Episode 427: Are you using content buckets in your marketing?
In this episode, Fiona explores the importance of content pillars and buckets. Learn how to structure your content strategy to resonate with your target audience. Tune in!
You'll Learn How To:
Introduction to content pillars and content buckets
Differentiating between content pillars and content buckets
Examples of effective content pillars
Strategies for creating engaging content
Importance of aligning content with brand identity
Tips for maintaining fresh and relevant content
Analysis of audience engagement with different content buckets
Personal experiences in creating content strategies
Announcing Group Coaching and scholarship opportunities
Get in touch with My Daily Business
Connect and get in touch with My Daily Business:
Welcome to episode 427 of the My Daily Business Podcast. Today is a quick tip episode and if you are ever struggling with content or content that is going to connect, but also drive people back to your products, your services, your experiences, or whatever it is that you sell, then today's episode is absolutely for you. Before we get stuck in, I want to let you know that Group Coaching is officially open. If you want to apply for the next round of Group Coaching, please go on over to mydailybusiness.com/groupcoaching and you can fill in the application and then have an interview with me. And then we go forward. If you'd like to join the group, then you get to join the group. And then we work together for a whole year and it's super fun and you get to be surrounded by a really beautiful small group of other intentional and just interesting and curious and interested people that are also running small businesses. You can check all the information over at mydailybusiness.com/groupcoaching.
Of course, I also want to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of these beautiful lands where I live and work and run these group coaching programs. And that is the Wurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. And I pay my respects to their elders past and present and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded. Also, if you're reading this and you are First Nations, please check out Group Coaching, we do offer a spot, a scholarship position for anyone from First Nations Bipoc or LGBTQIA a plus community. And that is 'cause we know that traditionally people from these communities have not had the same level of access and opportunities as other people. If you'd like to apply for the scholarship spot, just make sure that you put a note on that on your application and we will get in touch. Again, the URL for group coaching is mydailybusiness.com/groupcoaching. Let's get into today's quick tip episode.
I cannot count how many content strategies I have created for clients for places I've been employed since I started my career. Before social media was a thing, I was creating content strategies for advertisers for the magazines that I was editing for a whole bunch of things. One of the easiest ways to create a lot of content, but drive it back to key themes that you want your brand to be known for and that resonate and create that community, connection and humanity with your audience is to have content pillars. Themes that you talk about regularly that you become very well known for. Whether you are on a panel, whether you are going on a podcast, whether you are doing media, whether you're putting a social media reel or TikTok together, people are like, you are the brand that I come to when I want to talk to somebody about or see something or learn something or connect with somebody on these particular topics.
If I said, for example, sustainable fashion, you would think of certain brands. If I said clever, funny community, you would think of other brands. There's always that brand connection and that synapse happening in people's brains. Lots of people know and have their content pillars, but even with content pillars, people can get stuck and stagnant and then not create content that people want to follow because they find some value in it. Whether that's humour or uncovering information they didn't know, or a sense of comradery or a sense of like, this person is so aligned with my values or this brand is. One of the ways that you can create freshness and newness in your content is to have content buckets. You have your content pillars. Those are usually four or five themes.
I know, I see so many people on Instagram social media doing this, and I'm like, I'm covering my eyes right now because I'm like, this is not content pillars. People put stuff up like content pillars are inspiration, education I'm like, no, they are not. They're content buckets. Content pillars are your themes, your subject matter, your ideas, and what your brand wants to be known for. Everyone can do inspiration, education, everyone can do humour, everyone can do behind the scenes. They are not content pillars, they are content buckets. Anyway, it's syntax. But the content buckets are a list of things that you can back to over and over depending on it, it just never really runs out. The content buckets are things like news, tech tips and tricks, and hacks, I guess if you wanted to quote behind the scenes a day in the life of any of those day in the life, get ready with me, outfit of the day, whatever.
