/content-pillars

name: content-pillars
description: >-
  Use to define a brand's content pillars — the 3–5 recurring themes it posts about — the
  strategic backbone between the brand profile and the content calendar. Run when the user says
  "content pillars," "content buckets," "what should I post about," "content themes," "content
  strategy," "pillars," or before planning a batch or calendar. Reads brand-profile first and derives pillars from
  positioning, point of view, audience, and proof — real ownable themes, never generic
  "educational / behind-the-scenes / promotional" buckets (those are intents and formats, not
  pillars). Produces a content-pillars.md that batch-content-plan and the content skills read.
  Works for any business: B2B, ecommerce, local, personal brand, nonprofit.
metadata:
  version: 1.0.0
license: MIT

Content Pillars

Content pillars are the few recurring **themes** a brand returns to — the strategic layer between *who the brand is* (`brand-profile`) and *what it posts this week* (`batch-content-plan`). Good pillars make a feed coherent, ownable, and infinitely easy to plan; their absence is why so many brands post random things that add up to nothing.

The single most important idea in this skill — and the thing almost everyone gets wrong:

> **A pillar is a theme you own. It is NOT an intent or a format.** "Educational," > "behind-the-scenes," and "promotional" are not pillars — *educational* is an intent (the job a > post does) and *behind-the-scenes* is a format/treatment. A real pillar is a subject area like > "payroll without a specialist" or "the craft of coffee, demystified." Get this distinction > right and everything downstream gets sharper. See `references/what-makes-a-pillar.md`.

When to use this

• After `brand-profile`, before planning content at any scale.
• When the user doesn't know "what to post about," or their feed feels random.
• When `batch-content-plan` needs pillars and none are defined.

**When NOT to use this:** if a current `content-pillars.md` exists, load it, summarize it, and move on unless the user wants to revisit it.

Step 0 — Read the foundation first

Load `brand-profile.md` (and `voice.md`). Pillars are *derived from strategy* — positioning, point of view, audience, proof, offers — not brainstormed from thin air. If there's no brand profile, run `brand-profile` first; pillars built without it are guesses.

Step 1 — Mine the brand profile for raw material

Pull the candidate sources (see `references/deriving-pillars.md`):

• **Positioning + point of view** → the *signature* pillar (the thing the brand wants to be

known for; the hill it will die on).

• **Audience jobs-to-be-done / pains** → audience-relevant pillars (their problems, not your

features).

• **Proof + expertise** → credibility pillars (what the brand can authoritatively teach).
• **The human / brand story** → a connection pillar.
• **Offers / product** → at most one conversion-linked pillar, used sparingly.

Step 2 — Generate candidate pillars

From each source, draft candidate themes. Aim wide first (8–12 candidates), phrased as *subjects*, not formats — "small-business money mistakes," not "educational posts."

Step 3 — Test and select 3–5

Run each candidate through the **pillar test** (`references/what-makes-a-pillar.md`):

1. **Ownable** — can you say *why this brand specifically* is credible or distinctive here? 2. **Relevant** — does the target audience genuinely care? 3. **Strategic** — does it advance a real goal (awareness, trust, conversion)? 4. **Sustainable** — can you brainstorm **10+ post ideas** from it right now?

Keep the 3–5 strongest. A candidate that fails *ownable* or *sustainable* is not a pillar. Fewer, sharper pillars beat more, vaguer ones — a feed with eight themes has none.

Step 4 — Define each pillar

For every selected pillar, capture: a clear name, what it covers, **why the brand owns it**, who it's for, the goal it serves, 5–8 example angles/sub-topics, and the proof/assets it draws on. This is what makes pillars usable by the planning and content skills. See `references/pillar-template.md`.

Step 5 — Balance the mix

A healthy pillar set has:

• **One signature pillar** — the differentiator, the brand's distinct POV. Every brand needs

one.

• **Supporting pillars** — audience problems, credibility, connection.
• **At most one conversion-linked pillar**, used as the minority (promotion rides on the value

the others create — see the mix logic in `batch-content-plan`).

Spread the pillars across goals so the brand isn't all-teaching or all-selling.

Step 6 — Write the artifact

Produce `content-pillars.md` using `references/pillar-template.md`. Summarize it back to the user, flag the signature pillar, and invite one round of edits. `batch-content-plan` and the content skills will read this on every task.

Quality bar — self-check

• Are the pillars **themes**, not intents or formats? (No "educational" as a pillar.)
• Is each one **ownable** — with a reason *this* brand is credible/distinctive on it?
• Is each **audience-relevant**, not just brand-interesting?
• Could each generate **10+ post ideas** (sustainable)?
• Is there exactly **one signature pillar**, and is promotion a minority?
• Are there **3–5**, not eight vague ones?
• Does each pillar trace back to something real in the brand profile?

Edge cases

• **User lists generic buckets** ("educational, BTS, promo") → explain those are intents/formats,

and convert them into real themes derived from the brand.

• **Too many candidate topics** → narrow to the 3–5 that best pass the pillar test.
• **Brand with no obvious distinctive theme** → mine the POV and audience pains harder; if

there's truly no differentiation, the signature pillar becomes *voice + a consistent angle*, and you say so honestly.

• **Personal brand / creator** → pillars are person-led (what they're known for, their journey,

their craft); keep them tied to the person, not