Constantly coming up with new and original content can be a bear of a task, and it’s not always convenient to find new material that will resonate with your audience.
Nevertheless, discovering inspiration for new content is an integral part of a content marketer’s job. And we’ve got you covered.
In this post, we’ll share a few of our favorite sources to discover winning content marketing ideas that can elevate your digital marketing game and give you a fluid stockpile of ideas to pull from.
6 Simple Ways of Fueling Your Content Marketing Ideas
1) Scour Quora for Content Inspiration
Quora is an absolute goldmine when it comes to finding awesome content marketing ideas. Seriously, this online Q&A platform is buzzing with activity and filled to the brim with questions just waiting to be answered. It’s like stumbling upon a treasure chest of knowledge!
What makes Quora so special, you ask?
Well, picture this: It boasts a massive user base and has been climbing up the popularity charts like there’s no tomorrow. In fact, as this writing, Quora was ranked as one of the top 400 websites in the world. Talk about impressive!
Quora is all about people asking questions and getting answers.
It’s like a virtual playground of curiosity. You’ll find everything from ponderings on what it’s like to be an Olympian to mind-boggling inquiries about the first man on the moon. And while these questions may not get tons of traffic individually, when you accumulate millions and millions of them, you’re talking about a serious traffic generator (and idea generator).
Now, here’s the trick to harnessing Quora’s utility for your content plan. Try peeking into the most popular pages on Quora because that’s where the real magic happens:
You may even discover ancillary topics related to the topics you initially find that can give you even more ideas for content.
2) Find Related Search Patterns with Answer The Public
Let’s talk about Answer The Public:
This tool collects and visualizes search query data from search engines like Google and Bing. It presents the data in a visually engaging way, displaying the most commonly searched questions, prepositions, comparisons, and related keywords for a given topic or keyword.
When users enter a keyword or phrase into the search bar on the Answer the Public website, the tool processes the data and generates a “search cloud” or “search wheel” with various questions and related phrases that people frequently search for.
This can provide valuable insights into the type of content users are seeking, enabling content creators to tailor their material to meet the needs and interests of their audience.
3) Gain YouTube Insights with VidIQ
When it comes to video content, there’s one resource that truly stands out for coming up with ideas, and that’s VidIQ:
This invaluable YouTube tool not only serves up daily content ideas, but also provides AI-generated title recommendations. By keeping a close watch on the trending topics highlighted by VidiQ, you can gain a competitive edge and significantly increase your chances of ranking higher in search results.
Even if you don’t currently have a YouTube channel, it’s worth exploring other tools like Google Trends and Exploding Topics to stay ahead of the curve.
These tools can help you identify emerging trends and capitalize on them, enabling you to ride the wave and create captivating content that captures the attention of your desired audience.
4) Social Media: A Gateway to Virality
Social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok are basically humongous libraries of content ideas that you can mimic and derive your own offshoot ideas from.
So long as you stay up to date with the latest trending posts, you’ll be able to come up with content that reflects your brand in a similar way. This is very much an if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it mentality. Social media is teeming with abundant ideas that, half the time, are iterations of other ideas anyway.
Whether it’s the captivating world of Instagram Reels or the art of crafting compelling text-based content, keeping a sharp eye on what’s hot and happening across social media can ignite a wealth of content marketing ideas that truly resonate with your audience:
It’s important to remember that these trending topics may not always align with traditional keyword research. However, they possess a certain viral factor that has the potential to captivate users and drive significant engagement.
5) Parse Engagement: Unearthing Content in Comments
Still pertaining to social media, the comments sections on platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube hold an invaluable treasure trove for content creators.
Dive into these discussions, and you’ll discover a wealth of insightful questions and comments that have the power to ignite brilliant content ideas.
What makes these comments even more precious is the direct line of communication they establish with your audience. A lot of the time, you may see a recurring pattern of requests by your audience to produce content on a particular topic or an answer to a burning question. This stuff gets really easy when your audience is quite literally telling you what they want you to do.
It’s an opportunity not to be missed.
By taking these questions and transforming them into captivating videos or thought-provoking written pieces or posts, you not only create valuable content but also forge a deeper connection with your audience.
Think about it: When you address their queries and concerns through your content, you’re showing that you truly care about their needs. You become a trusted source, a guide who understands and provides solutions. This engagement and responsiveness foster a sense of community and loyalty, encouraging your audience to stick around and eagerly await your next creation.
So, don’t underestimate the power of those comment sections. Embrace the potential they hold, and let your audience guide you toward creating content that resonates, educates, and entertains.
6) Sparktoro: The Search Engine for Content Ideas
The last one we’ll talk about is more of a roundabout solution, which is Sparktoro, a brilliant design from the mind of Rand Fishkin.
Sparktoro’s one-liner simply states: “SparkToro shows who your audience is, what they talk about, and where to reach them.”
What we’re interested in for the purposes of this guide is specifically the “what they talk about” part of it.
Sparktoro lets you input a keyword, and it returns a list of social media accounts that people follow associated with the term you provided. It can also show you other topics that your audience talks about. You can see where this is going.
You can use Sparktoro by searching for a topic on which you’ve already produced content and then detect what related topics people discuss revolving around the topic you chose.
For example, if you search for “NFT” on Sparktoro, you’ll get a slew of results illustrating what other related topics people talk about that are connected to the term NFT:
Learn More: 5 Content Creation Tools to Help Scale Up Your Production
Last Thoughts on Generating Content Marketing Ideas
As a team that includes copywriters specializing in SEO-optimized content, we firmly believe that the key to successful content marketing lies in embracing the ever-evolving trends and interests of your audience.
It may sound cliché, but you really don’t have to reinvent the wheel with your content. Most of the time, your audience will make it known to you what they want or need. From there, all you have to do is deliver what they ask.
By leveraging platforms like Quora, VidIQ, and viral social media posts, you can tap into a wealth of content marketing ideas that will set your digital marketing efforts ablaze.
If you’re ready to level up your content, Single Grain’s content marketing experts can help!👇
Repurposed from our Marketing School podcast.
