Coming up with fresh content ideas to fill up your content schedule is not a very easy task. This is especially so if you do not have the experience and resources of a marketing powerhouse. But if you’re going to stay ahead of the competitors, you need to regularly produce quality content for your readers. However, not having the experience and financial power of already big companies, you still have a way to get your content engine running with fresh ideas. Here, I will be sharing some areas you can look to for fresh content ideas to blog, tweet or share about. #1. The Media The media is constantly producing content on various subjects. Most publications publish by the minute. While many of us look to stay abreast of information by reading news sites, you can refresh your content engine by subscribing to topics that are most relevant to your industry. Most of the news covered in this section will affect your industry, so sharing it with your audience is a good place to start. You can even develop an argument around a news or discussion related to your industry. Start by following industry publications that publish news content regularly on social media to get instant ideas from them. You should also subscribe to their email alerts and push notifications. #2. University Website Credit: Google Scholarly portals contain hundreds of highly informative write-ups that can inspire new content ideas. If you look the right way you will find a handful of content ideas that will sustain you for several days at a time. These websites are like research libraries. Their contents are usually very thorough, but they can leave room for a lot of discussions to be generated around their articles. What’s more important is that you can also find data to support your content from these sites as well. #3. Your Existing Content Arsenal Credit (Search Engine People Blog Flickr.com) When you look through your old articles, don’t you ever think you can do something better today? If you’ve published something that’s very good in the past, you can go back to it and get ideas to create even better content that will still feel fresh and relevant for your audience. To make it even better, you can narrow down to your most successful posts from the past. These are topics you’ve covered that your audience simply can’t get enough of. #4. Google Alerts Credit: screenshot Google.com Google Alerts is one of the most enduring tools you can use to keep your content juice running. It’s even more useful because you’ll get alerts on what people are looking for or discussing based on the topics you’re concerned about. All you need to do is choose a topic you would like to constantly receive alerts on and go through the simple process to set up your Google alerts. Anytime a new discussion is published on the topics you subscribed for (which is often every time), Google will send you email notifications on them. Read how to use Google alerts to find content ideas on ecreativism #5. Social Media Image credit Facebook homepage For most social media is the one-stop destination for new happenings around the world. The fact is, with the growth that social media has experienced, their is no topic that is not discussed on social media. The first approach is to start following influencers and social media power-users that constantly share updates on relevant topics to your industry. This is guaranteed to give you a consistent flow of ideas to come up with fresh and relevant content on. #6. Your Competitors When there’s no where else to look to, your competitors might be your best option. They will constantly churn out new content just to keep you behind them. But hey, you can use this to your advantage. Start by subscribing to updates from your most prolific competitors. Then pick their best content and make something that is way better than it for your audience. I bet they will be mincing when they see you come up with a greater resource than them on what they just blogged about. Just as this is a very great way to keep your ideas running, it can also work against you if you’re a lazy type. You have to make sure your content is very unique so they can’t accuse you of being a copy-cat. #7. Events and Gatherings (CC) Derek Wilmot. www.derekwilmot.com.) Flickr.com Events and gatherings are also a great place to get ideas on what your next content should cover. If you attend events regularly, you should be able to get ideas from the people you meet at these gatherings. This is especially so if they are also content producers from your industry. All you need to do is engage people, especially known members of your profession, in intelligent discussions and listen for cues on what they’re saying (or not saying, according to Greg McKweown) and you’d be amazed by the myriad of ideas floating around. If you’re a good conversation starter, getting people to loosen up and share ideas with you should be very easy. #8. Talk Shows When most people sit down to listen to talk shows, what they’re after is how to be entertained. With a content marketer, you might decide to look out for more than just entertainment. Most talk shows will give you new ideas on what you can create content on without having to talk about the subject related to your industry. You just need to be creative enough to be able to relate the trendy discussions on these shows to your area of subject. #9. User Comments How often do you read the comments posted by your readers? Do you take time to note what they’re talking about? What do you do to address those issues? How often you get ideas to create new content and blog posts from what your readers are saying in the comment might be a testament to how good your listening (or reading) ears […]
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