Have you ever felt that lump of abject dread in your stomach when you stared at the keyboard, trying to fuel ideas for new content?
Fear no more! It’s time to start creating content! And not just any content – shareable content!
While producing new content daily is a lofty goal that not all of us can achieve, I have full confidence you can develop at least one piece for each week of the year.
To get your creative juices flowing, here are concepts that will inspire you to put together infinitely shareable content. Use one a week and you’ll be good to go!
Products and Services Content
You are the expert on your products and services. Your audience looks to you to provide them with details, both high-level and in-depth. This is your opportunity to educate without being overly pushy.
Try to avoid the hard sell. Instead, provide material that opens prospects’ eyes to the benefits and unique aspects that your products and services offer. You can even use humor, like in the hilarious “living with lag” video or the marvelous Squatty Potty video (though I’m not sure I’ll ever look at ice cream in the same way again).
For instance, here are some product and services related ideas for creating content:
- Overviews of your offerings
- Guides that discuss the differences between your offerings
- How-tos that show people specific features
- New features and services
- Big picture explanations for why specific features or offerings are important
- Security features
- Definitions of terms related to your area of service
- Tricks and tips
- Checklists to make using your products or services easier
- Answers to frequently asked customer questions
- Customer guest posts about why they chose your offering
- Case studies or use cases
- Customer review round-ups
Don’t forget to visualize!
Market Expertise Content
Besides being an expert on your own offerings, it’s important to show your audience that you know about the market in general. Curation is a great way to show you know your way around the market – and if you use the right tools, it will help you speed up your content creation process. You can also create your own pieces to show you have deep knowledge in your area of expertise.
Becoming a resource for market-related knowledge helps build trust, confidence, and loyalty. It also gives you a way to connect with other companies in related areas, partners, influencers, and more.
For example, you can create content like:
- Topic guides
- Glossaries of market terms
- Round-ups of blogs that provide great knowledge of your market
- Round-ups of influencers in your market
- Product comparisons (remember not to bias these too much in your favor or they will look unreliable)
- Vertically-oriented focus pieces (for example, based around healthcare, retail, SaaS, etc.)
- Research – your own, others’, or a combination of the two
Personal Content
Whether you are a B2C or a B2B company, it’s good to give your business a personality. Show that you are more than your products and services. You are an organization made up of a group of fascinating people. You have experts. You have fun souls. Make a connection with your audience on a human-to-human basis.
Searching for a great example of business humanization? Look no further than Zappos, who has an entire Twitter feed focused on its fantastic employees.
Ready to try humanizing your own business? Try focusing your creation efforts on:
- Employee profiles
- Company history
- Product history
- Partner stories
- Fun company and local activities
- Tours of the office
- Employee hobbies
Bonus: Recycled Content
Still not convinced you have sufficient material to fuel your content marketing efforts? If 52 ideas aren’t enough for you, remember that you can take each of the posts you create and reuse them to make new pieces.
For instance, take your current articles (or the ones you write using the ideas listed in this article) and create:
- Roundups of articles, research, graphics, etc.
- Infographics
- Newsletter
- Slides
- Videos
- Podcasts
- Photo albums
- Updated posts (add new media or info) that you repost
The possibilities for creating engaging, shareable content are endless. With this list of 52 content ideas, you have a solid starting point to fuel your content marketing efforts all year long. Pick the ideas that best align with your brand voice, expertise, and audience interests. Then, put your own creative spin on them to develop truly unique content.
Remember that high-quality content requires time and effort. Don’t feel pressured to churn out posts just for the sake of publishing something new. Take your time to thoughtfully develop content that provides real value.
The payoff will come when your audience eagerly awaits and engages with the helpful, humanized content you provide. They’ll come to see your brand as an indispensable resource and partner. That’s the power of amazing content.