Anna shares 10 quick ways to come up with content ideas. ALL whilst helping you to better get to know your audience so your posts will be even more impactful.
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Welcome to Episode 10 of The Elevatory Podcast. I'm your host Anna Jonak, the founder of The Elevatory. And today, I'm going to be talking to you about how to come up with content ideas quickly. In fact, I've got 10 of them for you. So when you come to that eeeek, what do I post, I have no idea, I'm gonna give you lots of ideas that you can jot down, and oh my gosh, they're gonna give you so much content, you're not gonna know what to do with it. And as Vicki will tell you, from our previous conversations, you obviously do need to put this into a plan. So there's no point in creating a tonne of content and having loads of ideas, and then not populating them into a plan. So make sure that you work all this up, put together a list of ideas, themes, pillars, you name it, and then make sure that you start planning so that you can be as effective as possible with your content.
1. Use surveys
So let me dive straight in. And we're gonna start with idea number one, in terms of coming up with content, and that is use surveys. Surveys are one of my most favourite things. And I think I'm not even joking, I have probably crafted with clients close to, I'm going to say 1000 surveys. That's a lot of surveys. But they're so powerful because you can use them if you've got current clients and customers to really dig into what they were looking for, the problem and challenge that they had, the journey that they went on to find you, why they chose to buy from you, the experience that they've had with you. There's so much that you can glean from a survey to help you understand the customer journey. And then you can leverage that information to put it back in front of other people who are experiencing the same pain points or at that same tipping point. So that you can make sure that your messaging is on point for them to take that next step.
If you don't have current clients, then what you can do is you can go out to the public and obviously get feedback from them instead. And you can be asking them about how they feel about your product or service, and get feedback on their pain points and challenges. You want to make sure you reach out to the specific segment of people you're looking for with a specific problem. So you're not just blanketing everybody, you've got to find the right people and make sure that they are experiencing the problem that you provide a solution for. But surveys essentially, with a good mix of open ended and closed ended questions should help you see patterns and themes and people's behaviour. And additionally, with the open ended questions, you can then take them and sort them even further to see repetitive themes and comments again, so that you'll find that easily, you'll be able to pick out a few content pillars just from that kind of work. So a big fan of using surveys to understand your audience's pain points and motivators and steps on the customer journey so you can utilise them and put this stuff back in front of them so that it resonates.
2. Put up a poll
Okay, another quick tip is actually just asking your audience what they want to hear from you like literally putting up a poll or something on stories, you know, a checkbox asking them to drop you a line, you can send an email to your actual lists and ask them if they if you could answer one thing right now what would it be? Just get out there. Same thing, go into a Facebook group and post one single question like, 'What is your biggest problem challenge right now? Or how can I help you with?' Don't be shy. Basically get out there, ask questions, and you will find answers.
3. Keyword search in Facebook groups
Okay, other things using Facebook groups, go into a Facebook group and use the keyword search bar in the top left hand corner with respect to whatever it is that you do, and see what comes up. You will find again, repetitive themes and people asking the same questions or moaning about the same things or in the same pain over and over again. And it is content that you can leverage. So get out there and look for what people are asking for help with and then work it to your advantage.
4. Use your analytics
Okay, number four, use your analytics. Okay, if you've already been posting for a little while, go back and have a look at what's actually working. It's going to give you a really great gauge on what your audience is actually interested in right now. And will help you to see those posts that have had the highest reach and engagement and will help you to show what you should be doing more of according to your audience. All right.
5. Use research tools
Other things you can do. Number five is look at research tools. So there are tools like Answer The Public or Buzzsumo and they give you ideas around keywords, trending stories, customer questions, Answer The Public particularly looks at the questions around how which where and what, when it comes to a particular subject. So you know, what is a life coach? Just give you an example. These are the kinds of questions: Where do you find a life coach? Which kind of coach is best for you? How do you find a life coach? All of these kinds of questions can give you ideas around, you can have a question style that happens every week.
