How to Generate Ideas For Content Creation
Just some sharing on content creation from articles I’ve written elsewhere. May contain affiliate links.
The Shortcut
If you’re stuck on ideas for your next content, why not reach out to the same people who are currently consuming your content: your audience. Many people in your audience would want to engage with you and are happy to (hopefully) help you create quality content. But to take this shortcut, you must first prepare and prove yourself worthy. Here are just some essentials for you to get over this creator mental block of yours.
Be Genuine
Be genuinely interested in what your customers want and always put yourself in their shoes when you come up with content ideas. Once you’ve done your research, you will have a better idea of your core audience’s goals and concerns and what content they want to read for your core audience. Anything that allows you to hear directly from your target audience will be helpful when generating content ideas.
For example, if your competitors are being followed by people who use certain phrases in their Twitter bio, creating content that appeals to that audience can help increase your brand’s reach. If you have a similar target audience, content that performs well on your competitor’s site is likely to attract your potential customers as well.
Do Your Research
It’s always a good idea to keep an eye on what your competitors are doing, and you can use their content to inform yours. Another tactic, especially if you’re not sure about your reading habits, is to check out your competitors’ content marketing efforts.
Take a look at your content calendar and generate blog ideas related to major holidays and upcoming seasons. Instead of just thinking about what you’ll post next week, you can kick ideas months in advance and put them on your content calendar. If you write one blog post per week, you can choose a theme for each week of the month and then repeat it to create content for your website.
Pluck ideas from anywhere, a question someone asked on Quora, a tweet from your Twitter feed. All you need is a spark. Use these sparks to populate your editorial calendar with content that engages your target audience while maintaining a solid SEO plan. Identifying trending topics and topics that will help you generate more blog ideas for your content strategy. Check out the most visited pages and blog posts on your site and write content that delves into these topics. One easy way I often use is to write one-word topic lines on my editorial calendars and I’ll start working from there.
Use Tools And Brainstorm
One of the strategies you should implement for gathering ideas for blog posts and your overall content marketing strategy is to use search engines.
You will be amazed at how many ideas you can easily crawl from the Internet and read to absorb other people’s content. If you have regular team brainstorming, you might be surprised by some of the content ideas that come up from people who aren’t directly involved in content production or even marketing. To start, invite team members who don’t spend all day thinking about content — you’re more likely to get new ideas from a different perspective.
Open up the content creation process to your entire team — not just content writers and marketers can come up with ideas. While coming up with new ideas for content topics can seem intimidating when you’ve written about what each nook and cranny looks like on each topic, connecting to other resources for ideas and being creative will solve your content-related problems. Most importantly, you’ll see over 100 content ideas (themes), so you’ll have plenty to choose from.
If all you get from brainstorming is a dozen or so ideas for extensions and improvements, that might be enough to last you for a while, before you go hungry for content ideas again. Rinse and repeat.
Create Original Content That No One Else Does
One of the best ways to create original content is to write about news or trends that no one else has heard of. For example, create a poll on Twitter asking your followers what they would like to see more from you. It’s a good idea to use interactive content features like quizzes and question stickers in your Instagram Stories or polls on LinkedIn and Twitter posts, and ask your followers what topics they want you to cover or what they want from your choice. A combination of two random ideas can have the potential to become something totally new, explosive, and exciting.
It’s also a good idea to subscribe to other blogs in your industry to keep up to date with what others are writing about and take note of any insights you might have in your content. Ideas for blog content can come from just about anywhere — from your content marketing team, your online audience, customers, new data-driven ideas, or even inspiration that comes from yourself.
Finding Inspiration
There are many content creator platforms out there for the picking, and ideas are in abundance. I am located in S.E.A, so my go-to platforms are usually places like Gank or Ko-fi. Check out Gank’s Discover page if you are looking for more inspiration. Learn some of the simplest ways on how some of our content creators make content every day, and make a living doing what they love. Join new networks, and find new ideas. Go discover it now!
If you like what I write, do head to my profile at www.ganknow.com/hossivart, give me a follow, or even a tip if you have a spare dollar.
(Gank is a commission-free platform for content creators)
Are you a content creator too? Here’s a referral link for you to start on Gank — https://ganknow.com/Hossivart/gRHcBy
