As stated by Bill Gates in his essay in 1996, content is king. And for digital marketing, content plays an important role. Your entire work basically depends upon content that has to be good.
But content marketing is like a never-ending machine that continually has to be fed. While its advantages are plenty with stuff like brand awareness, education, search engine optimization, etc., it can get exhausting, and sometimes, let’s be honest; you feel drained of ideas.
This is called a content block and is pretty standard among content creators and social media entrepreneurs.
Now let us talk about how you can overcome this and know the benefits of regular content updates on your medium of choice as quickly as possible.
Look back at your best performing posts.
You may be familiar with the phrase that says, “One should never forget his past.” Most people suffering a content block will look back to their best performing posts and wonder why they just can’t come up with something unique again. This does work as an initial step. What you need to do here is to analyze those most viewed and liked posts of yours; you can use Google Analytics for the job. This can give you a clear understanding of the kind of preferences your audience may have.
By looking through these posts, now try to create something similar or related to them. Another trick is to reshare them as long as they are still relevant, of course.
And there is nothing wrong with that too. Take a look at successful people in this line, and you may find them posting their topics multiple times across all of their social media and getting tons of views and audience every time.
Look into your competitors’ posts.
While it’s better to focus your energy on your own game, you know sometimes taking a step back and observing others can help too.
A little look at your peers’ social media platforms and main competitors can motivate you to get back on track and give you loads of ideas. There are tools such as Facebook’s Pages to Watch feature or the Instagram Best Nine website to identify their top-performing posts quickly.
An app called BuzzSumo also allows you to analyze other’s or even your own domain to identify the best performing content based on social shares.
Ask your audience!
We think, create, and execute our ideas for our audience. Even the primary strategy is to please the community during brainstorming ideas, so why not ask them too?
You can ask them in one post, and the responses will give you inspiration for more. This simple deed can really help your content block.
You can do this as a nice Q/A thing; use polls options for Facebook and Twitter, or in Instagram stories, you can use the questions option.
Answer FAQs
Now you might sense a theme here, that there are many ways to create content by merely answering questions.
It’s a great way to raise awareness, giving demos, and educating your audience. Hence never underestimate the value of FAQ rounds. Make an FAQ page on your website, and make sure to share those questions and answer them one-by-one on your social channels. This will expose them to a broader audience and help more people.
Share others’ content
We usually focus on our own original content and the pressure that comes with it, but you see, it’s only a part of the game.
We tackle content strategy from specific points, including:
- Created content (your own original content)
- Collated content (relevant content you collect and share from others)
As it has been already mentioned why and how you can look at what others are doing i.e reviewing their industry-relevant websites etc.
It’s also great to share social media posts from others.
Not only does it give you relevant content, but it is also lovely to support the original creators and helps to get their content to a broader audience. Just make sure to have their permission before sharing and always credit them as required. Never forget to use these native sharing options; you will be harming your repo otherwise.
Use “Sort by Top” on Reddit (and Other Forums) to Find Interesting Topics
Reddit declares itself to be the “Front page of the Internet,” and for a good reason. As of June 2015, Reddit had over 36 million registered users and millions of posts and comments. With an extensive and active user community, Reddit sees millions of posts and comments daily. People come together in subreddits, which are small communities created to discuss specific topics in detail. There are subreddits all about the latest TV shows, video games, pop culture, politics, and more. Some of the most informed people on any given topic spend hours sharing their Reddit community members’ expertise.
This is why it’s a great place for content ideas. Let’s say, for example; you’re running a niche blog. Now, if you have happened to hit a roadblock, use Reddit for inspiration. Start by finding a relevant subreddit like reddit.com/r/yoga and checking to see if it’s active. On the right side of every Subreddit you’ll see subscriber and activity levels:
With 10,000 active Subreddits (and more than 800,000 others) to choose from, you can get as general or specific as you’d like. When searching for content ideas, you may like to find Subreddits with at least 10,000 subscribers, as they tend to have the most gold. Once you’ve found a promising community, sort the content by what’s most famous—this is typically the “top” button in the navigation bar:
Using this feature lets you know exactly what people are reading and talking about and can help you find what to write about.
