Remember the magical days when you first started writing blogs to market your business?
You’d gaze into your computer’s screen, and your computer would gaze back, inviting you to continue blogging. Your fingers would dance across its keyboard composing blog posts beautiful enough to frame..
While you’re still passionate about your business, blogging can become a bit monotonous, even naggy. Do you find yourself clicking the publish button like a chore?
Don’t settle for a fizzled out blog. These 6 unexpected places are sure to put the spark back in your content and rekindle your relationship with blogging.
1. Chatter on the Web
The latest buzz makes for great blog material. It may not fall into the evergreen content category, but it attracts plenty of traffic while it’s relevant. Tools like Google Alerts and Social Mention make it easy to stay in the loop with industry news.
2. Gram and Gramp’s House
Are you sure you’re blogging from every angle? You may take your own knowledge for granted. You’ve been in your industry for however many years and consequently have reached an expert-level of understanding.
While some blog posts can target individuals like yourself, you should put yourself in a wide range of shoes- for example, Gram and Gramp’s shoes. Are your grandparents walking, talking, tech-savvy webmasters? Your niche likely involves some level of technology and it’s important to remember the folks who aren’t quite so techy.
Next time you pay Gram and Gramp a visit, ask them what questions they have about your business and services.
3. Your Enemy’s Fortress
Spying on competitors online is a great way to get inspired. Instead of using all your valuable time testing which topics are great and which are flops, study their blog posts.
Which posts have the most shares and interaction? Go that direction with your own future blog posts.
4. A College Campus
We’ve covered the old, but what about the young?
Important note: You may not want to take this literally. If you get caught loitering around a college campus too long people might get the wrong idea.
For a less creepy approach, chat with the late teens and twenty-something-year-olds you already know. Ask them what they know and what they don’t know about your niche.
While they may not be your target audience yet, they may be soon as they grow older. Younger generations have a unique approach to shopping, to brush up on these marketing tactics check out this post about how millennials shop.
5. Websites With Negative Reviews
These can be helpful in a couple of different ways. Reading negative reviews on your own business will alert you of any misunderstanding users have around your products or services. You are then able to clear those points up with blogs for future customers.
Negative reviews on the products of competitors can be particularly useful. By identifying the weaknesses consumers note, you can write posts around those problems (and why your brand solves them).
6. Dark, Cobwebbed Corners of Your Brain
You may think you’ve reached the limits of content in your own brain, but we are certain that’s not true. What about the areas you tend to avoid?
That’s right, your past mistakes. We’re not talking about that time you called your girlfriend the wrong name or ate too many donuts, we mean relevant business mistakes. Blogging about your mistakes may sound counter-intuitive for earning your audience’s trust, but they all know your brand is run by humans.
Besides, everyone secretly loves a story in which someone else messes up. Explain what you’ve learned from your mistake, and why your business has a unique advantage from overcoming it.
Have you found blogging inspiration in an unexpected place? We want to hear about it! Share your story in the comments below.
