Finding content ideas for your blog

Posted by Fiona in business blogging on Oct 14th, 2009 | one response

I’ve always had this annoying habit that during an interesting conversation I often will excuse myself and whip out a pen and whatever piece of paper is in my bag (tax receipt, lolly paper – or an on organised day, a notebook) and make a note of something interesting that was said or I thought of (usually in an indecipherable scrawl and in code – so that in the event of my bag being stolen, the thief won’t catch on to my brilliant idea. This usually means weeks later when I get around to cleaning out the confetti at the bottom of my bag the coded scrawl means absolutely nothing to me and I’ll spend hours wracking my brains and playing back conversations knowing it was important but what was it??)

From there my biggest problem is turning that gem of an idea into a blog post – because it won’t write itself although I’ve technically done it in my mind already – but more about that later; for lots of bloggers finding the gem of an idea for a blog post is the issue.

Here’s some ways to find ‘ideas’ for content for blog posts;

- From the conversations you’re having (with clients, at networking events, with yourself). Someone is bound to say something that will trigger a brilliant thought that would make the basis of a perfect blog post; the trick is to capture it – legibly and politely – before you forget (because you will).

- Look in your email inbox; has a customer asked a question or made a comment that you can elaborate on in a blog post?

- And ditto for comments made on your blog

- Explore the relevant questions section to your industry on Linkedin. As well as answering one person, turn your answer into a blog post.

- What hot discussions are happening on the online groups you belong to?

- Share things you learn or discover – from a great book, to an online tool, to a new sales strategy, to an aha moment from listening to a guest speaker.

Essentially the trick is to ‘be aware and open’ to potential content, then capture the idea and file it away for later.

Do you have any fabulous ‘ideas for ideas?’