Any of those can come under a content bucket. But let's say you had a thing, let's say you're Qantas. I do not work for Qantas. I've never done consulting for Qantas, but I always use them as an example because they are one of the most, well-known Australian airlines in the world. If you are Qantas, you might have the content pillars of Australia. You talk a lot about Australia or Australian airlines, you would have Qantas itself. You always have your brand as a content pillar. What's happening with the share price, what's happening with staff? Then you might have to travel. Travel is a huge one you may have designed, that's a huge part of Qantas. What they talk about, is who designed their cups, who designed their outfits, who designed the plane, who designed whatever.
And then safety. Safety is a huge draw card for why people fly Qantas. And they're continuously on the top and shown as potentially the safest airlines in the world. Those things they could talk about over and over and over and in so many different ways. Those are content pillars. But then you've got the content buckets. If they had the buckets of news, they could go news design, what's some news in design? And it could be, it's Milan Design Week. It's Melbourne Design Week. They could take design and news and put them together like a puzzle. They could take design and tips and tricks. Ways to wear your Qantas pyjamas in different ways. They could do something with design and tips and tricks. They could do design and tech. It's like, what's happening? Do you guys know about this app for designing something else?
They could take those content pillars and the content buckets and just, there are endless amounts of content, but they still come back to the person receiving that content, interacting, connecting with that content, having an idea of design linked with Qantas, because Qantas wants to be known as a design aesthetically pleasing for design. Curious people who are interested in the design of their aircraft and the design of the glasses and the food and the menu and everything. They're trying to see themselves as a little bit elevated from say, cost cheaper airlines. If you have your content themes, one way to be able to come up with an endless stream of content ideas, but also ones that are going to connect is to have a list of content buckets.
Like I said, those are things like behind-the-scenes quotes, tips and tricks, tech news, anything you could have. I mean you could also use other more emotive words in your content bucket. Not that you're necessarily using this word with somebody, but to come up with more emotive and human-connecting ways to talk to people. You might have, for example, confidence. You might go, how do we talk about confidence and design? How do we talk about confidence and travel, confidence and safety, confidence in Qantas confidence whatever it is, you could come up with a range of emotions that you want to be linked to your brand and use those as your content buckets with each of your content pillars. This is just one way to come up with like if you had, let's say you had five content pillars and you had seven content buckets.
If you just linked each of them once, that's 35 pieces of content. If you are putting out, say a reel a week, that's almost your whole year's worth in just those 35. Now you want to go one step further and start analysing which content buckets resonate most with your audience. You're not going to necessarily change up all your content pillars because these are the things that you want your brand to be known for. They shouldn't be changing all the time because you're trying to cement yourself in a particular space in the industry and the positioning in the mind of your consumer. Your content buckets though can change up. And if you just, if you realise, every time we talk about confidence with one of our content pillars, we get so much more engagement, we get so much more connection, it goes tick in terms of our metrics for our content and our marketing.
Then you know that, when we're creating new stuff, X percent of it needs to be under the using the content bucket confidence. Because we know when we do that, we are hitting a nerve and we are getting that engagement up. That is it for today. Really when you're looking at your content, think about what your buckets and also when you consume other people's content, when you are drawn to other people's brands' content, it could be a brand or not a single person, but a person, not a company on social media. What is it that draws it? Is it like the behind-the-scenes? Is it the storytelling? Is it the way that they capture things? It's like, how would I describe that in a content bucket? And could we start testing that ourselves?
Because you are drawn to it. Chances are people may be drawn to that in you and your business content as well. That is it for today. If you would like to talk content and get into all of this, you can always book a one-on-one session Content is my jam. I've been working in content for 24 years. From magazine editorials through to books, through to publishing, through to online, through to working at Amazon and changing so much in terms of finances from just looking at the content for key brands on the Amazon platform through to audible, through to so many different places. Content I have always worked with content and it is something that I love working with people on. If that is you, you can always book a one-on-one coaching session, or you can go through our Marketing for Your Small Business course at any time. You can just go to marketingforyoursmallbusiness.com. If you want to do the coaching, just head on over to mydailybusiness.com/shop. Alright, I'll leave it there. Hope you found this useful. If you have, please hit the subscribe button and also tick the stars, hit the stars, do whatever with the stars and leave a review. It just helps other people find this podcast. Thanks so much for reading and I'll see you next time. Bye.
