5 Steps To Generating Content Ideas
On the list of things I get asked most is “how do I keep coming up with new ideas for content?!”.
It’s tricky isn’t it. You know you want a consistent presence on social media, but that means coming up with content ideas to maintain that presence. Then throw in everything else that you’ve got to manage in your role and business (and possibly throw in homeschooling at the moment) and the creative block can be huge!!
So, here’s 5 steps I recommend you take to help you generate content ideas for your business
1. Research your audience
Write down everything you can think of about the audience you have or wish to attract on social media. And go deep with this! What excites, entertains, interests or inspires them? What knowledge do you have that could make a difference to their lives? What challenges can you help them overcome?
If you’re struggling with this…ask them!!! I sent an email to my list a few weeks ago asking them what they’d like to learn more about when it comes to social media, and they told me! That’s given me lots of inspiration for blog posts and social media content and I know it’s what my audience wants.
2. What’s unique about your business?
Now you know what your audience wants, you need to think about how you can give them this in a way that is unique to your business. If you and your competitors all delivered the same content in exactly the same way, there’d be nothing to attract your specific audience directly to you. Are you confident in front of the camera and could create some funny Instagram reels? Or would you prefer to create infographics that get your points across? Think about the personality of your business and how this can be reflected by your content.
3. Come up with your content themes
Now you know your audience and you know what is different about your business, it’s time to come up with your content themes. You could have any number of themes you wish, but I think around 5 is a good number. Try not to have too many or your content will lack consistency and it will be difficult to attract the right audience. Your content themes are the subjects you will focus on most in your content. These could be directly related to your business, or to you. Try not to make your themes too sales-focused (e.g. making your themes each of the products or services you sell). My five themes are social media knowledge sharing, get to know me, family life, running a business and Planet Social Media. These are the five things I will predominantly create content round. They don’t have equal weighting. For example, sharing knowledge takes up about 60% of my content, as I know this is the most important one for me to attract the right audience to me and convert them.
A few ideas for themes if you’re struggling, beyond the ones I’ve shared for mine, include fitness, wellbeing, nutrition, your town, the outdoors, children, babies, pets, animals, interiors, coffee, wine, sweet treats, positivity, motivation, industry-specific focus, and your product or service.
4. Brainstorm ideas for each theme
The next step is to brainstorm what content ideas you could have for each theme. Set a timer for ten minutes. Put your theme name in the centre of your paper. Then branch off with all the content you could share around that theme. Keep going until the timer is up. Write down everything that comes to mind, don’t question yet whether it’s any good or not. Just go in to free flow. Do this for each theme and you should have plenty of workable content ideas to move forward with for each of your themes.
5. Put your content together
Your final step, now you have your content ideas, is to turn those ideas in to content! Think about what type of post would suit the content idea best. Is it a quick story, a feed post with or without an image (depending on the platform), a carousel of several images, an infographic, a short video, a reel, a long-form video, a poll, and so on…!!!! There are so many options open to us now, which can sometimes make it even harder!! If your content idea is quite broad, you could split it up in to several posts. I find it easier to create lots of posts in one go than to do one each day. It means the job is done as well and you don’t have to think about content again for a while! And if your content is evergreen (relevant for many years to come) you can share it again in the future.
Taking these steps will mean you’ll have lots of content ideas, without having to copy anyone else’s!