This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of Moz, Inc.
Suffering from blank-page anxiety? Before you go on the hunt for inspiration all over the Internet and elsewhere, turn to the resources around you and realize that you can create exceptional content with what you already have at hand.
Thinking of content topics doesn't have to be such a long and grueling undertaking. Use the following starting points the next time you need an idea.
Individual achievement
Talk about a transition to a new role and how you had to adapt your skills to succeed.
Think of lessons you learned the hard way and share with those who are just starting out.
Describe your thought process for approaching different tasks in a way that will help others be better organized or prepared.
Write about a mentor figure or a brand you admire. Explain why this person or company has excelled, and how others may be able to follow a similar path.
Share your action plan for the future. Give people a sneak peak of what's to come and talk through the steps you'll take to accomplish your goals.
Ask the sales team what their most common roadblocks are. What content can you put together that will aid them in illustrating the solution?
Sit in on meetings in different departments. Take what you've observed about their communication styles and workflow and turn it into content about processes such as effective ways to brainstorm or overcoming internal objections.
Find out what questions your account managers get asked most frequently. Put together a blog post or other resource that lays out the answers.
Request that every department share their biggest accomplishments on a monthly or quarterly basis. Select at least one to develop a case study.
Get to know your coworkers. Find out more about their backgrounds, their daily routines, and future aspirations. You can highlight employees in a video or blog series introducing your team, or better yet, you can learn a new way of thinking or working that you can write about.
Have each person on your team write down a five step process that takes them through a daily task start to finish. This can be used for an email campaign or a blog or video series.
Ask your leadership team for pointers on how they've developed the business and how they keep it running smoothly.
What skills would be helpful for your customers to have so that they could better understand your product/service or use it more easily? Teach them.
Write down the steps you took in a successful campaign. Layout this process so that it can be repeated.
Interview several experts on the same topic, asking each how he or she accomplishes a certain goal.
As soon as the list of speakers comes out for a big event in your industry, select a few who are covering topics in which your audience is interested and reach out to see if they will do an interview or guest post for your site.
Scan the live tweets and recaps of conferences you weren't able to attend. Find common themes and determine the hot button issues that emerged. Contribute your unique perspective on these subjects on your blog.
If someone from your company speaks at an event, have him write a bonus blog post that expands on something in his presentation. Make sure he posts his slide deck on SlideShare and links to the blog post in it.
Put together a list of all the conferences, meetups, and networking nights in your area. Rank them, talk about why people should attend, compile basic information like cost and dates… make this a robust, go-to resource.
Go above and beyond the traditional recap of what you learned. After a set time period of putting those lessons into practice, demonstrate the use of your new skill set with a mini case study of your results.
Write about why you believe a certain trend has emerged and what this means for the future.
Give advice for a hypothetical client or user.
Relay the possible causes for results that you've seen in your analytics data.
Make a prediction about how a new policy or technology will impact how you do business in the future.
If there was one aspect of your role you could add or takeaway to make your job easier, what would it be and how would it make you more productive? Make a case for it.
On Valentine's Day, reveal yourself as a not-so-secret admirer of one or more brands. Let them know why you enjoy their content and how you strive to emulate a certain aspect of their business.
Give a shout out to some of your best employees for Labor Day.
For Thanksgiving, personally thank some of your biggest brand fans.
During the holidays, send small physical gifts to people in your audience or even industry peers and then write a blog post or make a video saying what you're sending and why.
Discuss your New Year goals and how the changes you plan on making will a better experience for your audience.
Respond to email feedback (positive or negative) through a blog post or video.
Write a satire piece about a recurring problem in your industry.
Dig through old posts and republish with updates. Explain why your thoughts and recommendations have changed over time.
Do some pro bono work and turn it into content about your capabilities.
Make over your "About Us" section, spruce up your 404 page, or whatever else seems lackluster on your site, and then feature it in a special before and after content unveiling.
Shining example: Business Casual Copywriting's "Dead Page"
Your turn
Whether or not you decide to use these exact ideas, I hope I've given you some directions to explore. Think hard, collaborate with smart team members, and make these your own.
Brainstorming should start broad before the content manager or editor-in-chief narrows down ideas based on marketing goals, target personas, and availability of resources. For a more in-depth look at that process, check out the eBook I created for iAcquire, Content Strategy for Digital Marketers: A Six Week Guide to Creating, Promoting, & Measuring Great Content. You want to make sure you have the right structure in place because as we all know probably too well, good ideas don't always pan out the way we hope for when they're not part of a well-crafted strategy.
No matter which post topics you choose, remember to infuse these ideas with personality, data, and insights that only you and your brand can offer. Publishing content that provides value no one else can is what truly leads to the traffic, social shares, and links you crave.
If you've had success with ideas like this in the past or if you have plans to try out something new, I'd love to hear about it in the comments!
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