I’m participating in Connie Ragen Green’s Productivity Challenge right now (find out more by going here), and I’ve committed to blogging every day. It’s good practice for me and, to be honest, I’ve got plenty to say. But if you’re struggling to come up with ideas to produce content (blogging, social media posting, creating videos, etc.), you might need some ideas to get you started.
When you are trying to come up with content ideas for your niche, you can use a few basic starters for the content that will work for literally any niche. Once you have these nine ideas, you can break them down into individual points for blog posts, podcasts, videos, eBooks and more.
- Make a List of Good Points – Every niche has some good points about it that your target audience might find interesting. You can write Seven Awesome Things about XYZ and it always fits. Seven Awesome Things about Eating Veggies works, so that means any type of idea will work.
- Make a List of Bad Points – Just like the good points will work, you can twist it and write the opposite. When you’re known for being for something, being against it can grab your audience’s attention. Using the veggie idea from above, assuming your niche is a vegan blog, you can turn it into Seven Reasons You Don’t Want to Eat Veggies – then make it a funny article saying things like “You hate being healthy” or something like that.
- Ask (and Answer) a Question – This is a great way to come up with ideas to create content. You can use questions actually asked directly of you, or you can search for questions on any website, blog, forum or social media network that you’ve seen within your niche.
- Make a List of Facts – This can work really great for content ideas since in reality there are going to be far more than seven or ten facts about your niche. You can literally do this trick as often as you can come up with a list of facts in relation to your niche.
- Make a List of Misconceptions – Just like there are facts, there are almost always misconceptions about your niche. Perhaps you host a niche website or blog about the subject of bird watching. You can write many articles or create many YouTube videos addressing misconceptions about various breeds of birds or even misconceptions about equipment used in bird watching.
- Give the Best Advice for Solutions – For each niche there are various problems with corresponding solutions that you are likely offering to the audience. You can use this fact to help create content focused on the best solutions and the best advice for using the solutions properly.
- Give the Worst Advice for Solutions – Conversely, there are always some solutions that don’t work or that are a bad idea. Why not write about the bad ideas, the bad solutions, and the answers that don’t work, and then turn it around to offer your own solution after talking about what’s wrong with the other ideas.
- Tell the Top Three Beginning Ideas – In any niche there is a very basic beginning to consider. Starting at the very beginning is often forgotten because it seems so elementary to you, but to someone who is new to the niche it will not seem like minutia, it will seem super interesting and important.
- Be Controversial – Sometimes, being controversial is a great way to get more ideas for content. You can find a blog post that a mover and shaker talked about and tell why you agree or disagree. You can also connect some content with current events. A word of warning here—don’t be controversial in a way that will turn off your audience. In the end, some people may agree with you and others may disagree, but the people that disagree are more likely to remember the negative association. So be controversial, but be careful. For more about controversial marketing, check out this article on Forbes.
These content ideas can work for any niche. Just plug in your niche to the ideas and see for yourself. You’ll soon have a plethora of ideas and will never run out of them, so that you can generate content on a regular basis for your niche.
If you have other ways to generate ideas for content, please feel free to comment and share.
[…] my own advice from this blog post—Nine Content Ideas for Any Niche—I thought I would share Seven Awesome Things About Marketing for Small Business. Here’ what […]