Social Savvy: Create content pillars and tactics that excite engagement and ignite action – April 2025

By Irene Williams

Across social media platforms, online forums, as well as your own website and marketing methods, it’s clear that everything is content, and content is everything. Without compelling messaging and strategy, your business’s voice is easily lost in the vast, ever-churning sea of information and entertainment in which your customers are scrolling 24/7. It’s now or never to develop key content pillars and supporting tactics to effectively engage potential customers and inspire them to choose your business. Here’s how to elevate your content quality, along with some ideas to implement immediately.

VOICE LESSONS
Before we get into specifics, it’s essential to address your brand’s voice, as it may just be the most pivotal differentiator for content-marketing success. Why? First of all, a company such as yours within the flooring industry is more likely to thrive by being unique. Secondly, in this age in which many turn to AI to generate marketing content, you will differentiate yourself in the market by crafting messaging that large language models like ChatGPT cannot replicate in personality and tone. And last but not least, the research consistently shows that today’s consumers crave authentic connection and want to know, like and trust the companies they do business with.

Think about brand voice from a consumer’s point of view. There are dozens of sports commentators on TV, but you have one or two favorites. There are thousands of interior designers on Instagram, but you prefer only a few. If your content is going to break through, it needs to be infused with your brand’s recognizable, approachable and reliable persona.

I advise that your brand’s voice not be that of one person or a few people within your company. Your business is the sum of all the key individuals who comprise it, and many of those individuals actively represent your brand in the marketplace. Nonetheless, the overall brand persona should be the north star-the constant that builds equity for your business long term.

CONTENT PILLARS
Content pillars are the core topics your company addresses regularly. They are foundational in that you build all marketing and promotions upon them. But they’re also directional because, collectively, they’re the compass that keeps your messaging on course. The pillars should be developed to:
• Support your goals (i.e., increased sales, more repeat customers, etc.)
• Illuminate your business’s areas of expertise
• Address the audience’s needs and interests in relation to your brand

While there’s no set rule on how many content pillars to have, I recommend establishing five. Five pillars allow for both precision and spaciousness-contained so you can deepen authority in select topics while offering enough variety to make things interesting. If you can’t identify five pillars to start, pinpoint at least three. If you have so many you can’t choose, narrow down to seven.

In the world of flooring, there are many common content pillars that will likely merit inclusion in your strategy, as well as the strategy of your competitors. Subjects like product trends and installation ideas are so basic and important that your customers will expect to learn about them from you and any other business in your category. This is exactly why your brand voice is pivotal! Content pillars will not always be unique to your business, but your take on these topics must be.

BENEFITS FROM CONTENT PILLARS
You always know what to say. There’s nothing more daunting than a blank page when it’s time to create a blog post, write the next newsletter or prepare social media posts for the upcoming week. With content pillars, you always have content starting points, so the proverbial page is never completely blank.

You strengthen your authority (and your SEO). Pillars guide conciseness for your content, and, over time, that conciseness naturally results in more prominence for your brand when customers search certain topics. Google search results prioritize content that meets the “E-E-A-T” criteria (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness), so you’re sure to benefit from the consistent quality content you and your team generate with pillars.

You respond instead of react. With content pillars, you’re empowered to respond thoughtfully to timely topics and current events in the context of your business goals and audience needs. This protects the quality and longevity of everything you publish and put out into the world. When pillars aren’t in place, you may be prone to chase trending topics in reactionary fashion, resulting in content that’s off-brand and off-target.

You invite individuality to lift up the collective. As you encourage talented team members to sell, speak up and represent the business through their individual roles, you’ll find content pillars extremely helpful in providing everyone the key messaging and talking points they need. This leads everyone to support, contribute to and enhance the longstanding, transcending voice of your brand. Even as people come and go, your content pillars and brand voice hold strong.

IDEAS FOR CONTENT PILLARS
What tactics can you employ to move your messaging further and more effectively? Here are some motivating ideas.

• Use the “fruit tree” approach. Envision every content marketing effort your team generates as a fruit tree. The tree’s trunk is the main piece of longer-form content, such as a blog, white paper, newsletter article, 3+-minute video or press release. Extending from the trunk are the branches: a series of social media posts, article snippets, 15-second video clips, etc. The fruits of the tree are the calls-to-action (CTAs), the ripe opportunities for your customers to take action. To complete the analogy, remember that the roots of the content tree are nurtured by your content pillars and brand persona.

• Use atypical types of content. Content is more than just a collection of words. Content can-and should-be visual and interactive, as well. Think beyond the boxes of blogs and social posts to create unique types of content that capture attention. Ideas include (but are not at all limited to) interactive quizzes with results that lead to customized email funnels, charts and graphs that are easily shareable, educational webinars, downloadable look books and interactive slide shows on your website.

• Distribute content in unique ways. Incorporate a greater variety of distribution methods to make your content really connect and generate more buzz for your biz. Offer a buying guide as a Google document that customers can download and customize for their projects. Create a five-day trend series that’s sent via email to special registrants. Use an evergreen webinar service to present educational sessions on-demand in order to generate qualified leads. Partner with a complementary business, influencer or media outlet to promote a design guide.

Considering how essential your content is to marketing success, you should never be too content with its quality and performance. Make it standard practice to watch the market, plan ahead, get creative and strengthen those pillars to advance your messaging and go for your goals.

Copyright 2025 Floor Focus

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