This is an excerpt from our new ebook – 100 Content Ideas for Community Managers. For tips like these for Twitter and Facebook, download the eBook here .
Here’s a brainstorm of some ideas to get you started, or just keep you going.
Multi-media and Visuals
1. Do a screencast with Screenr of your product and share it on your blog.
2. Show a step-by-step guide on how to do something in a screencast, how-to video, or show the steps in a series of photos.
3. Create a music video for your company and post it on the blog.
4. Share a cartoon or create an original one.
How-to’s and Tips
5. Write a how-to article. Give instructions with screenshots or photos on the steps someone needs to take to do something.
6. Point out common mistakes in your industry and offer solutions on how to fix or avoid them.
7. Offer a list of benefits for doing something.
8. Share a list of some things to avoid.
9. Relate your how-to content to a current event or a celebrity. Example: “5 _____ Lessons from Lady Gaga” or “What the Election Teaches Us About ____”
Use Existing Content
10. Take the contrarian position – Find someone else’s article that you agree or disagree with. Introduce your blog post with what you specifically agree or disagree with it, and support your argument with a few concise points.
11. Do a weekly or daily links-roundup of relevant news for your community.
12. Find tips in other content, create a list of those tips and give links to those articles as the sources.
13. Share an excerpt from an ebook or white paper with a call to action to download it for the rest of the information.
14. Share an excerpt from an upcoming webinar with a call to action to get the rest of the content in the webinar.
15. Share your slides from a recent presentation.
16. Share conference takeaways.
17. Do a round-up of last year’s/last month’s/last week’s most popular posts.
18. Re-interpret existing content: Collect the top motivational YouTube videos for your audience, top ebooks, top webinars or infographics.
Incorporate Other Platforms
19. Create a Slideshare presentation of new statistics related to your space and share that in a blog post. Tag the Slideshare presentation with relevant keywords for your company to leverage SEO benefits of the platform.
20. Ask a question on Twitter and share the results with a Storify embed.
21. Collect Tweets from a webinar or conference hashtag, show them off with Storify and offer your own takeaways in the blog post.
Research
22. Respond to industry research with your own perspective. Offer a fresh angle to spark conversation.
23. Do a survey with Survey Monkey among your community members and create an infographic based on the results.
24. Do a poll of your Twitter community with a Twtpoll or your Facebook community with a Facebook Question and post the results on your blog.
25. Do an in-depth case study about one company, or offer a few examples of how other companies do something successfully.
Thought Leadership
26. Record an interview with an expert in your field and post it to your blog.
27. Get experts to offer a tip and do a round-up of their recommendations.
28. Feature guest posts from industry experts.
29. Publish responses to frequently asked questions about your industry.
30. Create a list of trends to watch.
31. Compare and contrast: Different products, different approaches, different companies, different people, different places, etc.
32. Do a review of other non-competitive products or services that your community cares about.
33. Be a journalist: Be the first in your space to offer industry takeaways about breaking news.
34. Explain what a current event or topic in the news means for your industry or community. Example: “What ____ Means for ____.” “Why _____ Matters for _____.”
35. De-bunk common myths.
Make it About Your Community
36. Interview your favorite customer.
36. Post a Flickr slideshow of pictures from a recent event.
37. Run a contest and give away something relevant to your community.
38. Ask for guest posts from community members.
39. If you have company news to share, talk about it in a way that makes it about the reader. Example: If someone gets promoted, talk about how why were successful. Inspire your audience.
40. Publish a post relevant to the current season or holiday.
41. Outline the top practical use cases for your product, service etc.
How do you keep the blog posts ideas coming each day for your company blog? Let us know how you stay inspired in the comments!
Inbound Marketing Blog Feed
Ben Norman 5:46 AM on September 20, 2011
Helpful article. Always good to have a list like this for reference to get those creative juices flowing.
I've noticed 'Community' style posts do really well in the past, especially when it comes to engagement.
Bridgette Wilson 9:00 AM on September 20, 2011
This is great! Because Writer's BLOCK is a beast!!!
janet aronica 10:00 AM on September 20, 2011
@Ben @Bridgette - Glad you found these ideas helpful :)
Naomi Pierce 10:08 AM on September 20, 2011
i went to screenr.com, but their training video which is supposed to play on iphones didnt't play on my ipad. Has anyone else had this experience with them? Thanks for a great article.
janet aronica 10:22 AM on September 20, 2011
@naomi - I've used Screenr for many a screencast. Works like a charm :) Not sure what's up with the training video today but it really is a great tool.
Love Home Improvements 11:32 AM on September 20, 2011
Excellent tips! Great idea to relate it back to a current event - this could help gain visitors too, since current events are likely to be commonly searched.
luyong2258 2:47 AM on September 21, 2011
How can you keep the blog post ideas flowing?
How can you keep the content fresh and prevent yourself from re-hashing the same old thing.
This is the hardest
luyong83@yahoo.com 3:01 AM on September 21, 2011
Thank you to share!
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Sherry at SkyHawk Studios 1:12 PM on September 21, 2011
Janet, these are very relevant and helpful tips. It's always a challenge to come up with new ideas to blog about. Our solution has been, when we run out of our own ideas,is to post a great article we've found on someone else's blog. We don't post every day and sometimes it's only twice a month, but when we do, it's about something that really matters to our audience, something helpful to them.
Janet Aronica 1:40 PM on September 21, 2011
@Sherry - It's definitely a challenge coming up with new ideas. My advice would be not to repost articles you've found on someone else's blog because of a duplicate content penalty - where basically a search engine is going to give credit to that other blog for having that post and content up before you... the search engine will see them as more authoritative. Even though you're getting content up on your site and some traffic in the short term, doing this on a consistent basis will hurt you in the long run because Google won't see your blog as authoritative as the ones you are reposting from. Would also recommend blogging more than once a month if you can - our research shows that there is a strong, direct relation to the # of leads you generate and how many times you post. I'd suggest making an editorial calendar with your ideas and committing to a schedule of 2x a week or 1x a week and increasing your number of posts as you're able to scale. Guest bloggers and freelancers are two things that may help you create the amount of content you want to create. Good luck!
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