You're well on your way to internet marketing success once you have a blog up and running. But what do you do when you sit down to write and nothing comes to mind? I've got a few things that can help inspire those creative juices inside you just clamoring to get out.
- Inform your audience about your company – Is there anything about your business you want your readers to know? Any new products? Any new hires? Expanding into a new market?
- Inform your audience about your products – Nobody likes an overly promotional blog, but you can provide information on the products you offer. Why should your readers use it? How can it change their life? What problems does it solve?
- News items – Is there anything in the news related to your industry that you could comment about or respond to? Is there any industry specific news you think your readers should know about?
- New Videos – Find any videos you'd like to share? They don't have to be produced by you, just find a way to relate it to your audience. Or produce a video! Just take a camera around the office and introduce your staff.
- Tutorials – Can you think of anything you might be able to teach your audience how to do?
- Tools of the Trade – Use any tools on a regular basis that would be fun to show your audience?
- Tips and Tricks – Little pearls of wisdom that your readers will truly enjoy. Provide insight into how they can improve their life with your industry.
- A Challenge – Can you issue a challenge to your audience? Encourage them to do something and report about it in your comments.
- A Question – Find out about your audience. An incredibly useful question to pose them is to ask what they want to hear from you! You'll learn a ton about their favorite content and gain valuable insight into needs they have that you can solve.
- A Poll – Similar to a question you can ask them, but more targeted. Like, "Which of our products do you use most?"
- Build a Content Reserve – Not technically a source of inspiration when faced with writer's block, you can avoid having to write during a slump all together if you create a reserve batch of blog posts when you actually are feeling creative. Then when the motivation sags, just grab a post from your reserve and get some rest!
- Ask your employees for ideas or guest posts – Get some insight from those close to you and even get one of them to write the post for you. You may be surprised at how willing people are.
- Interview Someone – Either on a video or just text, an interview with an informed individual in your industry can provide great variety and insight for your audience.
- Solicit Articles from your Audience – Maybe you can request some user reviews for a specific product and compile them.
- Break up Complex Post Ideas into Parts – If you have an idea that is just too long to include in one post, break it up into a multiple part series. This way your readers don't lose interest and you can have blog post ideas to add to your content reserve.
- Look to Pop Culture – It may be fun to try relate your industry to something completely unrelated. Think, "What I learned about plumbing from watching Toy Story" or "Why Batman Would make a Terrible Restaurant Manager". I bet you can find plenty of resources that would actually be fun to write about.
- Tell About Yourself - How did you get into the business you're in? What did you do when you were younger? What education/training do you have? When you're at a loss for ideas, a personal anecdote could be just what you need. And you'll have the chance to relate on a personal level with your audience. Some great conversations have come out of these types of posts.
- Reveal Part of Your Inner Workings – This could be done with many of the previous tips as well. You have a audience who is interested in what you do and you want to build relationships with them. Show them something a customer doesn't normally get to see. Maybe ask them to narrow down your next brochure ideas. Give them a review of your hiring procedures. You could even go as far as holding a contest for a new logo or something similar!
- Choose a Common Idea and Reverse It – These are always popular posts to read. You can take a task but teach it by listing how NOT to do it like "How Not to Run a Political Campaign". You can also take a commonly accepted industry truth and write a post contradicting it like "Why Miracle Grow is Killing Your Plants". You'll find you generate lots of curiosity and hopefully a little controversy in the process.
- Feature a "Best Comments" Post - If you have a blog with active users you can go through old posts and build a list of the best (or worst) or your favorite/most insightful comments for others to benefit from (or get a good laugh). Many blog readers don't bother to read the comments so this could be very helpful.
Now, if you can't find something to post about in there you should just step away and take a break! Do you have any suggestions for finding inspiration in your blog postings? I'd love to hear about them below!
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