Content Pillars — The Themes You Post About

Content pillars are the few big themes your brand posts about again and again. A bakery might have Behind the scenes, Products and Community. Each pillar is split into sub-pillars, the specific topics inside it, like Morning bake or Meet the team.

Pillars keep your content balanced and on-topic:

• You decide the mix. Give each pillar a target coverage, like 50% products and 25% each for the others.
• Ideas and posts get tagged. Link sub-pillars to your ideas, so you can see which themes you’re covering and which you’re neglecting.
• The AI stays on-theme. When it writes, it knows your pillars and their sub-pillars.
• Seasonal topics switch on and off. Give a sub-pillar dates, like Holiday gifts in December, and it turns itself on and off.

You’ll find them on the Pillars tab at the top of any brand page. During setup, you need at least one pillar with at least one sub-pillar. See The setup checklist.

Quick start (5 minutes)

1. Open the Pillars tab.
2. Click New pillar.
3. Type a Pillar name, like Behind the scenes.
4. Type a Description, like “Show the people and the work behind every loaf.”
5. Under Sub-pillars, type a first topic, like Morning bake. Click Add sub-pillar for more.
6. Click Create pillar.
7. Repeat for 2 to 4 more pillars.

Example: a bakery creates three pillars. Behind the scenes with Morning bake and Meet the team. Products with Seasonal specials and Bestsellers. Community with Local events and Customer stories.

Create a pillar

1. Click New pillar at the top of the page.
2. Fill in Create new pillar:
   • Pillar name (required): a short name, like Educational content.
   • Description (required): what this pillar is for and why you post it.
   • Target coverage weight: how much content this pillar should get compared with the others. Leave it at 1 for an even split. See Target coverage.
   • Sub-pillars (required): at least one topic. Click Add sub-pillar for more, or the bin icon to remove one.
3. Click Create pillar.

You’ll see “Pillar created successfully!”. The new pillar appears as a card with its description, its share of coverage and its sub-pillars.

Good to know:

• Each pillar name can only be used once per brand.
• Use the Search pillars box to find a pillar by its name, description or sub-pillar names.

Edit a pillar

1. On the pillar’s card, click the ⋮ menu and choose Edit pillar.
2. Change any of these:
   • The pillar name and description.
   • Coverage weight, from 1 to 50.
   • The names of its sub-pillars.
   • Its audiences (see below).
3. Click Done to save, or Cancel to throw away your changes.

Link audiences to a pillar

Linking tells Orsa who each pillar is for. You need at least one audience first.

• While editing, click the three-dot button next to the audience tags and pick an audience to add it.
• Click the × on an audience tag to remove it.
• When every audience is linked, you’ll see All added.

Audience changes save when you click Done. Cancel throws them away.

Example: a physio clinic links its Weekend runners audience to its Injury prevention pillar, and its Office workers audience to its Desk posture pillar.

Add and manage sub-pillars

Every pillar needs at least one sub-pillar. Sub-pillars are what you tag ideas with, and what the AI sees.

Add a sub-pillar

1. On the pillar’s card, click Add. A sub-pillar called new sub pillar appears.
2. Open the pillar’s ⋮ menu and click Edit pillar.
3. Type a real name for the new sub-pillar and click Done.

Sub-pillar options

Click the ⋮ menu at the end of a sub-pillar’s row:

• Manage schedule: set the dates it’s active. See Activation schedule.
• Archive sub-pillar: switch it off from today. Its name is crossed out and it shows Archived. Choose Unarchive sub-pillar to switch it back on.
• Delete sub-pillar: remove it for good, after you confirm.

Pillar options

The pillar’s ⋮ menu also has:

• Archive all sub-pillars: switches off the whole pillar. The card fades and shows All archived. Choose Unarchive all sub-pillars to bring it back.
• Delete pillar: removes the pillar and all its sub-pillars, after you confirm.

Archive instead of delete when you might come back to a topic, or want past content to keep counting toward it in reports.

Target coverage

Target coverage is the share of your published content each pillar should get. You set it with a coverage weight for each pillar. Orsa turns the weights into percentages.

Each card shows its share, like 50% of coverage. The colored bar at the top of the page shows the whole split, with each pillar’s name and percentage underneath.

Good to know:

• Equal weights mean an even split. Three pillars at weight 1 get about 33% each.
• Weights are relative. Weights of 2, 1, 1 give the same split as 10, 5, 5.
• Adding a pillar changes everyone’s share. A new pillar at weight 1 takes a slice from the others.
• Content schedules can list pillars too. Coverage and the Upcoming Pillar Mix still use each pillar’s own target coverage, not the weights on a schedule. See Content Channels and Schedules.

Activation schedule

The activation schedule is the list of dates a sub-pillar is, was or will be active. It’s useful for seasonal topics and campaigns. Reports also use it, so content published while a sub-pillar was active keeps counting toward it after it’s archived.

Open it: click the ⋮ menu on a sub-pillar and choose Manage schedule.

Add a period

1. Under Add a period, pick a start date.
2. Pick an end date, or leave it blank for a period with no end. It then shows as Ongoing.
3. Click Add period.

Example: a gift shop adds Holiday gift guides as a sub-pillar of Products, with periods from 15 November to 31 December. For the rest of the year it’s archived, and it switches back on by itself each November once next year’s period is added.

Change or remove a period: click the pencil icon to change the dates, then the tick to save. Click the bin icon and Remove to delete a period.

How the status follows the dates

• A sub-pillar is active on any day inside one of its periods, and archived on every other day.
• New sub-pillars get an ongoing period starting today.
• Archive sub-pillar ends the current period yesterday, so the sub-pillar is archived from today. Unarchive sub-pillar starts a new ongoing period from today.
• When you add, change or remove a period, the status updates right away.
• Dates in the future take effect by themselves. Orsa checks every sub-pillar once a day and switches it on or off to match its dates.
• If you remove every period, the sub-pillar is archived.
• Periods can’t overlap. Each must end on or after the day it starts.

Where pillars are used

Content schedules. Each schedule on the Info tab picks the pillars its posts count toward. See Content Channels and Schedules.

Ideas. On an idea, add sub-pillars under Sub Pillars. You can then group your ideas by sub-pillar. See Ideas Board.

Brand Pulse. Open Brand Pulse in the sidebar under Analyze:

• Pillar Coverage compares your published designs, blogs and marketing emails with each pillar’s target coverage. A piece counts toward a pillar through the sub-pillars on its linked idea.
• Upcoming Pillar Mix does the same for content scheduled over the next 30 days, marking each pillar Missing, On Track or Overbooked.

See Brand Pulse.

Reports. Performance by Pillar in Analyze shows how each pillar’s posts perform. See Performance Breakdowns.

The AI. When the AI writes designs, documents, blogs, emails and transcripts, it reads each pillar’s name and description and its active sub-pillars. When Orsa AI looks up your pillars, it also sees how each one is tracking against its target over the last 30 days. An AI design made from an idea focuses on that idea’s pillars, and on the audiences linked to them.

Ideas for using pillars

Balance a feed that’s all promotion. Give your sales pillar a lower weight than your helpful content.

Example: a hair salon sets Tips and tutorials to weight 2, Transformations to 2 and Offers to 1. Offers get 20% of the target, and Pillar Coverage shows when offers creep above that.

Plan seasonal topics ahead. Add the topic as a sub-pillar with a dated period, then forget about it. It switches on by itself.

Example: a garden center adds Spring planting under How-to, active 1 March to 31 May, and Christmas trees under Products, active 20 November to 24 December.

Rest a theme without losing its history. Archive a sub-pillar you’re pausing. Content you published while it was active still counts toward it in reports.

Example: a café archives Summer cold brew in September. In June it clicks Unarchive sub-pillar, and the topic is back in the AI’s list.

Tips for the best results

• Keep it to 3 to 5 pillars. A few clear themes are easier to balance than ten overlapping ones.
• Write a real description. The AI reads each pillar’s description. “Show the people and early mornings behind every loaf” tells it far more than “BTS”.
• Give every pillar at least one active sub-pillar. When the AI writes, it skips archived sub-pillars, and leaves out any pillar with no active sub-pillar.
• Make sub-pillars specific. Morning bake or Customer of the month give the AI a clear topic. Misc doesn’t.
• Tag your ideas. Pillar Coverage only counts published designs, blogs and emails whose idea has sub-pillars. Untagged content doesn’t count toward any pillar.
• Archive, don’t delete. Archived sub-pillars keep their history in reports.
• Link audiences to pillars. AI designs made from an idea use the audiences linked to that idea’s pillars.
• Give it a few minutes. Changes can take up to 15 minutes to reach Orsa AI and the AI tools.

Common questions

I get “Please add at least one sub-pillar”. Every pillar needs a sub-pillar. Type a topic in the first Sub-pillars box before you click Create pillar.

I get “Error occurred while adding new pillar” or “Error occurred while updating pillar name”. You probably have a pillar with that name already. Each name can only be used once per brand. Pick a different name.

My new sub-pillar is called “new sub pillar”. The Add button creates it with that name. Open the pillar’s ⋮ menu, click Edit pillar, rename it and click Done.

A sub-pillar turned itself on or off. Its activation schedule says so. Orsa checks the dates once a day. Open Manage schedule on that sub-pillar to see or change its periods.

I get “This period overlaps an existing activation period for this sub pillar”. Periods can’t overlap. Change the dates, or edit the existing period instead of adding a new one.

I get “End date must be on or after the start date.” The end date is before the start date. Pick a later end date, or leave it blank.

My pillar doesn’t show up in Pillar Coverage. Coverage counts published designs, blogs and marketing emails linked to an idea that has one of the pillar’s sub-pillars. Tag your ideas with sub-pillars. A piece also only counts if it was published, or its idea was created, while that sub-pillar was active.

The AI ignores one of my pillars. Check it has at least one sub-pillar that isn’t archived. The AI leaves out pillars with no active sub-pillar. Changes can also take up to 15 minutes to reach the AI.

The Pillars tab still isn’t ticked in setup. You need at least one pillar with at least one sub-pillar.