Content Marketing

How To Never Run Out of Blog Post Ideas

If you run a blog, constantly coming up with ideas can be grueling. Especially if you’re always waiting until you sit down to write before you brainstorm.

I’m a creative person, but I don’t think I’m more creative than most other writers. However, I, in my average-level creativity, literally never run out of ideas for posts. I’m always backlogged with a dozen too many things to write.

How is that possible? The answer is that hundreds of story ideas are under my nose every day.

Every thing that happens in your life is an opportunity to create content.

It’s all about combined relevance. Combined relevance is creating a compound idea out of two different, relatable things.

If you’re a blogger, the first part of the combo is your topic. Gadgets. Knitting. Whatever. The second part comes from your life. Television. Current events. Zombies. Etc.

My secret to never ending story ideas is this: any even that occurs – any conversation I have; any movie, ad, or person I see; any meeting I go to (whether it sucks or not); any thing I overhear or observe on the street; any blog or news story I read – all of it is fuel for story ideas.

I went to an interesting conference the other day. I got 4 posts about it, taking the smallest points from speakers and turning them into full stories.

  • I went to a totally boring conference a while back. I wrote a post about it.
  • I got stuck in an airport and missed a conference the other day. I wrote a post recapping what I read about it on Twitter.
  • I had an insightful conversation with a mentor the other day. I wrote about one of the insights.
  • I gave a speech that totally bombed the other day. I’m writing a post about what I learned.
  • I read great blogs all the time. I use them as inspiration for my own posts, both riffs and rebuttals.
  • When people ask me questions, I write posts about them. When I have a question about something, I find the answer, and then write a post about it.

Whether your interactions are tangential to your blog topic or not, you can use them. Gadget Tips That Would Have Saved Tiger Woods or What Knitters Can Learn From Kung Fu Movies are both very viable and potentially interesting combined relevance posts. In fact, combining disparate topics in this way can help you get readers that don’t hang out in your normal haunts to come check you out.

I’ve never so much as knitted a sock, but now I really want to know what Kung Fu has to do with it!


Never run out of post ideas

 

11 Steps To Neverending Story Ideas:

1. Keep a notebook with you everywhere you go

2. Write down story ideas from people you run into

3. Write down story ideas from conversations you have

4. Write down story ideas from things you see

5. Write down story ideas from movies you watch

6. Write down story ideas from other blogs you read

7. Write down story ideas from news you hear about

8. Write down story ideas from conferences you go to

9. Write down story ideas from successes you see

10. Write down story ideas from mistakes you make

11. When you don’t know something, learn it. Then write about it.

Image by Flickr

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