Stuck for blogging ideas? Help is at hand

We’re a little way into the season now and I hope your autumn campaign is well under way. It’s probably at about this time that your commitment starts to wane (sorry, did I hit a nerve?). You had all those great ideas back in the summer while lying in the sun and promised yourself that you would find the time, but…

Well first of all, don’t beat yourself up because it happens to us all. And better still, don’t worry, because this week I thought I’d throw out 15 super easy ways to come up with some blogging ideas to help get you unblocked. Ready?

1. Re-read your old content. Is there anything there that needs updating or could be re-written and re-purposed into a new post?

2. Spend an hour or two reading up on industry news. It’ll bring you up to date and is bound to generate some ideas.

3. Read what your competitors have been up to. I don’t mean copy their ideas but something there may inspire you or you may disagree with their perspective (and of course it will keep you informed of what they’re up to as well).

4. Do a roundup of recent developments. Direct your readers to interesting information. Tell them what the industry A listers have been up to … you may even enjoy some of the halo effect.

5. Explore related industries. What’s out there that dovetails with what you do? If you’re a health insurance provider – look further a field. Consider inviting a healthier lifestyle, nutritionist or fitness expert to guest blog.

6. Write a product or book review.

7. Have a potter round Pinterest. If you’re in a creative industry or you’re a visual sort of person this often throws up all sorts of ideas.

8. Do some free thinking or brain storming. Jot random thoughts down on a piece of paper and see where they take you. Get the team to join in if you have one. Think beyond the norm. Some obvious ideas may come up but park them up and see if there are any more interesting ideas a bit deeper.

9. Down tools and go for a walk, a run or a swim. Or just do something completely different (watching TV or playing on your tablet doesn’t count). You want either to stimulate the blood flow or do something that requires a little bit of brain activity …draw, make something, mend something. The act of doing something different often stimulates ideas.

10. Read a book or magazine. A cracking good novel or some well written articles about something completely unrelated to what you do often helps fire up those creative juices!

11. Keep a swipe file. This works well in conjunction with a notebook. Every time you read or see something that contains something interesting or just a seed of an idea, add it to your swipe file. Jot down ideas as and when you have them and you should find you have a great source of materials and ideas whenever you need them.

12. Start building up a bank of other resources. It’s up to you how you organise them. But have a handful of websites, news feeds, blogs etc. that you know post thought provoking material, so that you can tap into them whenever you need to.

13. Ask. Next time you go networking, as part of your one minute pitch, ask fellow attendees what they would find useful. If networking isn’t your thing, ask on your social media channels or by email or your newsletter.

14. Write a jargon buster or “my industry explained” type post.

15. Don’t blog at all! Do a post that is predominantly photos, images, video or graphics! In fact video is pulling in some amazing stats at the moment and is relatively easy to do.

Keep a notebook by your bed and about your person all the time. If you’re the digital type, use something like Evernote. Ideas pop up all over the place but are all too easily forgotten. And the good news is the more you write, the more ideas you’ll come up with.

So do it now. Look at the list above and see if you can’t come up with 12 ideas. Just them down in your notebook and you’ve got enough blog ideas to write one a week, right up to the end of the year!

I hope that helped. Next week (in reference to the fact that even as this is post is being published I’ll be delivering a workshop about “mail”), next week I’ll be posting some how to write mail tips. Stay tuned.