If you’re creating content for your business on the schedule you should, you know you have to create content regularly. How should you come up with new content ideas when you have writer’s block? We’ll share our top tips!
Forget words at all (overcome writer’s block by not writing a thing!)*
Video, photography, illustration and infographics don’t even NEED words. If you’re struggling with writing enough content, give up the writing part! You only need a good idea, a few notes to remind yourself, a practice or two and you can go live on your social media channels or record video to insert into email, blog and vlog posts.
If you’re not keen on being on video, try photography! You don’t have to be IN the image, you can take photographs of stylized products and craft a post around visual inspiration. Ten to twelve images can easily become a blog post. You WILL need to craft a good headline, and some captions to maximize search, but if your images are named with the searched headline (for example do not name them IMG2783.jpg, but rather “how to style fabrics for our the new Madison jacket sewing pattern” ) they will be found in image search on Google.
A vlog should have a summary of the video in it, but if you start with a video embed, from YouTube or Vimeo, then add in a headline and a short summary, your video will be searchable. Add the same short description to your YouTube or Vimeo video on those platforms too.
Selling services? Video is awesome for that! Your prospective customers get to see YOU! You can use photos too, just make them inspirational – book covers, outdoor landscapes, what your customer gets are all good ideas. We sell services (marketing tech coaching & web development) but our customers get awesome websites they can manage, so we show photos of what they were able to build with our help.
*you still need words! Just fewer of them.
Come up with a new angle for your photos
Take your products on the road/outside/to a new spot. Literally giving yourself a new angle on your products or services can inspire new content. For instance, if you’re a travel agent, you know sharing photos of amazing destinations will get customers calling if they’re ready to book that trip, but if you craft a cocktail inspired by a location, take it out to your deck or patio, share a recipe and a photo – and customers who aren’t traveling right now will be inspired to try your recipe (and remember you and your business much more clearly than if they just zoomed on by a pretty vacation photo on Instagram.)
The same holds true for product photography. Getting out into a memorable place – particularly one that your customers might recognize – is a great way to liven up your social posting. After all, you’re not just sharing a post, you’re sharing a moment, an experience.
Go behind the scenes in your business
Most businesses do not share enough about what goes on behind the business to their customers. What you think is typical or mundane becomes interesting to people who don’t work in your business all the time. Photos and videos work well for BTS posts and they are easy to create because you rarely have to script – just walk around and talk about what is going on. Most businesses have a lot they can share behind the scenes. For instance, this blog: How to come up with new content ideas when you have writer’s block? came as a result of a question our client asked US! This same client struggles with writing so we suggested photographic content instead and she’s excelled at short words and lots of photos!
Answer the last question you received
Was that question “how much does a website cost?” (I got that one last week!) Whatever the question, answer it in clear, professional detail. What you do is mysterious to customers. When I answered that question, I didn’t say “it depends”, I answered it with “it’s a little like building a house” – and proceeded to tell the story of a website build (complex, rental real estate) that was done in the same time – and for a related client – as having my own house built. Granted, the website wasn’t $287,000, (house was) but the parallels between making decisions in complex projects is very similar. YOU are the expert, so your answers carry credible weight. Don’t bullet point this – Google will just scoop up that bullet list and show it instead of encouraging the click over to your website. Make it a detailed, opinionated, informed answer.
People can google anything. What they’re looking for is an expert OPINION and some help getting there. That’s your opportunity!
These four ways to answer the dreaded “How to come up with new content ideas when you have writer’s block” should get you past writer’s block. Creating informative, engaging and entertaining content is important for all businesses. How you choose to get that out (social, video, blog, email, snail mail) is the subject for (many) more articles. But you’ve got to have it ready to go when you’re ready to send it!
Want a few fast ideas? Download our “25 Content Ideas for your Blog” here:
