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Social Media Content Buckets: 8 Powerful Ideas for Small Business

When it comes to social media strategy you should always start with a plan. if you begin creating content for social media and don’t know where you are going, it will be much harder to meet your goals. If you don’t know what your goals are then you are wasting time. In this article, you will learn about social media content buckets and how to create a social media content bucket.

What Are Social Media Content Buckets and Who Should Use Them?

A social media content bucket can be described as a theme that is used to organize your social media content. As an example, if you own a marketing company, then you could have a couple of different content buckets that might include marketing tips, social media tips, popular marketing tools, and motivational entrepreneurship content.

Social media content buckets are important for anyone who is trying to meet a goal with social media. Whether you own a business, a brand, or are an influencer, you should absolutely be leveraging social media content buckets to grow your social media presence.

Why Should You Use Social Media Content Buckets and Why Are They Important?

If you have a goal that you are trying to meet with social media, then social media content buckets are very important. Social media content buckets help you to align your social media content with your goals. By planning out your content in advance, you can be sure that all of the content that you are creating aligns directly with the social media goals that you are trying to meet.

Align Your Content With Your Goals

If the goal is to get more leads through social media, then all of the content that you post should be aligned with that goal. Creating a few social media content buckets will help you to stay organized. To determine if a social media post aligns with your goals, all you need to do is refer back to your social media content buckets. This is also a very helpful strategy for anyone who feels scatterbrained or confused when it comes to social media.

How Many Content Buckets Should a Business or Brand Have?

Businesses, brands, and influencers should have anywhere from three to five social media content buckets. The reasoning for this number is that it keeps you from only posting one type of content. Your audience will probably get bored if you constantly post the same type of content day after day on social media. If you have more than five social media content buckets, however, your audience might get a little bit confused because they may not notice a common theme across all of your content.

What Is the Best Strategy for Creating Social Media Content Buckets?

Target Audience and Goals

When it comes to selecting social media content buckets for a business or brand, it is extremely important to start with the end audience in mind. The very first thing that you should consider is the audience that you are trying to connect with. If you are a business or brand, you should already be familiar with your target audience. All of your content should appeal to this audience. Once you know who your target audience is, you should outline the specific goals that you are trying to meet with social media. if your primary goal is to generate more leads for your business, then all of your content needs to support this goal.

Get To Know the Competition

If you are not sure what type of content would help you to meet your goals, consider checking out some of your competitors on social media. It is important to see what is already working for similar social media accounts. Do not steal ideas and copy content from other social media profiles, but instead use this as a way to check if you are on track.

Find Recurring Themes

When researching your competitors, take note of the different recurring themes that you see on these profiles. If you own a marketing company, you might notice that a lot of marketing companies will post social media tips on Instagram using carousel posts and reels. Conducting social media research and social listening will give you more insight into the content buckets that you should choose. You should also consider interviewing your target audience to learn more about the type of content that they want to see.

Content Pillars vs. Content Buckets

Content pillars and content buckets are the exact same thing. 

Understand Your Social Media Goals

As we discussed earlier in this post, it is very important to understand your social media goals before you start creating content. You need to know where you are going and what you are working toward in order to meet that goal. For example, if you own a marketing company and your goal is to get more leads, the last thing that you would want to do is post content about your favorite latte, or trending movies. These topics are completely irrelevant to what you do as a marketing company as well as what people would expect on your page.

The Importance of Understanding Your Audience

Understanding your audience is step one when creating a social media content strategy. If you do not understand what your audience wants and who your audience is, then you risk creating content that does not appeal to your target audience. In other words, this is a complete waste of time. As mentioned earlier in this article, I highly recommend doing some social listening to see what other social media profiles in your niche are posting. More importantly, however, I recommend talking directly with people within your target audience to learn more about the type of content that they want to see on social media.

What Content Buckets Are Not

Now that we’ve discussed what social media content buckets are, it is also important to mention what they are not. Social media content buckets are specific to the type of theme that you are covering on your social media profile. A social media content bucket is not the same thing as the type of content that you are posting. As an example, the type of content that you post could be UGC content, short-form content, or even SEO content. These are all different types of content that you could post, but a content bucket relates more to the topic or the theme of a piece of content. 

