Content pillars

Most of what Wren notices about a post is Wren's own read: the hook, the format, the structure, the topics. Content pillars are the opposite. They're the buckets you plan your content around, in your words, and Wren sorts each post into one of them so you can see which of your themes actually lands.

If you already think in terms of "founder stories" and "hot takes" and "behind the scenes", those are your pillars. Wren doesn't invent them and doesn't ship a starter set, because a set you didn't choose would quietly bend your labels toward someone else's strategy.

Content pillars are part of Soar. The pricing page shows which plans include them.

Setting up your pillars

Go to Settings → Post Settings and find Content pillars. You start with an empty list.

Each pillar has two parts:

• A name — what you call this kind of post. It's what you'll see on the Posts table and in your charts.
• A description — what belongs in this bucket. This is the part Wren reads when deciding where a post goes, so it's worth a sentence rather than a word. "The company-building journey: the exit, the sabbatical, what I got wrong" gives Wren far more to work with than "Founder".

You can have up to eight active pillars at a time. Fewer is usually better — see the tips at the end.

How a post gets its pillar

A post gets one pillar. Never two, and never a blend.

• Posts you start from an idea begin with that idea's pillar (more on that below).
• Other posts you write in Wren get their pillar the first time you save one with real content in it.
• Posts imported from LinkedIn get theirs the night after their analytics arrive.
• When you first set your pillars up, Wren makes one pass over the posts you already have.

One exception: Wren only assigns a pillar automatically once a post has at least 50 characters of text. A shorter post, say a one-line announcement, stays Unassigned until you set its pillar yourself. There isn't enough in it for Wren to read.

If nothing fits well, Wren files the post under Other rather than forcing it into the nearest pillar. A few of those is normal and healthy. A lot of them usually means a pillar description is too narrow, or there's a theme you write about that you haven't named yet.

Wren decides a post's pillar once and then leaves it alone. Adding a new pillar, rewording a description, or archiving a pillar will not go back and relabel posts that already have one. That's deliberate: your history shouldn't shift under you every time you tune a description.

Ideas have pillars too

Wren sorts your ideas into your pillars as well, in the background, soon after you save a new idea. If you later reword an idea, Wren sorts it again, because the idea may have changed. Anything it misses is picked up overnight. An idea needs a little substance before Wren sorts it, so a two-word idea stays unsorted.

You can see and change an idea's pillar the same way you can a post's:

• The Pillar column on the Ideas table. A pillar Wren picked shows a small Wren marker; one you set shows a pin. An idea Wren hasn't sorted yet reads No pillar yet. Click the cell to pick a different one.
• Several ideas at once — tick the rows you want, then choose Set pillar.
• The idea's side panel, under Pillar.

Ideas say No pillar where posts say Other: pick it when an idea doesn't belong to any of your pillars. As with posts, a pillar you set by hand is final, and Wren won't change it.

The payoff comes when you write. Start a post from an idea and the post begins with the idea's pillar already set, so you don't have to file it again. A few details:

• This happens when the post is created from the idea. Linking a post you already have to an idea leaves that post's pillar as it was.
• If the idea's pillar has been archived by the time you start writing, the post starts unassigned and Wren sorts it on your first save, as it would any other post.
• The pillar a post starts with is a starting point like any other. You can change it the usual ways, below.

Pillars also shape Plan mode: when Wren fills the open days in your plan, it tries to rotate through your pillars, favouring the one you've posted about least recently.

Changing a post's pillar

Wren's guess is a starting point, not a verdict. You can change any post's pillar from:

• The Pillar column on the Posts table — click the cell and pick a different one.
• Several posts at once — tick the rows you want, then choose Set pillar.
• The post's side panel.
• The post's analytics page, on the How Wren read this post card.

A pillar you set by hand is final. Wren won't overwrite it later, on any pass.

Archiving a pillar

Strategies change. When a pillar stops being part of your plan, archive it rather than deleting it — there's no delete, on purpose.

An archived pillar:

• Keeps every post already filed under it, so your history and your charts stay honest.
• Stops being offered for new posts.
• Frees up one of your eight slots.
• Can be restored at any time from the Archived section.

Seeing performance by pillar

Once your posts carry pillars, Content pillar appears as an option anywhere What's working lets you slice by hook or format. The mix chart at the bottom of the tab also gets a dropdown, so you can switch it from post type to content pillar and watch how your mix has shifted over the months.

Two things you'll see there, both deliberate:

• Unassigned appears as its own group. Posts without a pillar aren't quietly dropped from the comparison, because a chart that hides what it's missing is a chart that can mislead you.
• Until most of your posts carry a pillar, pillar comparisons are labelled provisional, and Wren won't name a pillar pattern in its written summary. Wren would rather show you the shape of your data and say it isn't sure yet than draw a conclusion from a third of your posts.

Tips

• Four or five pillars is usually the sweet spot. Too few and everything lands in one bucket; too many and each one holds too few posts to compare.
• Write the description for a stranger. If someone who'd never read your posts could sort them using only your descriptions, Wren can too.
• Check the Other pile now and then. It's the fastest signal that your pillars have drifted from what you're actually writing.
• Don't chase a target mix yet. Wren shows you the mix you have; deciding what it should be is still your call.