Key Points:
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Accelerated Research and Brainstorming
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Content Goal
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Rapid Brainstorming
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The 5 Ws and H Technique
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Turning To AI
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Consider Evernote
If you’re going to be competitive in any industry online, you must maintain a publishing schedule that sees you regularly sharing content on multiple platforms. We understand that this is very difficult for most business owners to accomplish.
Not only do you lack the skill to research, brainstorm, create, and publish content quickly, but it’s also time-consuming when you have to try to fit it into a day filled with other entrepreneurial tasks, primarily running your company.
This pace is demanding and can bring a lot of stress into the lives of many business owners. But it doesn’t have to. You may not have the system you need to quicken the process to be competitive and serve as a valuable resource to your local audience.
What makes content even more burdensome is that each platform requires a different approach or media format, so this slows you down further.
Instead of seeing it as a daunting thing you must try to overcome, use our five-day blueprint, and you’ll see a more streamlined and efficient approach to your content creation that doesn’t have to be put on hold.
Day 1: Accelerated Research and Brainstorming
During this week, you will get your systems in place so that you know how to carry out the most basic tasks for your content development faster. This begins with being able to research and brainstorm ideas for your content quickly.
On day one, you are going to be immersed in creating your own process for gathering information efficiently and then generating ideas that are going to have an impact on your readers.
There are tools and techniques that you can adopt to help you produce content ideas for a variety of platforms with ease. The key is not to randomly visit different sites, frantically searching for something.
Content Goal
You want to start with a goal for your content and how you want your target audience to perceive it. This will help you generate ideas for the message you want to convey to them and the action you want them to take after they finish reading your material.
Instead of just going to a random search engine and looking at broad keywords, hoping something will come to you, you can create a custom RSS feed that will filter out any information that isn’t useful.
This is like having a personal curator who goes out and hand-selects data that will be perfect for the goal you want to achieve. You can also use a tool like Google Alerts, where information is delivered directly to your inbox whenever something new develops in your niche.
Rapid Brainstorming
For a fast process, you want to engage in what’s known as rapid brainstorming, and this is kind of like a brain dump that delivers massive amounts of opportunities you can sort through to cherry-pick the best options.
Another way to quickly develop ideas is to start a mind map. You can do this with pen and paper or digitally, but having a visual outline of your industry topic can help you be more creative and reveal certain connections between concepts within your subject matter.
The 5 Ws and H Technique
A profitable option many people take when developing content is using the 5 Ws and an H technique. This is where you ask yourself about who, what, when, why, where, and how it affects your audience.
So, for example, if you wanted to write about the trend of working from home, you might start by answering who is hiring remote workers or who a work-at-home career is perfect for.
You could then move into the following question by asking what jobs are available as remote opportunities or what technology they will need.
The question of when could be a content piece that discusses the current and growing demand for this type of work and how it was historically frowned upon.
As for why and where, content could be about why more people are choosing remote work, why companies are allowing it, and where to look for it.
When you get to the question of how, that could be any tutorial within your industry, such as how to start your work-from-home job without needing to get hired.
Turning To AI
You can even turn to AI (artificial intelligence) tools and ask them to develop a list of content ideas based on this strategy so that you have a list to choose from.
Whenever you get your ideas, you can begin the research process to dive deeper into the topic and shore up your content with solid references and statistics.
You can also use other tools like Google Trends or BuzzSumo and gather data about the ideas you’ve cultivated or engage in social media listening to harvest them yourself.
Using AI, you can also get the basic ideas and information needed for research with simple prompts that uncover patterns and trends that may be emerging in your niche and require content to serve the audience.
Consider Evernote
Outside of the Internet world, you also want to have an ongoing list of ideas using a tool like Evernote whenever you see something that sparks your imagination to refer to it when you need a content idea.
This includes tidbits you might see or hear on the news, in industry or consumer magazines, in discussions with friends and family, and elsewhere.
By developing a systematic brainstorming and research process, you will no longer waste time floundering around looking for topics you can write about.
When you are ready for us to write your company’s blog content, contact us and schedule a free content consultation.