Are You Struggling To Create Content?
These eight tools will save you countless hours!
Every time you browse the internet, conduct a Google search or scroll through social media, you’re looking at – and engaging with — content. The internet is simply a content system with global access and reach. Yet it’s obvious that there is great content and terrible content out there. With so many ideas, hot takes, memes, videos and blogs online, you might wonder how you can come up with something that is original, magical, authentic to your brand, and will engage and entice your audience.
Don’t worry – we’ve been there too! When staring down a blank screen with a deadline looming, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and unsure where to turn for help. Save this list of our favourite* tools and resources for creating new content ideas.
*Please note, that this is not sponsored content. We genuinely love these tools and solutions!
BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo claims to be the world’s #1 content marketing platform, and it’s clear why. They have an archive of over 8 billion articles that you can explore to generate ideas, create high-performing content and even identify influencers in your niche.
While their pricing may be out of reach for small businesses or solopreneurs, you can enjoy a free plan to generate searches and obtain a few key results that might just get the magic started.
Tap into viral trends and timeless content with extensive data and access to keywords and real questions from the internet. This may even provide you with insights into your niche or vertical that you hadn’t yet considered!
It’s best to use it for:
Blog ideation
Keyword research and trends
Protecting your brand with alerts
Social media content creation
Exploring different types of content
Answer The Public
If you ask our Founder, Emily Ptak, what her favourite website is, she would probably tell you Answer The Public! The perfect blend of data and design, Answer The Public provides you with two free searches every 24 hours (or unlimited, for a monthly fee).
It’s so simple to use, too. Just enter 1 to 2 keywords on a specific topic and discover what people are asking about and searching online about your keyword. You can also set a geographic filter and language filter to ensure you’re getting the right data for your ideal customer’s region.
No matter what you sell or who you sell it to, Answer The Public aggregates data from Google searches and auto-completions to provide results. You can see all of the data in beautiful visualizations (perfect to drop into a presentation or share with your boss), or you can switch to a data view and download a spreadsheet of the whole set.
Take “high heels” as an example. If you input that, you’ll see what questions users are asking Google, your keyword with prepositions (e.g. “high heels with…”, “high heels for…”, ”can high heels…”), comparison data (e.g. “high heels vs stilettos”, “high heels or sneakers”), and a lengthy alphabetized list of relevant search terms, including long-tail keywords.
It’s best to use it for:
Blog ideation
Sales materials
Competitor research and monitoring
Social media content creation
Website and landing page copy
Paid digital marketing campaigns
SEMRush
SEMRush is touted as an all-in-one marketing platform. With over 55 tools on their platform for SEO, content marketing, competitor research, paid advertising and social media marketing, it’s no wonder they make that claim!
They make content development a breeze with their content marketing offering. You can easily find topics that resonate with your ideal audience and get tips on how to improve search engine optimization in your content. They even help you to track brand mentions and content reach.
Not only will this tool help you identify potential content ideas, but you will also create better content that will drive more traffic to your website, blog or social media pages. You should also enjoy more conversions with more eyes on your content!
It’s best to use it for:
Blog ideation
Landing page copy
Articles
White papers
Case studies
Social media content creation
Competitive research
Quora
If you’ve searched for the answer to a very specific question on Google, chances are you’ve received a Quora post in your results. They claim to be a place to gain and share knowledge – where you can ask questions and receive unique insights and quality answers. There are several ‘spaces’ available on Quora, which group together content based on a topic. You can easily search Quora for a topic. Each response comes from a registered user, so there’s no hiding behind anonymity on this platform!
Most users also include relevant credentials that will help users identify if their response is worth its weight in gold – or not. Quora can help you identify common questions in your industry which are great foundations for blog posts, informative social media posts, or even topics for your email newsletter.
You can also take advantage of Quora to build up your brand awareness and reputation by answering questions on the platform that are in your area of expertise. Given how often Quora results come up in Google, if you have a top-performing answer, your name will get out there even faster!
It’s best to use it for:
Blog ideation
Sales material
Social media content creation
Paid digital marketing campaigns
Reddit is the most popular online forum in the world. With over 430M active users, Reddit is an ideal way to identify topics you can leverage into your content strategy. On the platform, users can subscribe to sub-reddits. These are forums that are grouped around specific topics, geographic places, businesses, demographics and more. Any user can create a sub-reddit, so if you don’t see one on your preferred topic, you can always create your own!
Reddit is so popular, it gives you a chance to find out about a trending news event, brand new viral meme, or other current topics before many others on the internet catch on. Leveraging existing, high-performing content from this platform to your own channels can help you build on virality and ride the wave. Not least of all, Reddit is certain to give you plenty of ideas for content that you can create.
It’s best to use it for:
Blog ideation
Meme research and creation
Social media content creation
Instagram Explore Page
The Instagram explore page is a great way to gain inspiration for your own social media channels. While we recognize that the platform isn’t quite what it used to be, and users are losing faith in the platform as a whole, there is still plenty of inspiration to be found.
When you visit the explore page, you can enter a key word or phrase, hashtag, or location to see what comes up. Take a scroll through and see what grabs your attention. Why did it stand out? Why did it make you stop scrolling? What elements can you identify in the post that you can experiment with in your own content?
You can also use the explore page to look up your competitors to see what types of content they are creating and how effective they are. This can serve to inspire potential content gaps and opportunities for your own brand.
It’s best to use it for:
Social media content creation
Internal Resources
There is no better way to identify what your ideal customer needs to hear from you than resources within your own organization. If you work at a larger organization with a dedicated sales team, they are a great place to start. Find out what customers and leads are saying to them. What sales objections do they hear? What messages help convert leads into customers?
If you have a smaller business, or you’re a solopreneur, you can still get customer feedback. Pick up the phone and call your top customers – the ones who fit your niche and ideal customer profile, who love your service – and find out what they love about you. It’s equally as important to survey and talk to customers that don’t love your products. What is a hang-up for them? Where do they feel a lack of magic? This can help you to refine your messages and offerings.
It’s best to use for:
Sales material
Website and landing page copy
Paid digital marketing campaigns
Content Ideas
Content Ideas is a way to search and source curated, trending content. You can discover trends you can implement into your own content, find new link-building opportunities to improve your search engine rankings, or even stay abreast of industry trends.
Each search you conduct on Content Ideas will show you thousands of results from around the internet. You will also see a string of related topics – so if you don’t find the inspiration you’re looking for, you can easily tweak and refine what results you receive. You can sort the results based on what platform they’re performing the best on, or total shares. You can also try different periods of time to see what was popular a while ago, which may help validate ideas or content pieces you are working on.
The best part of Content Ideas is the engagement and sentiment rankings! Engagement scores run from 0-100, and the higher the number, the more engaging the content is and should receive. The sentiment shows up as faces - green for positive sentiment, yellow for neutral sentiment and red for negative sentiment. Depending on your strategy, you may opt for positive or negative sentiment pieces.
It’s best to use it for:
Blog ideation
Social media content creation
Curating third-party content
Competitive research
Sales materials
We hope this article helped give you the tools you need to work on your digital content creation. If you need more support, we offer copywriting services and would be glad to discuss your content needs. Send our Calgary digital marketing agency a message!