Creating a monthly content calendar aligned with your business’ marketing strategy is one valuable step towards keeping your communication and sales targets trackable. This calendar will also help you know when posts will go live, which videos are performing well, and which content you should probably avoid spending time on in the future. But how do you find interesting topics to talk about in the first place? How to find the right topics to include in your monthly content calendar?
Another reason why you need to have an efficient content calendar – not random content scattered around or created and posted based on your mood – is that it takes a lot of time. The task of creating good content doesn’t end when you add your last image to a folder containing a month’s worth of posts to start scheduling ahead of time. Nor does it end when you spend a whole day painstakingly uploading content to a social media scheduler of your choice. Those working with digital content know that, besides the hard work that goes into creating content, there will be a vast amount of time you will have to allocate to interaction with your content once it is live. This includes answering questions, replying to comments left under your posts, and being engaging while still business-oriented.
I asked influencers and professionals in charge of creating large batches of content, in Europe and in the US, how they manage to find great topics to include in their monthly content calendars. And here is how they get inspired to come up with content that is both relevant and engaging.
Pinterest’s business tool for search terms
“One way to find interesting topics is to utilize Pinterest’s Business tools. For instance, I use Pinterest Trends to view the top U.S. search terms on Pinterest and find when those specific terms peak. I use these insights to find interesting topics and determine when the best time of year is to post that content. I also use Pinterest Predict, which uses data to predict trends that will occur in the future.”
Kathryn Schwab – Head of Content at www.hibobbie.com
Have SEO in mind
“The way we find content ideas at our agency is by doing keyword research and having search engine optimization (SEO) always in mind. First, we find keywords and topics that our competitors are ranking for. We also want to choose keywords that we know we are able to rank for. Use Google autosuggest and ‘people also ask’, and www.answerthepublic.com. These tools will tell you if people are interested in that particular topic. In just two hours of this research, you can get all your years’ worth of content ideas.”
Isabel Pak – Global Digital Marketer at www.businessoneonone.com
Go back in time
“One way to get interesting topics is to hop in your time machine and see what people were talking about one or two years ago. If you find that there’s been sustained interest in a topic, then go with it. It’s likely that people will be talking about it again. Add your own twist to the topic and VOILA!
Stephen Anfield – Freelance writer and a non-profit consultant.
Keep an eye on the competition
“I think the best way to find topics that you could potentially rank for (and should bother creating) is by seeing what your competitors are ranking for. You could use a tool like Ahrefs or SemRush for this. Once you input your domain into Ahrefs, for example, you go to ‘competing domains’ – which will include all the domains that are ranking for some of the keywords you are also ranking for.
You can ignore the keywords you are both ranking for and focus on the ones that only those domains on the list are ranking for. These keywords can give you tons of topic ideas that will help you rank on the first page of Google.”
Freya Kuka – Personal finance expert at www.collectingcents.com
Mailing lists can be useful to crowdsource interesting topics
“One of my favourite ways to develop content ideas is surveying my audiences. Reaching them on social media or using mailing lists to crowdsource the topics of interest is an invaluable method to align my content with the interest of the readers. When reaching out, it’s important to provoke some thoughts and direct your followers toward meaningful responses. So, you want to go deeper than just asking them what they think is a cool topic.”
Rebeca Sena – Architectural Marketing Consultant at www.getspace.digital
Search viral content at BuzzSumo
“One of the best ways to get content ideas is to use a tool like BuzzSumo. Enter in a keyword or topic and it will display the most viral content related to it. This includes social shares, backlinks, and other important metrics. Use this to understand what readers are interested in and create content based on that. Marketers can also spin the main topic into clusters and sub-topics for maximum efficiency.”
Carmine Mastropierro – Toronto copywriter and marketing consultant at www.carminemastropierro.com
Ask around to create what people want
“My #1 hack for planning content and topic ideation is “asking the people” – what content are people looking for that’s related to your business? What questions are they asking? Using tools like AlsoAsked.com, using the ‘People Also Asked’ section of the SERPs, and joining social media groups are great ways to learn what your market actually wants to know.”
Shonavee Simpson-Anderson – SEO Strategist at www.firewiredigital.com.au
Reddit and Facebook are your friends
“You can create content from discussions online, such as a blog post from lifehacks that uses your product. Crowdsourcing still works for content as long as it’s curated. And if the page of the client you are developing content for has a light tone, you can create memes to share on social media.
We usually create content calendars for clients in advance, but we’re not strict about which topics should be posted on a specific date; if there’s major news that’s related to our niche or our audience’s everyday life, we do adjust.”
Clara Buenconsejo – Digital Marketing Consultant at www.theclaymedia.com
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