Renee Alexis Taladua

8/7/2020 Ideas and Content Creation deas and Content Creation n buiding a successfu bog, it's not a joke when we say content is everything. This cannot be stressed enough. The key to having success as a bogger is putting out high-quaity content consistenty. The idea is simpe: the more vauabe content you post, the more opportunities you're going to have to connect with peope, grow your audience, and buid a profitabe business. That's why an endess suppy of ideas for content creation is critica. To pubish good content, the first step is to come up with good ideas. This is what we are going to tak about today. This post is going to cover a variety of strategies and toos to hep you find ideas and inspiration for your next piece of content. The mportance of Content Consumption As a content creator, one of the best things you can do is to make it a habit to consume content, ots of it. And it doesn't matter what kind of medium you choose - books, socia media, newspaper, journa, etc. Renowned author Stephen King has a great book caed On Writing - A Memoir of the Craft. n it, he discusses how important it is for aspiring writers to dedicate time to reading. The rea importance of reading is that it creates an ease and intimacy with the process of writing; one comes to the country of the writer with one's papers and identification pretty much in order. Constant reading wi pu you into a pace (a mind-set, if you ike the phrase) where you can write eagery and without sef-consciousness. t aso offers you a constanty growing knowedge of what has been done and what hasn't, what is trite and what is fresh, what works and what just ies there dying (or dead) on the page. The more you read, the ess apt you are to make a foo of yoursef with your pen or word processor. - Stephen King, On Writing Content consumption is great for forming and creating ideas. There's reay no such thing as an "origina idea". This is going to be kind of weird to hear but it's true. The "new ideas" we ca are simpy combinations of existing eements. When you get yoursef immersed into those existing eements, you get to et your creative juices fowing and encourage the ideation process. n the habit of consuming content,  don't ony mean that you consume content that's reevant to your niche. Aside from the bogs in your space, you definitey shoud be aso reading books, science, poetry, history, and even socia media posts. You'd be surprised at how two seemingy unreated topics and concepts can suddeny cick and form a great idea, and this often happens when you east expect it. https://app.grammarly.com/ddocs/- 1/5 8/7/2020 Ideas and Content Creation There's a concept known as unconscious creativity. This is when you're working on a probem and then you stop it to do something ese. Your unconscious mind keeps working in the background unti suddeny, you have that ight-bub moment in the shower, your car, or wherever you are when you're not activey trying to come up with ideas. So, make it a habit to consume ots of content and immerse yoursef in a those existing eements, then step back and et unconscious creativity work its magic. Unconscious creativity can pay a big roe in the ideation process, but the truth is, you're not going to aways have an epiphany. Most of the time, you wi need to be activey extracting those ideas from your brain, and one way to do it is to do a Brain Dump. The Brain Dump Here's how to effectivey use the Brain Dump: • Set a timer for 5 minutes to create a sense of urgency • Start jotting down content ideas as quicky as possibe • Use any writing materias you are comfortabe using: notepads, sticky notes, notebook, etc. • Write down a your thoughts and ideas without fitering them A brain dump is a about quantity, not quaity. Don't worry if your ideas are bad or good. Get a of those ideas out of your head and into the paper, and worry about refining them ater. When the time is up, sort through the ideas you've jotted down and decide which ones are the best. Look for emerging patterns or combinations that coud work. You may find more ideas come to you during this process so be sure to record them as we. You shoud have a soid ist of ideas that can fit into your content strategy at the end of the process. The # Too of Content Research Buzzsumo A favorite too for content creators to generate ideas and inspiration for new content is a too caed Buzzsumo. This service aows you to see the most popuar content on any topic or from any competitor based on socia shared and backinks. Just go to the website, enter up a topic reated to your industry, and you' get a ist of popuar headines from a around the web. You can cick each ink to open up the origina post and be ready to get some ideas. https://app.grammarly.com/ddocs/- 2/5 8/7/2020 Ideas and Content Creation There's aso a weath of data on the resuts page itsef. Under each post tite, you' see the author and the source. On the right side, there's an overview of the number of times the post was shared on each of the major patforms. You can fiter the resuts by content, type, country, anguage, country, word count, and specific domains. Buzzsumo is a great too to use to understand the mindset of your target audience and see what types of content they're consuming. t's aso an opportunity to see where your competitors may be acking, for exampe, topics they're not covering or areas where you may be abe to create something better. Quora Another favorite site is Quora. t's a Q and A service where peope ask and answer questions on thousands of different topics. Unike the disaster that was Yahoo Answers, Quora has buit an incredibe community where you have absoutey everyone, from car mechanics to astrophysicists, answering questions about their expertise. f you consider yoursef a curious person, this patform is a joy to use. With these in mind, Quora can be an asset for your content creation efforts as it aows you to see what questions peope are asking about your industry. Go to Quora, enter a topic, and browse the popuar questions and answers about that topic. f you cick topic FAQ, you' have a curated ist of the most common questions peope have on that topic. You can aso browse topics and do the same with each of those. Aside from knowing your audience better, you can aso use core questions as a direct starting point for new content. f a ot of peope are asking a particuar question and you have the expertise to provide a hepfu answer. That there is your new piece of content! Reddit Another way of finding inspiration and ideas is by exporing the paces where your potentia audience hangout onine - groups and communities. Reddit is a great exampe of this. Reddit is a message board website divided into various boards or communities caed Subreddit, which are each focused on a particuar topic. This site is huge, and there's a subreddit for just about any topic you coud think of. f there are at east  peope interested in a certain topic, there's probaby a subreddit for it. Take a ook around and see if you coud find a coupe of active subreddits that are reevant to your audience. Browse through the top posts and change the sorting into a-time for best resuts. Look at the https://app.grammarly.com/ddocs/- 3/5 8/7/2020 Ideas and Content Creation inks that peope are sharing, read the text posts, and pay attention to any recurring questions or themes and consider how these might hep you create your content strategy. Other Groups and Communities You can aso ook into Facebook and Linkedin groups which are becoming more reevant in the age of socia media. Pubic groups are searchabe so find some reevant groups and do the same thing. Watch for any recurring questions and conversation topics and you shoud come away with some soid content ideas straight from the peope you hope to serve. Bogs and Pubications Finay, foow the major bogs and pubications in your industry, as we as your competitors. Read their content and pay attention to what peope are saying. Read the comments section and see how peope are responding to certain topics. What questions or probems are they facing? How can you be a part of the soutions? The goa, after a, is to provide vaue in soving peope's probems. Aso, monitor your own comments and socia media interactions. Look for repeating questions and other trends that you coud potentiay use for future content. You can aso ask your audience what they want from you by prompting them to eave a comment or having them fi out a survey or even interviewing readers one on one. Nobody knows your audience better than your audience. Ask them about their probems, their strugges, and their questions. You can even ask them about their reading habits if you want to get a coser ook into their mind and understand what types of content they ike to consume. Your past contents are aso something you can earn from. Take your most successfu content and buid on it with suppementa materia. The content that didn't do so we can be your earning experience. Monitor your anaytics, not just the traffic but aso the demographics of your audience and the keywords peope are using to find your site. Be carefu not to overook your existing audience in your existing content when it comes to content creations and generating new ideas. https://app.grammarly.com/ddocs/- 4/5 8/7/2020 https://app.grammarly.com/ddocs/- Ideas and Content Creation 5/5