Yesterday I woke up and knew I should publish a fresh blog post, but didn't really have anything in mind...
Does that ever happen to you?? 😉
A good starting point for creating content is always keyword research, but there are other sources for great content ideas as well.
I decided to pop into Gmail and knock out that task first real quick. Right there in my Inbox was an email from someone with a great question. He wanted to know how to use social media. This was the first link in a chain of events, and I'll share with you how that unfolded in detail for easy content development ideas...
Email is a Great Source For Content Ideas
If you get questions by email, or even on Twitter & Facebook, these are one of your best sources for content ideas. While you'll always want to respond publicly when someone addresses you via Social Media, you're limited on space.
You can easily expand on that in a detailed blog post and then come back and add that as an addition to your original (short) answer.
But email is a different story. Here you are only communicating with ONE person. And once that email is sent, the reply you wrote (content!) is gone forever.
UNLESS you repurpose it into a great blog post.
Often I will write my response as a blog post, and then reply with the link and a "thank you" for the topic & inspiration. (Note: I never use their full name or personal details in my post without permission)
The Chain of Events Begins...
As I said, yesterday I was browsing through Gmail and I had an email from Shawn about how to use social media. <- You can see the actual question at that link. You'll also see that I replied to that question with a 1,359 word blog post. Never write to one person when you can write to the whole world.
Would it be a waste to send a 1,359 word reply to ONE person by email? Yes. Especially if you know that other people in your market are interested in that same information. You certainly wouldn't want to reply individually to each person that asked you a similar question.
Instead, you can point each new person that asks to the ONE blog post. 😉
One Thought Leads To Another
It took me about 90 minutes to write that post, which reminded me of a recent question I was asked over lunch. Since I was thinking it, I saved my Draft and hopped over to share that thought & question on my Facebook page:
This created "content" that got a nice response - 9 likes and 19 comments (so far). And yes, every social media update is "content". Google considers anything that resides on it's own URL to be "a page".
So a single update like this is a page in the eyes of Google. And this particular "page" is full of relevant user-generated content - that of course links back to my profile which links back to my site...
From Blog Content to Social Media Content
Once I published the blog post, I shared the link on both Facebook and Twitter. Here you can see a number of people shared & retweeted my post:
You'll notice in MY tweet that I invited them to add ideas & resources of their own to the post. This was to encourage comments, of course.
I later shared the link to that post as a resource on Social Media during the #indiebizchat Twitter Chat. I was asked how Affiliates could effectively use Social Media (and if they should), and the link was shared and retweeted again during and after that live chat as well.
One Post Leads To Another!
To put a little icing on the content cake, I created a second blog post detailing out how and why I wrote that one.
You're reading it right now. 😀
I thought you might enjoy an inside peek at how I come up with content on the fly, and the chain of events that takes it from idea to publishing to sharing...
Best,
p.s. Like these tips? Sign up at Easy Unique Content for more! 😉
About Lynn Terry
Thanks for sharing! It's true, when I first started my blog I had a mountain of great ideas and I wrote them all down and for awhile, I had a nice list to go off of. I've pretty much exhausted that list, and now writing my blog requires a little more effort and you offer some great tips on how to tackle this problem.
It really IS pretty amazing how one thing just led to another to another.
Thanks for the post.
Hi Lynn, beautiful and clear article (as always).
I was wondering, when you ask to publish real names what is the outcome? I mean, is there any risk to annoy our user?
Second question, I'm trying to extract something good from Facebook, but I find it difficult. Do you now if there is some smart "search tool" to analyze FB content? For example, following your advice from this article, I would like to find the most relevant pages about a specific niche, then look at them to spot the most frequent questions or doubts, to use as a source for articles. Using the Search function of FB doesn't get me anywhere, I have to "dig" into a pile of disorganized results.
Finally, completely off topic, I just made a mistake and ask for your friendship in FB in the wrong place... Just ignore it!
Thank you very much for what you're doing in this strange, digital world, you're really helping me A LOT!
Ciao from Italy, Luca
Sometimes it could be very hard to find new interesting content. I usually set up alerts on specific subjects, so when something new is published i'll get notified in my RSS reader. I sometimes use Yahoo answers to find relevant questions and answer them in a form of a post. Many people are complaining from not being able to find good content ideas. But the fact is that we're not in the late nineties. Content ideas are everywhere (your approach of emails is a great example). Someone could literally brainstorm dozens of post ideas in just a few minutes.
I do the exact same thing, Lynn.
Except for me, it is usually in forums.
On many occasions I have found myself answering a question in a forum in great detail.
If I find that my forum post is going to be several hundred words, I immediately stop and cut and paste it to my blog as a blog post with the original question as the title.
I say...why give the forum great UGC when I can give it to myself???
Great post, Lynn...:)
Mark
Definitely, aside making money from your email list, you can get a fantastic product idea from subscribers. That is why building an email list is vital to business research, profiting and overall internet presence. I'm elated to have read your post today Lynn. Keep up the good work and do make a post on outsourcing. I'm currently thinking in that direction but need a headup. Hope you don't mind!
It's an interesting concept, writing something that bears fruit and then seeds that sprout new ideas and articles. Should try that myself.
This is what I've been doing lately to come up with content as well. I get a lot of emails and decided after responding to each and every one, sometimes it's better to address a topic in a really good blog post. And you took it a step further by putting it out there on social media.
Lynn you never cease to amaze me on how to maximize resources effectively! 🙂
Lynn,
Great post as usual. I've noticed that some of your ClickNewz emails give a summary of your blog postings, while others contain separate content (such as additional resources and tips). What content do you prefer to send only in your ClickNewz emails and not on your blog or social media?
Content ideas come from many directions but from me mostly the people I speak with. Writing about conversations I've had and maybe embellish them a bit.