Has anyone else experienced that feeling of sitting down at your desk, opening up a blank document and feeling completely lost for words? Blog posts and content writing are a core part of a good marketing strategy, not only in terms of boosting your SEO score but also in helping you to develop a more personal relationship with your customers – and yet so many of us can find it difficult to know where to start.
At first, we might have more ideas than we can imagine, but once the backlog runs out our minds can lose interest and finding something new to talk about can be incredibly difficult. Perhaps you feel like all of your good ideas are gone or that you simply don’t have anything to talk about? Perhaps you feel like the topics you like are too dry or have already been discussed? No matter the reason, our blogging brains can be incredibly unhelpful when it comes to drumming up new ideas for content.
So in today’s blog post, I’m going to sharing some of the helpful places I go to to find inspiration for my posts, recommending some great new content ideas and hopefully helping you out of your blogging funk in one simple post!
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Medium
Medium is an online archive of publications on almost any topic imaginable, with a heavy focus on marketing, technology and business. With posts from individuals around the world, at varying levels of business and success, the platform is a great place for readers and writers to find their voice.
In my industry, I can find so many articles on graphic design, influencer marketing, copywriting, journalism and self-employment, and use these to come up with some interesting and inspired blog post titles. I can share my thoughts in response to someone else’s work, I can pick up on some of the trending issues in the industry, I can learn more about a particular topic and then use it to influence my own future work.
Medium is also a good place to learn how to write quality blog posts, as it hosts some of the best writers in the world. Large businesses, celebrity authors, academics and professional writers all publish their content on Medium to help create an audience for themselves and to grow their existing following.
Social Media
Social media might not be everyone’s first choice when it comes to inspiration, as many people find it to be more of a distraction or a source of procrastination instead. But when used appropriately, social media can be a really useful tool in understanding some of the biggest issues facing your industry right now.
Sites like LinkedIn are great for catching up on the latest business news and users will often share insightful, thought-provoking posts about their working lives that can go on to inspire well-written responses and carefully-researched debates.
These can be used to help inspire your blog posts and your content, leading you to share your own thoughts, feelings and experiences on the topic.
Personal Experiences
Your own personal experiences in work, life or your industry can also become interesting source material for your articles. From how you began in your career to any personal struggles you’ve faced along the way, readers enjoy getting to know their authors on a more individual basis, so if you’ve got a good story to tell then why not share it?
You might also be able to invite others to share their personal experiences with you, through guest posts and interviews. If your company blog is looking a little sparse, why not interview the owner of the business for their tips on management and entrepreneurship? Or perhaps get an inspiring quote from everyone in your team and turn it into a positive, affirming post instead.
It might even be worth setting up a series, taking it in turns to interview different people in your office on industry-specific topics – such as recent technological developments, location changes, new clients or previous case studies.
Trending Topics
Existing and working in 2021 has provided us with many good, and not so good, topics to write about. The news has been overflowing, social media has been buzzing and every single day has brought us more topics of conversation from inside our isolated homes.
Readers want to know more about trending topics and current affairs. They’re interested in how different industries, businesses and people are going to respond to these changes – whether they’re closing down due to COVID, paying their respects to the lives lost in Afghanistan or showing their support for the Paralympics. These topics can also be adapted to suit your industry and business too, with elements of each trending discussion having roots in the core elements of work i.e. work/life balance, self-care, productivity, working from home, management and adaptability.
But trending topics can also be useful when they happen within your industry – if you’re fast enough to hop on them first. Perhaps there’s a new product launch happening that could revolutionise the way you work? Or maybe a new regulation has come into play that could affect your clients and customers. Catching these news stories early can be a great way to generate some live content that your readers will definitely want to read.
Updating Old Content
Another unique way to develop new blog content ideas is to re-examine and re-purpose some of your old posts and articles. It could be that you might want to update an advice piece or guide with new information or give another opinion on a thought piece you’ve written before.
It could be that your opinions have changed over time, that you have a new perspective or perhaps that you want to interview someone else with an opposing view, but rehashing opinion pieces are a really great way to grab the reader’s attention.
You could even benefit from changing up a listicle by adding on a new category of items or options. Change your ‘5 Reasons to…’ to ‘5 More Reasons to…’ and add some new metadata for SEO purposes.
Repurpose Case Studies
Your case studies can be a great source of information to influence your blog posts as you can talk about them in-depth – not only to highlight the skills of your team but also to help attract new readers from that particular field.
You might be able to write a structured walk-through of how you completed the project, from start to finish. You might want to write a retro piece on the lessons you’ve learned throughout the work. You could even conduct an interview with the client, discussing how you brought their brief to life through your services.
Case studies allow businesses to show off their portfolio and blog posts allow businesses to show off their knowledge. So why not combine the two and create something unique?
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You don’t need to spend hours and hours searching for the perfect piece of content to meet your weekly deadline. The inspiration for your next brilliant blog post is out there, even if you have to spend a little time hunting it down.
If you’re looking for assistance with your content marketing and copywriting, I’m always happy to help. Drop me an email at hello@nikkimccaig.com or chat to me over on my socials.
Thanks for reading.
