What's in Your Calendar - 7 Fresh Tactics to Generate Ideas and Engage Your Team
We have all read that creating fresh and insightful content is key to inbound marketing. With it, we attract new customers to our brand through content instead of badgering them with information at a time when they are NOT looking for it. We also know that a fresh supply of content offers the opportunity for our audience to get to know us, our company, and our products, and that if we aren’t creating new content, it’s hard for customers to even know we are still in business!But what do we do when we don’t know what to write about? What do we do when we are out of ideas for new and engaging ways to connect with our audience! Whether we are creating newsletters, articles, videos for instruction or entertainment (or both), podcasts, blog posts, social media posts, and other media, there comes a time in the life of all content creators when we sit in front of our keyboards and have no idea what to write next.
In today’s Marketing Minute(s), I offer you:
7 Fresh Tactics to Generate Ideas and Engage Your Team,
And find inspiration for YOUR next super-strong series!
Fresh Tactic #1 – Scour Social
Come up with some snappy content by taking a dive into social media and online forums (Quora, Reddit) to engage with your audience and others’, too!
Scan posts and look at what your groups are talking about. Find current topics of interest that are inspiring a lot of discussion and see the topics about which people are exhausted. Having online communication with those who make comments on other posts is effective for relationship building AND can help you come up with content ideas!
And don’t forget to check out what your competitors are doing!
Sure, you can get content ideas from what they are curating on their social media platforms, but I’d be more likely to recommend you take note of the questions and discussions that have arisen from their posts! As with comments on your posts, looking at what the audience is talking about can give insight into what they want and what it is about your product that will help them.
While you are out there, consider signing up for your competitors’ newsletters! That will keep you plugged in to what’s happening at their company!
Fresh Tactic #2 – Try Out That Google Search Box
Thanks to Google, there are no unanswered questions, so what about finding a topic using Google search? Have you seen those Google Autocomplete celeb interviews? It
can be a hilarious tour through the thoughts of Google users as the record of what others have typed into Google search pops up after you type something innocuous like “I think I might be…”. You get a surprising glimpse into some of your community’s eccentricities when you see the questions about famous people that Google has record of people asking.Use this feature to your advantage! Start by typing a word or two about your products or services and see what pops up. You just might get several ideas for a topic about which you can write a series!
Fresh Tactic #3 – Skim Lists, Agendas, Newsletters
Consider piggybacking on another’s great idea! Ever thought of finding your next inspiration for a content series in an industry newsletter, a conference agenda, or an Amazon booklist?
Look, if other people think it’s important to talk about, then it probably is! You can get ideas from following a new speaker or industry expert and from reading about topics or activities of interest to your audience, and then create content around that information!
Fresh Tactic #4 – Watch Some Videos
What about whiling away some time and being moved by YouTube videos?Sure, the videos themselves may give you inspiration, but as in Fresh Tactic #1, look at the comments. When you look at industry-related content, people’s questions, comments, and criticisms will give you ideas for content you can create yourself. OH! And while you are there, remember to look over at the Up Next videos. They may also give you ideas for related content.
Fresh Tactic #5 – Be REinspired!
Refreshing YOUR old content may inspire a new take on an old topic!
Kill two birds with one stone. You need to take the time to review your past posts, but that doesn’t have to be a waste of your content creation brainstorming time! Looking back at content you have previously created to check for old links, references, or even out-dated language can spur on the ideas for new content creation.
Fresh Tactic #6 – Get Your Team Onboard
Use your team’s activities to drum up ideas!Tracking customer service questions to find out what your customers need to know can give some great ideas for a content series. Consider eavesdropping on sales calls, riding along on demos, listening in at tradeshows, and sitting in on product training to get some insight into what customers want to know. What do they need to know about your company? Your products? Your services? Your capabilities?
And B2B can take a cue from consumer products! Have engineering take pictures to show installs or set-ups along with the details of all product lines in the photos, and you have customer content made for easy understanding.
AND I have one LAST thought…
Fresh Tactic #7 – Don’t Stop at Just One Idea (or Potato Chip!)
I would suggest doing your Content Creation brainstorming en masse!Once you come up with one idea, keep going. Although it is tempting to take your great idea and fly, creating in bunches saves writing time later and we all tend to be more productive once already in the idea-generating space. One more benefit to creating in bunches? You can better develop themes for your execution and smoothly, logically transition between posts and themes to create continuity and retain audience attention.
So next time you are scratching your head, looking for that idea for creating useful, relevant information about your company and product offering, establishing or reinforcing your company’s expertise, promoting brand awareness, and for keeping ourselves and our companies top of mind, try one of these fresh tactics and be prepared to engage and inspire!
It is always great to be sharing these Marketing Minutes during AHTD meetings and in our monthly newsletters, and I look forward to continuing these discussions in the time between now and our next in-person meeting! Consider signing up for our next AHTD Marketing Roundtable – Summer or Winter Series, and please remember to tag us on your LinkedIn posts so we can share with our networks exactly how AHTD members are #doinghightechbetter, together!