Use Google Keyword Planner to Find Commonly Searched Topics
Wouldn’t it be great if you knew what other people were thinking? If you knew what people were searching for online, you would create content you knew for sure would receive quality views.
Luckily, you can. Enter Google Keyword Planner. Rather than guessing what your readers are looking for or scrolling social media to find a talking point, use this tool to see which words are searched and in what combinations so you can find what to write about and which keywords to use. Quite an easy trick, don’t you think? This will help your posts be relevant to your viewers and widen your marketing strategy and give ideas to brainstorm.
Look back through your best performing posts
Sometimes the best way forward is to look back and improve with previous good experiences. By glancing back at your best performing posts, either by investigating your top performing social media posts dependent on commitment or snaps, or taking a look at your most seen blog entries utilizing your Google Analytics, you can pick up an essential comprehension of the sorts of updates that your crowd appreciate.
Focus on these themes or niches and search for ways to make new presents related to that point, or even reshare a similar post! With regards to the fact that it is as yet applicable). There stays a typical misinterpretation that you can just share something once. However, that is not the situation. We hate to break it to you, but you already know it, don’t you? not every person will see each post you share.
Or on the other hand, some may see it and forget. So if there is a significant, important, or pertinent message, there is literally nothing wrong with sharing it on numerous occasions. The recurrence of updates will rely upon where you are sharing it, notwithstanding. For instance, the Twitter channel hurries, so you can undoubtedly have a similar update at least five times each month (depending on how as often as possible you post on Twitter). Anyway, on Facebook or Instagram, you may just need to have the equivalent/comparable update once per week or fortnight. In the number one spot up to one of the online courses, we post on various occasions across the entirety of our web-based media channels, in pertinent gatherings, in different email crusades, and so forth, and get new enlistments without fail.
Your ordinary might be someone else’s extraordinary.
We regularly take our own current circumstances, routine, and activities for granted. Furthermore, we may even discover them exhausting! The fact of the matter isn’t everybody knows our lives and work as we do. Many people just enjoy seeing what goes on in a company or just in someone’s daily life; seeing what others get up to is also a motivation to get going and have your adventure. Give truly close consideration to what you (and your group) are doing, and essentially share it! Numerous social media refreshes were initially founded on sharing what the individual was doing well now (subsequently all the food photographs). However, it’s still of interest today! It’s likewise an incredible method of sharing your abilities and skill without being excessively business based or sales
Google search for your keywords
The funny thing about a lack of ideas is, you already know what you need, but the push of an exceptional idea is what awaits you. More or less, you know the primary keywords pertinent to your item, administration or industry. Have a go at doing a straightforward google look for them, and see what comes up. Look at the results to see current articles identified with your subject or region. These could be partaken in their own right, showing your consciousness of your industry, or utilized as motivation for your own substance. To keep on top of relevant news for your own business, rivals, or keyphrases, you can set up a Google Alert.
Visit industry-relevant websites, review their blog/content
We generally prescribe having a rundown of go-to sites in your industry or niche. They can be an extraordinary wellspring of substance to share with no guarantees or rouse your own. Utilize an RSS peruser to monitor, make a bookmarks organizer of valuable connections, or buy into their pamphlets to get a summary of their updates emailed to you via newsletter subscription.
Browse stock image websites
A simple technique that has come in useful is stock images.
Sometimes you can go for the option of searching for images related to your topic keywords or visual themes (could be literally anything), or I’ll check out the “new” or “trending” images to see what’s out there. This technique also works really well if you have a visual style or color theme across your content.
A few recommendations for free stock image sites are:
- Pexels
- Unsplash
- Pixabay
