HOW TO FIND IDEAS FOR CONTENT WHEN YOU ARE STUCK

In the world of blogging, content marketing, and online entrepreneurship, sometimes one of the biggest challenges we face is trying to figure out WHAT TO TALK ABOUT.

I know I’m not the only one who has spent the better part of a morning staring at a blinking cursor on a computer screen and feeling discouraged. It happens.

When I’m really stuck, I have a go-to list of exercises and resources and I’m going to share those with you today (Make sure to download the comprehensive cheatsheet and workbook below.)

1. Amazon (the Bestsellers section and the Most Wished For categories — just make sure you drill down!) Look in the comments for questions that might help you.

2. Answer the Public http://answerthepublic.com/

3. Portent Idea Generator https://www.portent.com/tools/title-maker

4. Take a peek at what’s trending on YouTube (type in your topic) https://trends.google.com/trends/hotvideos

5. Google Trends

6. Hot Trends

7. Graphiq Search (alternative to Google Squared)

8. Yahoo! Answers

9. Dummies Research (what topics have they published books on?)

10. Alexa (specifically their Top Sites by Category)

11. Social Bearing (a search engine powered by tweets)

Also search on Google:

[topic/niche] +forum (example)

[topic/niche] +discussion (example)

[topic/niche] +community (example)

[topic/niche] +blog (example)

And of course, Twitter. Even if you are not a big Twitter user, when it comes to looking for ideas, it’s a gold mine and worth having an account if only for that purpose. Here’s what to do: (watch the video)

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The very best way to come up with great ideas is to ask your audience. Even if your audience is very very small. Pick up the phone and call a customer or client and ask them what they want to know! Yes, the good old fashioned telephone works wonders!

If you have a list of ideas, but you just aren’t feeling motivated, you might be a little burned out. It happens to the best of us. No matter how passionate you may be about your business, some days are just blue days and it’s hard to get excited. On days like this, acknowledge what is happening and trust that the fire in your belly will return. In the interim, WALK AWAY for a little bit.

Work on something completely different, such as:

E-learning. Catch up on that online course you never finished.

Podcasts. Go for a walk and listen to a podcast that is outside of your niche. Find something inspiring.

Ted Talks. Listen to a random Ted Talk. These are marvelous for inspiration.

Listen to music.

Watch this.

Read a book (again, outside of your niche.)

Organize your workspace.

What do you do when you need a little motivation? I’d love to know. Reply below or send me an email jennifer@jenlehner.com

Turn Those Pesky Auto DMs on Twitter into Gold!

If you are on Twitter, then you know how irritating AUTOMATED DIRECT MESSAGES (DM) can be. But I found a way to turn these nuisances into pure gold!

What we are going to do is reply to the direct message with our own message.

1. From your iPhone (I'm sure Android has something similar), go to settings, then to "general."

2. Choose "keyboard."

3. Choose "text replacement."

This is where it gets really amazing. Click the PLUS SIGN in the top right hand corner.

Next, type in your message in the "phrase" field. This can be quite lengthy. You can include links! Start your message, though, with, "Thanks for your DM". By doing this, you are letting them know that you are responding to THEIR DM i.e. you didn't initiate the conversation

In the "shortcut" field, type in 3 letters that you would never ordinarily type together.

 

Next, go to your "messages" folder. This is what mine looks like on any given day.

Type in your shortcut, (mine is twx) and the following phrase is automatically and magically pasted into the message. "Thank you for your direct message. You may be interested in my Facebook community called the The Front Row where entrepreneurs come together to support each other and learn from each other. Here's the link. We would love to have you there..." I don't do this with everyone, just the people who I have identified as my ideal clients." You can even message them about your upcoming webinar, freebie and a lot more.

Guess what? 75% of the people I messaged have joined the Front Row!

This tip has been working really well for me. Let me know what you think.