Pillars: Change Is Good

Hello! Welcome back! Today, we are going to talk about content and how you can group certain types of content into what we call pillars. Generally, when you think about creating on some platform (let’s use Youtube as an example), you want to find your niche. A niche is an area of expertise that you either excel, or are good at and you can teach others, or learn with others as you discuss your topic.

Content pillars are grouped topics that help you to decide what type of content you are going to make. This might not be as detailed as some people would go, but for example, my main content pillars are planning, art and goal setting. Some could argue that goal setting is a type of planning, but I purposely made it it’s own pillar, because there are so many ways you can break it down into different types of content.

What I’ve found since starting YouTube five years ago was I started feeling like my content was becoming stale. I was doing a bunch of things, seemingly non-related (i.e brush lettering, sharing what was in my bags and purses, vlogs, etc…). So in my head, I thought that by doing tons of different things, I would keep my viewers interested and engaged.

To be honest, even though I do examine my analytics once a month, I can’t really say whether I kept my subscribers or not. At the beginning, I grew rather slowly, but my numbers increased every day. (I felt that I must be doing something right).

However, experts do say that streamlining your content and sticking to one main theme is in your best interest, especially at the beginning. It makes a clear, concise picture of what you have to offer, and people who are interested in that will start to follow you. Then, when you are more established as a content creator, you can start to branch out more and begin to explore.

I find that’s not really how most creators do things though. At the beginning, a lot of us are unsure and want to experiment about what we ourselves like to do. So, we tend to try out a variety of things that arent’t necessarily related. This in turn, according to the experts drives viewers and subscribers away.

I wanted to get more serious about my Youtube career, so I decided to start researching how to make my channel grow, and how to use SEO keyword search more effectively. (That is probably the biggest growth tip I could give you right now - figure out your target audience and then reel them in with specific keywords that explain what you’re trying to promote).

I did quite a few things back at the beginning of my channel growth. One of them was splitting up my content into two separate channels. This was part of figuring out what I wanted my content to look like, and creating my first official content pillar.

I’ve been on YouTube now for five years, and I have changed my style, but I find myself revolving around to similar content I made at the beginning. My main channel revolves around planning, but I found that planning still can include other things (like vlogging), because I show my audience how I plan for it. I think the trick here is how you integrate new content.

For example, when I’m filming my weekly plan with me video, I may talk about my upcoming trip to Red Deer. Then perhaps I mention in my video that I might vlog my trip for the sake of memory keeping for my kids. Then, I might do a poll on my community tab, asking my audience how many people would be interested in watching a vlog of my trip and going to breweries. If I get interaction, then I usually go ahead and film it.

The same could be said of any plans really. Say for example, I wanted to create a hand-lettered sign for a party that I was hosting. I would go ahead and create a video showing the process sped up. Since I already mentioned I was going to create the art, people now know about it and then they have the opportunity to watch how it’s done. So now, I have two content pillars that are comprised of completely different content, but I have integrated them together to make it work.

You can do this really with any content pillars. You just need to find a way that your audience (or at least some of your audience will still be engaged). This also works when you want to change your pillars, or delete and add new ones.

If you find yourself getting bored with your own content, this will show through and your audience will feel it. My advice is to be completely honest and say you are changing things up, because you are getting bored. I wouldn’t do anything too drastic, because remember, the viewers you have joined because they enjoyed the content you were creating to begin with. Remember, some people will leave, so try not to get discouraged. It’s still better to do the things you love, rather than languish on something you dislike. The right people will find your channel or social media account.

Thanks for reading and we’ll see you next week!

Sandra