistently and reliably to your audience – and that’s the goal, right?!

 

 

My Own Brand Pillars

Let’s dive into some examples. For myself as a photographer and photography educator, it’s important that I share my work and knowledge. But it’s also important that I share my personality and relatability! SO I’ll give you a little inside scoop and you can watch for these patterns in my posts:

1. Photography – Client Experience (sharing wedding tips, client stories etc.)
2. Photography Business Tips/Relatability (for fellow photographers)
3. My Life – husband, dog, tacos, awkwardness etc. (for relatability and to show my personality)
4. Importance of Community (to show what I stand for + value)

 

 

How I Infuse My Brand Pillars Into My Biz

These pillars are HUGE parts of my entire business – and each of them has a very intentional purpose for me! Let’s run through them real quick:

Photography – Client Experience:

• This is my main area of business, so of course it’s important to showcase my work! It’s also important to me to share my clients’ stories! I’m OBSESSED with my people and their stories – and I want everyone to fall in love with them as much as I have! I also aim to serve my clients/potential clients with all the tips to get them ready for their wedding/session. This helps showcase my experience and that they can fully trust me!

 

Photography Business Tips/Relatability:

• Just about as much as I love the actual art/job of photography, I LOVE to teach others all that I know! It’s suchhh an amazing job and I thriveee on helping others level up their business! If I can help someone through a quick free tip on Insta, I would hope they’d see I can offer so much more value in my blog or a paid mentor session! It’s the appetizer to the full main course of a paid offering.

 

My Life:

• This is so important to me because I 10000% believe that YOU are your business’ biggest asset. Yes, there are tons of similar businesses out there offering similar things. . . BUT THEY’RE NOT YOU! I love to show the “behind the scenes” iof my life, my home, my quirks – all of it. It helps me relate to clients even more! This also give people a reason to follow me, even if they’re not interested in my offerings right this second – maybe they will be later on!

 

Community:

• This is a major passion of mine. Especially after a year of isolation, I’ve discovered just how important it is to find your people. I want my audience to see my heart and my why behind so much of what I do.

 

PHEWW I feel like I just gave away alll my secrets in this post. 

Now it’s important to know that I’m not saying this is allll you can post about or you’re limited to this! Absolutely not! But it gives your brand a backbone and a level of consistency – which is so important. It also just makes it EASIER for you to come up with what you’re going to share on social media (and wouldn’t we all love social media to be easier)! 

Like I mentioned, we mostly only talked about Instagram content in this post – but you could utilize this thinking in other areas like your blog posts, your website copy, email marketing, Tik Tok… etc!

I hope this was helpful – now go brainstorm your top brand pillars and start writin’ those captions + creating that content!!