I see a lot of talk of “content pillars” on social media.  Social media managers use this term to describe categories of content that you should pull from to make sure you have a balanced, appealing social media presence to capture engagement and customers.  The list is usually a simple one with 3-4 pillars.  Today, I want to talk about the one that always seems to be missing, and why it should be at the top of your list.

Over the years, experts have used a variety of terms to describe the content pillars idea.  I myself have tended to refer to them as “buckets.”  These are the types of content that you will pull from when you post to social media.

For my own business and for my client’s businesses, I’ll map out a calendar of content with the days of the week, the frequency of the posts I plan to do, and label the kind of post that needs to be done that day – pulling from those buckets or “content pillars.”  This all gives you a road map, which is often referred to as an editorial calendar or a content calendar.

So, I’ve seen a lot of posts out there from social media managers defining what the content pillars are in a simple way to make it easier for businesses to conceptualize it.  Here is what is usually on this list (or synonyms of these words):

  • Educate
  • Inspire
  • Relate
  • Promote

Anyone who has taken my social media course knows that I recommend for you to get fairly specific with these buckets.  I believe there are quite a lot of different categories to pull from.  Thinking about the pillars in relationship to your brand may give you some different options.  I’m a big believer that if you are sitting down to map out a strategy that will be doable for you, you have to get out of the realm of writer’s block and into the realm of what will be actionable.  For example, there are a lot of ways to educate.  Maybe your post to educate will be a quote in a graphic or a 30 second video tip. Maybe it will be a work in progress video or a Q&A style post to answer a question that came in from a client. It could be a paragraph from a book you wrote or a Do and Don’t picture that gets the message across quickly.  If you decide that every Monday you are going to do an educate post that will be a video, you could sit down all at once and bank 10 videos for 10 Mondays and check a whole bunch of content off the list.

All that said, for the sake of keeping it simple, “educate, inspire, relate, and promote” certainly cover a good deal of ground.

But there is one content pillar that I think is missing from this list.  An important one.  It is cross marketing with other businesses.

Maybe Cross Marketing is a content pillar unto itself.  Maybe it has a place in every pillar.  I mention it now, because I truly believe it is the key to building our small businesses, and it is so easy to do on social media.

Cross Marketing is a content pillar unto itself. #marketing #smallbusiness #smallbiz #smb #business #biztips #socialmedia #entrepreneur Share on X

Cross marketing is about finding allies out there among other small businesses and boosting each other’s voices.  This is the kind of thing that involves relationship building, but doesn’t have to cost money to do if you want to market your business on a budget.

Cross marketing is important for us as business owners, because we are so much stronger together than we are alone.  First of all, marketing on social media tends to get more reach when it has more engagement, which is something that you build in as you begin to talk up other businesses through your own platform. Second, recommendations from others generally carry more psychological weight than when you promote your own business.  When others in your community are mentioning you kindly, it shows trust for your business in a way that would be much more challenging for you to create by yourself. (Read here for more on social proof.)

Cross marketing is important for us as business owners, because we are so much stronger together than we are alone. #marketing #smallbusiness #smb #socialmedia #smallbiz #business #biztips Share on X

Think about what other businesses out there have a common target market, a service tie-in, or a similar mission.  Can you start finding ways to build them into your content?  Perhaps you ask them to do the same for you in return, or perhaps you will just start doing these goodwill gestures and wait to see who returns the favor.

Cross marketing as a content pillar doesn’t have to mean sharing content straight from other business pages.  In fact, I suggest you only directly share content from another business page when it makes sense for your audience what the relationship is between your businesses.  You have a lot of options.  You could have them do a guest blog for you.  You could interview them.  You could share your experiences with the business anecdotally.  Or share an excerpt from something they wrote in a previous post, quote them and tag them, and share your thoughts in response.  There are many options, and you may even find a theme to tie together why you are acknowledging businesses regularly.

The point is that the more you do this for others, the more it will be done for you.  Your goodwill may generate reciprocity, and at the very least it will likely drive more traffic to you or make other businesses aware of your services for the times when recommendations are needed.

For me, this all comes back to one central point.  As small business owners, we often operate in silos.  It is so incredibly difficult and daunting to build a business that way.  Why not find some business friends out there so you can help each other?

So, anytime you see those lists of content pillars, make a mental note to add cross marketing to the list.  It may be the best thing you can do for your social media strategy!

Looking for more ideas on how to improve your marketing strategy or the worksheet that helps you plan out exactly what content buckets you want to use?  Check out this course here!