An endless list of creative blog ideas is possible with the right brainstorming guidance. But it won’t happen by simply scanning your brain waiting for inspiration to appear out of nowhere. Next time you need to create blog ideas, try out these effective strategies to come up with more (and more creative) blog ideas.
Use Your Competitors
An often overlooked resource is your competitors. They are in the same industry with the same target audience, so many of their blog post topics could easily meet the needs of your target audience as well. Identify a few competitors with active blogs and read through some article titles. Seeing what they think customers want can help illuminate a topic you never would’ve thought to cover, or it can spark an idea for a related topic. You can also read through articles keeping a few questions in mind:
- What did they forget to mention?
- What can I write to be more in-depth?
- What can I write to be more current?
- What can I write to offer a unique perspective?
With these questions framing your reading, it’ll be easier to come up with new ideas.
Do Creativity Exercises
To get a more effective workout, you do a warm-up first. Same idea with brainstorming. Sure, you can brainstorm “cold” just like you can workout “cold.” But by giving up that few minute warm-up, you make the entire session less efficient. When you go from writing emails or a meeting to brainstorming, your brain is still in that task-oriented, objective thinking. Creativity exercises help you shift to a more imaginative thinking that’s ideal for creating unique ideas, and it only takes a few minutes. Try this creativity warm-up before your next brainstorming session and see the difference it can make.
- Step One: Create a list of 10 new general ideas (hotels, animals, vacations, etc.) that no one’s ever heard of before. This brainstorming is not related to your blog topics.
- Step Two: Now that you’re warmed up, think in terms of your industry. But you must brainstorm with a certain persona (a celebrity, cartoon character, etc.) and create 10 ideas that they would. For example, Sherlock Holmes cares about clues and solving mysteries-clues are signs that something happened-10 signs you should nix a social media account. The focus here is still warming up, but you often can get great ideas out of this step.
- Step Three: Set a timer and come up with as many ideas as you can in 15 minutes. Now that you’re warmed up, you’ll be able to power through your “workout.”
Use Guided Questions
It may sound counter intuitive, but by providing more structure you can free yourself up to create more ideas. Think of it like a writing prompt-something to get you started that you can take in a unique direction. Pick some questions from this list and try to come up with a few ideas per question.
- What is being overdone in your industry?
- What are others doing wrong in your industry?
- What are some step-by-step practices that you follow with your industry?
- What are some topics in your industry that aren’t often talked about?
- What are some recent changes to your industry? What is your take on them?
- What do you possess that your readers are looking for?
- What do you do differently in your industry? Why?
- What are the biggest myths about your industry?
- What is a counter intuitive bit of advice that you can share?
- What is an unpopular piece of advice that you can share?
- What must someone know to become an expert in your field?
- What are the essential tools you use every day to get work done?
- What are the current trends that are taking hold in your field?
- What do your customers have a hard time doing?
Creating consistent content is an important aspect of marketing, and coming up with unique blog ideas is crucial. Play around with these three approaches to come up with more creative ideas. And if you want an active blog, but lack the time needed to maintain it, check out our blog writing services package here.