How to Identify Your Brand Pillars (So You Always Know What to Post)
By Ciara O’Neil
One of the biggest challenges I hear from founders, experts, and professionals on LinkedIn is:
“I know I need to post, but I have no clue what I should be talking about”
If his sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Posting without a clear strategy can feel random, exhausting, and unrewarding. That’s where brand pillars come in → a system that gives your content clarity, consistency, and purpose.
At BRANDFULNESS, our work is centred around helping clients define their Legacy Personal Brand™, turning expertise and experience into authority, visibility, and influence. Brand pillars are the foundation of this process. Here’s how to identify yours and build content that works for you.
WHAT ARE BRAND PILLARS?
Brand pillars are the core topics that represent your expertise, values, and unique perspective. Think of them as the backbone of your content strategy: everything you post should relate to at least one pillar.
Each pillar:
Supports your personal brand identity
Reflects your audience’s needs and pain points
Guides your storytelling and content creation
From these pillars, you develop subtopics and post ideas that you can rotate strategically across your content calendar, ensuring your LinkedIn presence (or whatever platform you’re showing up on) is consistent, relevant, and memorable.
STEP 1: DEFINE YOUR CONTENT PILLARS
Start by identifying 3–5 core topics that align with your brand and goals. These should reflect:
Your Expertise: What are you known for in your industry? What skills, knowledge, or insights do you have that others seek?
Your Audience’s Needs: What challenges, goals, or questions do your ideal clients, recruiters, or collaborators have?
Your Brand Story: What values, perspectives, and experiences set you apart?
Example: For a personal branding consultant, pillars might include:
LinkedIn Strategy & Growth
Thought Leadership & Storytelling
Authority Building & Visibility
Career or Client Attraction Strategies
Once you have your pillars, each one can be broken down into subtopics - the micro-ideas that become the posts, guides, or insights you share.
TIP: Sometimes it helps to do this process backwards. Note down all the topics within your industry that you would like to talk about in your personal brand (it doesn’t matter how small), from there you can group them into broader topics and then overarching pillars.
STEP 2: CREATE A CONTENT MATRIX
To make your posting consistent and strategic, pair your pillars with content lenses. Content lenses are types of content, and these will vary depending on your goals. This ensures you cover different content types and audience stages.
Content Lenses Examples:
Thought Leadership: Original frameworks, insights, or opinions
Top-of-Funnel: Awareness and education content
Social Proof: Case studies, testimonials, or client results
Engagement/Relatable: Personal stories or reflections
You can then create a content matrix → a table with your content pillar or topic down the x-axis, and then your content lens down the y-axis. This matrix ensures that you’re covering different content topics to add variety and depth but also ensure your content is moving you towards your goal.
This approach makes content planning simpler and more intentional. Rotate through the pillars and lenses weekly or monthly to maintain variety while staying on brand.
STEP 3: USE YOUR PILLARS TO CREATE CONTENT IDEAS
From each pillar and subtopic, brainstorm 10–20 post ideas. For example, under “Thought Leadership,” you could create posts that:
Share an original framework
Reframe a common industry challenge
Highlight an overlooked idea or way of working
Over time, this bank of ideas becomes a content engine. When you sit down to post, you’ll never have to ask the dreaded, “what should I write about”.
STEP 4: INTEGRATE WITH YOUR CONTENT CALENDAR
Finally, map your pillars and content lenses into a content calendar. This helps you:
Stay consistent without feeling overwhelmed
Cover all pillars evenly
Ensure your content moves audiences from awareness → engagement → action
TIP:If you want the exact content formula I used to grow my LinkedIn from 0–16K followers in under a year, my LinkedIn Authority Playbook walks you through the full strategy, including the content rotation, post types, and calendar templates.
HOW BRANDFULNESS CAN HELP YOU BUILD YOUR LEGACY PERSONAL BRAND
At BRANDFULNESS, we help founders, experts, and professionals turn expertise into a Legacy Personal Brand™ that compounds authority, visibility, and influence.
Our Legacy Brand Method™ blends:
Strategic Identity: Define what makes your perspective unique
Reputation Design: Shape how your audience perceives your authority
Legacy Ideas: Develop content pillars and thought leadership topics that stick
Platform Authority: Build visibility on LinkedIn (and beyond)
The Authority Loop: Secure high-leverage opportunities that amplify your reach
With your pillars clearly defined, your content becomes intentional, strategic, and memorable, creating a personal brand that attracts opportunities and recognition long-term.
FINAL THOUGHTS: PILLARS MAKE SHOWING UP EASIER
When you know your brand pillars, every post has a purpose. You no longer post randomly or chase trends, you post with clarity, authority, and intention. This not only ensures you’re moving in the right direction, but it prevents you wasting valuable time and energy on minimal results.
Content pillars are the foundation of a legacy personal brand: a brand that grows and compounds with you, positioning you as an industry authority, thought leader, and go-to expert.
If you need support in defining you brand pillars, or any aspect of your personal brand book a Brandfulness Consultation call ↗.
We’d love to support you in growing your personal brand further.
