5 Ways to Generate Content Ideas When You Have Writer’s Block

Come up with great ideas — even when you think have none

“I wish I was an influencer. They have it so easy — all they have to do is take photos for a living,” said the person who’s never had to create a piece of content for their job.

Influencers and bloggers get a bad rep. From the outside looking in, 9–5ers think all they do is take aesthetically pleasing pictures against pretty walls all day long. But there’s a lot more that goes into it we don’t see on the backend.

Content creation. It’s become a modern-day art form. It’s what provides influencers and bloggers with compensation, but it’s also what businesses and service providers are using to market themselves online these days.

Whether it’s Instagram, TikTok, or LinkedIn, the need to create content that engages your audience is at an all-time high. How else are you going to generate sales and set yourself apart from the crowd? Unfortunately, it’s easy to burn out on content ideas and fall temporarily ill with writer’s block.

Here are some simple ways to generate content ideas, even when you think you have none.

Read your comments

Your audience has probably already provided you with pages worth of content. You’re just not paying attention.

Read your comments! Check your DMs! What are your followers asking about? For example, back in July, I wrote an article titled 20 Foods to Thrive on a Plant-Based Diet. Several people left comments asking me if I could write more articles focusing on particular foods, how to stay consistent with a plant-based diet, and more.

See? Just there, those readers gave me some fresh content ideas. Now, when I’m running low on article ideas, I can turn to that.

AnswerThePublic.com

AnswerThePublic.com allows you to search a topic, brand, product, or word and see what questions people are searching for as it’s related to your niche.

Let’s say you’re a vegan protein powder company. A quick search for “vegan protein powder” will bring you these results:

Now, you can take some of these questions and form them into your own personalized pieces of content for social media.

Question forums

Ever heard of a little place called Reddit? What about Quora?

Platforms like these have niche sub-spaces where people can ask questions. It’s simple and free to join these forums and look at the questions people are asking there. Answering their questions equals a piece of valuable content for you. Cha-ching.

Market research

Market research is simply gathering information from consumers to gauge their needs and preferences. It gives you an inside look at what consumers are thinking so that you can craft pieces of content marketed directly towards them.

Social media platforms like Instagram are making it easier than ever to perform market research without hardly lifting a finger. Enter: the polls feature and “ask me questions” box. You can post these to your stories while asking specific questions to your followers and see what they’re feeling. Another way is to perform market research is to ask your most engaged followers what they want to see from you!

Repurpose old content

Why do more work when you don’t need to? Take a stroll down memory lane to look at your top-performing posts and the ones that generated the most engagement. Now, think about how you can repurpose those old pieces of content for the present. After all, they performed well for a reason!

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Am I right?

Final Thoughts

Being consistent with creating content can be tough. When you’re running a business and have a million things on your mind at one time, sitting down to write out Instagram posts or make a TikTok may seem like mission impossible.

It doesn’t have to always be an uphill battle. Often, content ideas are much closer to us than we may think. All it takes is stepping into your ideal clients’ shoes and answering the questions they’re asking.