Ever felt like you’ve hit a creative roadblock? It happens even to the best of us and guess what? It’s totally normal. You might be thinking you’ve used up all your content marketing ideas. But there’s nothing wrong with repurposing what you’ve already published.
In this blog, we’ll discuss how you can generate more ideas or give a new twist to old ones that are still worth talking about. We also included a list of tools you can use to supercharge your next brainstorming session!
The Advantages of Keeping Your Content Fresh
Publishing branded content that’s well-researched and value-driven can be very advantageous to your business in these three major ways. Check them out!
Maintains Your Visibility
Regularly posting new content helps establish your presence. It reminds your audience you’re always around to offer them innovative solutions. This helps your business grow and keeps it visible!
Keeps Audiences Hooked
You keep your audience curious and engaged when you consistently put out fresh content. This isn’t limited to coming up with topics they’ve never heard of. Part of what keeps it fresh is how you approach ideas from different perspectives. For instance, you’ve published blog posts on a certain topic, the next time, you churn out a short but captivating social media post.
Helps Educate People
People are always looking for solutions and it’s very convenient for them to find all of these in one place. Don’t believe us? According to Statista’s research, when it comes to blog content, the most popular topics are How-to articles at 77 percent, News and Trends at 49 percent, and Guides and e-books at 47 percent.¹
Sharing content about your industry knowledge and products can help you attract new leads and retain your existing customers.
Related Reading: Who Needs a Rebrand These Days? You Do!
Content Overflow: How to Never Run Out of Ideas
Brainstorming content marketing topics is one of the most exciting parts of the content creation process. However, it can challenge your creativity as you try to come up with something unique and authentic to your brand. Here are some tips to make it a bit easier for you.
1. Explore community discussions.
Community discussions through Reddit, Quora, and similar websites, generate a goldmine of user-generated content. It can help you understand what matters to people right now. There, you’ll find personal and industry news.
Reddit can be most helpful in finding groups of people you can learn from as you can join subreddits, which are mini forums dedicated to specific themes or topics.
You can also keep these people in mind when creating your content. They can be your potential audience for certain topics. This can help you address issues and challenges in the industry at a more personal level.
2. Listen to your audience and engage them.
Start by tuning in to their comments. Whether it’s on your LinkedIn posts or your blog, your audience might be dropping gems of insights. This is helpful especially if you’re a thought leader, there’s always a community ready to chat!
Look out for those nuggets of wisdom they’re adding – they often dive into specifics you haven’t covered. Snatch those gems and transform them into your next content pieces.
Oh, and surveys are a cool trick too! Just shoot a quick question to your online followers and your network buddies. They’re the real deal for opinions, so ask them what they’re curious about in your industry. It’s like insider info from the best sources!
3. Make competitors’ ideas yours, but better.
Check out the awesome ideas your fellow players are throwing around. They’re in the same game as you, after all. And they’re also chatting with the same crowd.
Scoop up those ideas they’ve dished out. But don’t just serve them as is! Spice things up with your personal take and the freshest data they might’ve missed. Your spin could turn it into the hit of the content town!
4. Stay in the loop with the news.
Fire up your go-to search engine’s news section and dive into the topics you’re itching to chat about. It’s like a treasure trove of fresh info – think the latest research or hot-off-the-press data.
You can riff on these updates as they come or compare them to the past. For instance, remember the job hunt pre and post the rise of applicant tracking systems? Share your take on why these shiny tools are a game-changer or a total snooze for candidates.
5. Strategically repurpose your content.
Repurposing your existing content isn’t a bad thing. In fact, it can be good as you establish yourself as an expert on the topic. Here are some ways you can effectively turn something old into new.
Approach the same topic from a different angle.
The first strategy you can use is to approach a topic from a different angle. This can help you broaden your scope and at the same time address a wider group of people.
For example, you can first discuss tips on improving the candidate experience from the hiring manager’s perspective and then create a follow-up content that discusses ways on what candidates can do to have a great experience. That’s already two stories using the same topic you got there!
Continue the conversation.
You can look at continuing conversations like creating a series of content. This can help you maintain your expertise on the topic.
For example, if you’ve written a blog on a talent shortage in a specific industry and why it’s happening, you can create another content on how organizations can help resolve this issue. You can even create a third content, from a different angle, on how applying for these vacant roles can benefit candidates.
Update the content.
Updating or optimizing content is best done for existing content that uses data that’s no longer relevant and dead links. You can recreate these topics with the latest research and even add new insights to them. This helps ensure you generate curated content that’s relevant to your viewers.
Post it in a different format for a different platform.
Give your existing content a makeover by publishing it in a different format on another platform. Utilizing social media content can help you reach a different set of audiences through the same messaging.
In a July 2022 survey among B2B marketers worldwide, Statista found that the most effective social media platforms in producing the best advertising results are LinkedIn at 49 percent and both YouTube and Twitter at 43 percent.²
If you have a blog post on a current event that’s being discussed by a lot of people in the industry, try broadening it even more through a podcast discussion or video content. You can even invite some of the industry experts you know to discuss your various insights.
6. Use tools for content ideation.
In coming up with great content ideas, you can try playing around with tools that can help you brainstorm for fresh ideas. Here are some you can access online.
Blog title generators
Blog title generators can help you come up with topics using familiar title formulas. These are great for when you’ve only talked about a topic once or a few times. Some of these generators include Hubspot’s blog topic generator and Impact’s blog title generator.
PromoterKit
PromoterKit offers over 30 free online marketing tools using data derived from Google. They offer a SEO Keyword Research Tool for blogs, a YouTube Keyword Tool, a YouTube Title Generator, and more!
AnswerThePublic
AnswerThePublic helps you know what people are asking about through autocomplete data gathered from search engines like Google. It can help you find useful phrases and questions related to the keyword you enter. It can even help you filter your search by country or by language.
Buzzsumo
Buzzsumo is a great tool that can help you discover content ideas and new insights in your niche. The tool provides you with the best results based on popularity to give you an idea of the latest trending content on the internet. Buzzsumo is a paid tool, but they offer a 30-day free trial so you can test it out!
Related Reading: Mind Mapping Is the New Content Mapping!
Create relevance to make your content matter.
When making content, it’s important to come up with post ideas that people will find relevant. For instance, focus on ideas that align with the needs of job seekers and employers. You can ask the right questions and come up with unique solutions that can attract people to choose you as their trusted source.
ALLIED INSIGHT CAN HELP YOU COME UP WITH STRONG CONTENT STRATEGIES
Elevate your brand by coming up with content that matters to people. Allied Insight can help you maximize your ideas by approaching them innovatively.
We are a team of full-stack marketing experts who can help your brand stand out through Personalized Thought-leadership Content, SEO Optimization and White Hat Strategy Development, and Brand Cohesion Clean-up and Optimization. Get in touch with us so, we can discuss your new content strategies.
References
1 Statista Research Department. “Blogging: Most Popular Blog Content Formats 2019.” Statista, 10 Jan. 2023, https://www.statista.com/statistics/314422/blogging-format-content/.
2 Dencheva, Valentina. “Most Effective Social Media Platforms for B2B Marketers Worldwide 2022.” Statista, 8 Jun. 2023, https://www.statista.com/statistics/311524/effectiveness-of-b2b-social-media-content-marketing/.