Eight Social Media Content Bucket Ideas to Steal

Next, let’s discuss eight social media content bucket ideas that you can start using today. Each of these content buckets should be customized directly to your industry.

Educational

Educational content is one of the most effective content buckets on social media. What makes a piece of content educational is when you are providing tips, education, or advice. This type of content can be really great for businesses because it helps to build trust with potential buyers. Another way that you can use educational content is to create a free lead magnet that provides educational content in exchange for a user’s email address. One example of educational content could be: “Five ways to use Instagram reels in your marketing strategy.”

Sales and Promotional Content

Sales or promotional content is important for every business and brand. If you are selling something, then you need to create sales content. If people do not know what you sell or how they can buy from you, then they won’t. It is best to follow an 80/20 ratio when it comes to sales content. 80% of your content should seek to educate or provide some sort of value, and the remaining 20% of content should be sales or promotional content. When creating sales content, you should promote exactly what it is that you are selling and always provide a call to action and a direct way that somebody can buy from you.

Entertainment

If your audience values entertainment-style content, then this could be a great social media content bucket to leverage. Entertainment content can be really great depending on your industry. One example of entertainment content would be to leverage a trending meme or challenge on your social media posts.

Industry Trends

Industry Trends are a great social media content bucket to leverage. Industry trends are not just limited to business and marketing. As an example, if you are a gardener, you could talk about trends in the gardening industry, new tools, and popular plants for the upcoming year.

Case Studies and Customer Stories

Case studies and customer stories are always great to post on social media. Regardless of your industry, you can share customer testimonials and customer stories on your social media. One of the best ways to build credibility with potential leads is to show how you’ve already helped similar clients.

Motivational

Motivational content can be a really great social media content bucket if you work in a b2c industry. For example, if you are a coach, motivational content related to your specific industry could be a really effective way to connect with potential clients.

Product or Service Highlights

Product and service highlights are an effective social media content bucket for businesses. Whether you are selling a product or a service, there is probably a lot that your potential ideal client does not know about buying from your company. If you sell products, you could focus on sharing key product features as well as demos. If you are a service-based company, you could talk about frequently asked questions from potential clients, as well as what it looks like to work with you and your company.

Behind the Scenes

The next content bucket to leverage on social media is behind-the-scenes content. This type of content is great because it shows your audience what it is really like to work in your industry. This type of content is especially effective for product-based businesses, as well as service-based businesses that provide a result or transformation.

Here’s How I Use Social Media Content Buckets

To put this blog post into action, I’m going to share how I use social media content buckets in my business. I own a marketing company that focuses on video marketing and social media. Here is the type of content that I post on my social media.

Educational Content

I regularly post educational content on social media. I focus on topics related to marketing and social media.

Behind-The-Scenes Content

Behind-the-scenes content is a really big part of my strategy! Whether I’m putting together a marketing strategy or creating video content for my clients, I want to share what this process looks like behind the scenes.

Customer Testimonials

I share client success stories and testimonials on social media. I love to share how my company helps other organizations to be more successful with marketing.

Where to Use Content Buckets

Social media content buckets should be used wherever you are posting content. Below are a couple of ideas.

Website

If you regularly manage a blog on your website, you should absolutely be leveraging social media content buckets to organize your content. In addition to written content, you should consider embedding videos into your blog posts.

Social Media

Social media content buckets are of course going to be used on social media. Whether you are active on LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, or Facebook, definitely be leveraging social media content buckets to organize your posts and get the most of your social media time spent.

Email

Social media content buckets can also be leveraged in email marketing. You should definitely organize your content into buckets so that you are not confusing the people on your email list with your content.

The Benefits of Social Media Content Buckets

  • Great for organizing and reducing overwhelm
  • Great for content marketing or social media beginners
  • Social media content buckets help you to save time
  • Attract new audiences

The Cons of Social Media Content Buckets

  • You may get overwhelmed selecting your buckets

Social Media Content Buckets Conclusion

Social media content buckets are a great tool for anyone to use when growing a social media account. The use of a social media content bucket can help you to effectively organize your content and meet your social media goals. Do you use social media content buckets? Let me know in the comments below!

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Morgan

Morgan is a recognized video marketing expert and content creator. She also runs a video production company and has a passion for teaching all things video.

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