How to Find Great Content Ideas for Your Blogs, Books, Articles, Videos and Podcasts

By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Sumi_Olson]Sumi Olson
One of the difficulties people face in creating content for their blogs, articles, reports, videos and podcasts is coming up with exciting and original ideas on a regular basis. The pressure to find new, interesting content often deters people from continuing with their projects. This article looks at some proven stress-free strategies for finding great ideas for content that your audience will enjoy.
One of the most effective ways of finding content ideas that are relevant to your niche is go direct to your niche and see what topics that are being discussed. Your niche will have concerns, interests, questions and anxieties which they need or want to have addressed. By keeping track of the burning issues with which your niche is absorbed, you'll be provided with appropriate themes that you can develop for your publishing output.
Keep note of the topics categories that appear on niche sites and keep files with the same heading where you can drop ideas and content as you do your research.
So let's at look at the online and offline methods that will help you keep up with your niche audience:
Special Interest Forums
Your niche community congregates on niche forums where they spend time discussing matters that they find of interest. Many of you will have already become a member of these forum sites to help you develop relationships and raise your profile within the community. Take time to see what topics are coming up time and again in chat-rooms and use the questions or queries as titles for your new content.
For example, if you are interested in parenting issues, visiting sites such as mums.net or netmums, will give you a lot of information on topic themes for your publishing programme. Use the chat-rooms to find out the issues that are concerning parents and how the community is helping each other resolve them. You'll notice a pattern developing as parents of different experience levels discuss common issues such as toilet training, weaning, night-time sleeping, bed-wetting, sibling rivalry and so on.
This can provide you with a structure to work with - taking each topic as a specific theme, you can produce a series of articles, podcasts, videos, blogs and even a book.
Special Interest Magazines & Publications
Whether print or digital, these SIMs (Special Interest Magazines) are a great source of ideas for content creators. Look at the headings that they use and again think of them as folder categories into which you can pull together ideas. What sort of topics do they discuss in each issue? Use the articles and the letters pages as inspiration from which you can create new content of your own.
Use the SIM to find out who the leading experts are in your field so you can approach them for interviews and quotes. You can use this material to create new content and by using experts that are known in your niche, you add credibility to your brand.
LinkedIn
If you are creating content for business or professional market, LinkedIn is a great resource for content publishers. Use the Answers Centre & Group discussion areas as a supply of content ideas that have a real relevance to your target niche. The Question & Answers section is divided into category headings and sub-topics - again, something that you can adopt for your own themes and categories.
LinkedIn Members post questions to which they seek answers from the general LinkedIn community. Use the questions and the supplied answers as the starting point for your own material and even as case studies and examples. Again, if you find someone showing real expertise on a topic, invite them to take part in an interview (written, audio or video) on the subject which you can release as a video, podcast or transcribe into a longer article for release.
LinkedIn Members join Groups which are relevant to their subject interest and expertise. Here again, they share knowledge and experience which you can use as springboards to new content. You can use the discussion posts as an indication of what issues and concerns your niche is concerned with and create content that provides solutions and answers to match.
Google Keywords
As part of your traffic-driving strategies, you'll be using keywords to make sure your content is visible on search engine results but it is a valuable strategic tool which you can use to create targeted content for your niche.
Use the Google Keywords feature to see what sort of phrases and keywords appear when people search for websites in your niche. Seeing how people are phrasing their questions can be very revealing as it will show you what's on their minds. You can frame your content to reflect the implicit concerns that these keywords represent.
For example, if you are interested in dogs, on a general level, you can see that people are interested in dog illnesses, dog breeds, dog breeders, dog foods, dog behaviour and so on. Within those general themes, you can find that there are certain questions and keywords that appear more frequently - these keyword and phrases will reveal the themes from which you can create more focused and targeted content.
Blogs & Articles
Successful content publishers take note of other people's success and use it as an inspiration to develop content of their own. Articles and blogs can provide you with the germ of an idea that you can take further and add your own unique touch.
Use article directories and blog directories as a reference point - again, category and sub-category headings are useful starting points for general themes. From there, you can drill down and find out what topics are popular and to what degree. You will need to decide whether you want to add to an already crowded field or to make a name for yourself in creating content in an area that is less well serviced.
Your research will tell you whether those topics that have few articles and blogs are due to the difficulty of the subject. But the key fact about niche markets is that within that niche, there will always be people interested in content. If you can provide relevant, interesting, entertaining or informative content that meets this niche's needs, you will find your content will valued in this community. It's not size but quality that matters...
YouTube
Finally, YouTube is another resource that will provide you with a wealth of new publishing opportunities. Using the strategies discussed above, it will help you gauge what are the core topics that your niche is searching for. Use the download and viewing figures to see how popular a topic is but bear in mind that it will also reflect on the quality and standard of the video itself.
Use the advance search option to refine your search and look at how people are creating content within your niche. Subscribe to channels which offer content which is relevant to what you're looking for. Make sure that you're adding relevant tags to your own video content so that your own pieces appear more prominently on searches too.
Don't forget that your own videos can be turned into other forms of content - transcriptions can be converted into blogs and articles and extended into book form. You can also offer an audio version as podcasts. Cross-referencing your various publishing formats means that you can drive traffic to each format, raise your SEO rating (Search Engine Optimisation) and overall brand visibility within your niche.
Again, using YouTube in this way provides another opportunity to connect with experts who can provide you with content through interviews and collaborations.
Using the resources and techniques listed above, you will find yourself a continuous supply of fresh content ideas that will have a direct relevance to your niche. As you become accustomed to thinking laterally for content, you'll see opportunities arising from a wide range of sources. By becoming expert in sourcing ideas for compelling content, you'll free yourself from the pressure and anxieties that afflict other content publishers in your niche.
Sumi Olson is the author of the Amazon five-star rated, "How to Manage Your Social Media Marketing in 30 Minutes A Day", and is an author, speaker and consultant on social media & business development. With 25 years' experience in book publishing, business development, online selling, sales & marketing, Sumi is expert in reducing overwhelm and turning insights into implementation.
If you want to satisfy your publishing or writing aspirations, meet your sales, marketing & management objectives, or achieve your social media & online marketing targets, then Sumi Olson can give you the tools and knowledge you need.
With a young family of her own, she's passionate about helping people create a great work-life balance through practical systems & processes so that they can spend more time on the things that matter in life.
Connect with her on Twitter (@sumiolson), LinkedIn http://uk.linkedin.com/in/sumiolson or visit [http://www.learningbusinessskills.com]http://www.learningbusinessskills.com.
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?How-to-Find-Great-Content-Ideas-for-Your-Blogs,-Books,-Articles,-Videos-and-Podcasts&id=6704373] How to Find Great Content Ideas for Your Blogs, Books, Articles, Videos and Podcasts