6. Look at your competitors
Number six, look at your competitors. Obviously, a no brainer, go check out their blogs, podcast, posts, lead magnets, go and see the kind of stuff that they're putting out there. And you'll compare it to your own. And I'm not talking about ripping things off. But it's about using it for inspiration. Are there specific topics that you can be doing better. Go and check out their customer reviews and the things in their reviews that you can leverage where they are not doing as well as they could and you do better. Okay, there is information aplenty everywhere, go and check it out.
7. Use Google search
All right, use Google search as well, another platform to help you get ideas. If you have a topic in mind, pop it into Google and Google will give you suggested searches for that topic. You can even go a little bit further and download a tool called Keywords Everywhere, cost you about $10. And you will get something crazy, like 100,000 credits. And you can basically if you're in Google Chrome, start putting in keywords and it will show you the search volumes like how many people are actually searching for that set of keywords and again, give you a real big list of alternatives. And again, the volume of searches that people have. So it will give you an idea of what people are actually looking for directly with your topic. I mean, all of this stuff, I'm talking about from a social media perspective, but it's also golden for when it comes to blogging.
8. Create controversy
Tip number eight, be controversial. Okay, yep, just get out there and be controversial. But it doesn't have to be a big life or death argument or something really crazy. But you know, start a conversation, pick a side and create content around that idea and stir a conversation up. Okay, controversy works really quite well at getting people moving. But pick a side that obviously relates to your business and your values.
9. Content topic generators
Number nine content topic generators, there are a few generators out there that use popular title formulas to help you fill in the blanks in your industry and keywords. So you've got HubSpot's Blog Topic Generator and there's Portents's Content Idea Generator. Both of them I'm not actually sure, I'm pretty sure that they're free, I might be wrong, I'm sure you can get a few free times in with most of them anyway, just to get you started. But go and see if they come up with some ideas for you on your topic.
10. Use personal stories
And lastly, number 10 personal stories, guys, all right, I love this, because no one can replicate this. People learn through stories and stories they stick. So telling a story about yourself and how it might relate to your offering. And really showing the human side of your business is definitely going to be key. And it's so important that you do this as often as you can, so you can bring you and your business to life in the mind's eye of people. If you've listened to me on previous podcast episodes, you know, your social media is really a place for you to build connections, relationships, build trust, and you know, take your clients on a journey. And as a result, it's not just about putting up a piece of content, it's about thinking a bit deeper and actually thinking about how this relates to what you know of them, and how you want your brand to look.
Okay, so I'm hoping that these 10 very quick ideas will give you lots of inspiration for going to find lots of different content themes and ideas that you can start pulling together for your social media. And as I said, make sure that you have a plan and more than that, that you are leveraging and repurposing your content. So this might be a social media plan that you put together, but make sure that you're reusing that post and turning it into maybe a video or you're turning it into a longer form post or you're turning it into a blog post or maybe it becomes a podcast episode topic. Or maybe it's something that you can collab on with someone and guest posts on. Okay, what we don't want you to be doing is creating lots of different content for lots of different platforms because it is exhausting. And generally, once a piece of content is written, you want to like find a way to use it four or five different ways again and again.
11. Recycle content
And also, I'm going to add in point number 11. Go back to what you've posted like 12 months ago and reuse some of that stuff. I did that recently went back into one of my Facebook groups. And I was like I wrote some really good stuff here and people won't have seen it and they won't remember it. So I'm going to start recycling it.
Okay, that's it for me. Hopefully some inspo for you. I look forward to hearing how you get on, No more eeeks on this end. There are so many different ways for you to come up with content ideas I trust I've just made your life a little bit easier. Alrighty, as usual, head to theelevatory.com/podcast for show notes. And if you want to learn any more about any of our programs, head to the website and book in for a discovery call, we would love to connect with you. Alright, have a great day. Catch you soon.
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