If you are struggling for content creation ideas for Instagram, know that you are not alone. Everyone in the Instagram game experiences this. You draw a blank at a time where you need batch content for the next week or month.
By the end of reading this post you will have a never ending idea stream.
The content creation ideas will come from these 8 source:
- Answer The Public
- Quora
- Buzzsumo
- Problem dumping
- Others in the industry
- Recycle old popular content
- TikTok
- Instagram Stories
Each content creation idea will provide plenty of content ideas for you. The goal here is to avoid ever drawing a blank again. We will dive deep into each idea. You will find simple ways to extract the much needed inspiration for your next batch of content. At the end we are going to cover specific ideas for the 5 different formats to drive engagement….
Table of Contents
Content Creation Idea # 1 – Answer The Public
Google is an awesome tool if you know how to use it to your benefit. It’s Google’s business is to know what people are searching for and connecting them with the answers. If you have the time you can take a look at the autocomplete options to get you started. The problem with this method is that it’s time intensive.
5 years ago I came across a site that changed everything. Answerthepublic.com
This tool looks at all the autocomplete suggestions from Google and other search engines. Then gives you all the quest people are asking around your keyword.
Let’s use a real world example in the personal development nice. The old school way was to do this:
This gives your 9 ideas which is decent. Now let’s look at doing it with answer the public.
You type in personal development into the results and here’s what you see:
There’s a lot more than 9 results. That’s for sure. Now it’s great to see everything but if you’re like me then you are going to want a quick and easy way to capture the data. On the top right there’s an option to download to CSV. So now you get this:
In a few moments you now have over 350 ideas. Here’s a link to the spreadsheet
Pro Tip: Now we aren’t going to stop there. Not all ideas are equal. How can you tell which idea is better than the others. Of course, you could go with your gut. That may work out for some of you, I prefer to let the data do the talking and here’s how:
You copy all the results and paste them into a tool called keywords everywhere.
This isn’t a free tool, but you can get data on 100,000 results for $10. That means every search is a fraction of a penny which is free in my book.
This quick video shows you how to set it up:
To ensure you fully understand all the different settings and stuff watch this:
Now once you install it on chrome or mozilla and then click on bulk option in the menu:
All you have to do next is plug all the answer the public results into the bulk tool. This will give you the search volume so you can see what ideas are in higher demand. You can download them into a spreadsheet to easily capture the data.
Here’s the link to the spreadsheet so you can see it
The spreadsheet only has 195 results which is less than the 350+ from answer the public. The reason for this is I deleted all the ideas that had 0 search volume. You want to focus your time on making content that comes from the ideas more people are searching for.
Now to put it all together. The results show ideas for a series. The personal development plan series.
In the series you will cover:
- How to set personal development goals
- The ultimate personal development book list to break free
- Top 10 personal development quotes
- Single personal development quotes as individual posts
These would feed into some other ideas for monetization which would be
- Create and sell a personal development course.
- Picking up some coaching clients as well.
In a matter of minutes we came up with 4 popular topics and 2 monetization ideas that are popular as well. If we went through the entire list of 190 there would be a lot more content ideas.
Content Creation idea # 2 – Quora
In case you don’t know what Quora is, it’s the world’s largest question and answer forum. Quora has 300 million active users. That’s a lot of people in virtually every niche asking questions and looking for answers!
According to Foundation there are over 400,000 topics covered in Quora.
You should see Quora as a credible source. Let’s dive into extracting content creation ideas for instagram!
Let’s stick with the personal development niche. So we begin by searching for personal development.
Over to the right you can filter to find questions, answers, topics to follow, and spaces. Below that you select the time frame.
You are going to continue to uses Quora as a source for content creation inspiration. To tailor your feed, take some time and follow topics and spaces in your niche.
I was able to find these two questions that have a decent amount of activity in short order.
- What are the top 5 personal development books and articles?
- Is their a social networking site for personal development?
What most people do at this point is replicate the topics but changing out the books and websites. For this example, there is a much more seducitve topic to draw people in.
The Personal Development Blueprint
People are looking for personal development sources in different forms. Now the personal development blueprint will contain a comprehensive list.
It will cover the following:
- books
- articles
- blogs
- websites
- videos
The entire series will help them in their personal development journey.
This would not be one piece of content. It will be a series within the theme of The personal development blueprint
- The Personal Development Blueprint for Books
- The Personal Development Blueprint for Articles
- The Personal Development Blueprint for Blogs
- The Personal Development Blueprint for Websites
- The Personal Development Blueprint for YouTube
You don’t want to miss a chance to build your email list. The link in your bio will direct them to a landing page to download the entire resource.
Content Creation Idea # 3 – BuzzSumo
This idea is different than the first two. The thought process behind this content creation idea is that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. All you need to do is find what is working, figure out the formula, and go create.
While there are other options out there like Social Animal, BuzzSumo is the big player in the space. I have nothing against social animal as I have used both. I recommend checking them both out.
Let’s begin by going to the content analyzer section and type in the words personal development.
The nice thing that happens right away is BuzzSumo suggests some other phrases to search as well.
For now we are going to stick with personal development. Pay attention to the total engagements so we can see the top content across all platforms.
Here’s the top 3 results:
We already gathered that quotes are content people love to consume. A new idea surfaced which is a Jim Rohm compilation. While this had 3.4k engagements on Facebook, the YouTube video has over 1M views.
Here’s video so you can get an idea of what it’s about:
I know the video is off topic, but it would be worth watching to figure out why it was so popular.
In the case of this video the theme is making a change to get the results you want. Also the content is from an authority in the personal development space as well.
We are getting closer to the entire formula. Now to get the last critical piece which we find in the analysis report.
Now this ties it all together. The top three types of content were interviews, lists and video. It may not be possible to interview someone like Jim Rohn. With a little digging you could find someone that would like to you to interview them.
If interviewing is not an option, no sweat. You can combine the concept into an entire series of content into the following formula:
(#) of lessons from (niche authority) that changed my life
For example:
- 3 lessons from Jim Rohn that changed my life
- 5 lessons from John Maxwell I wish I learned sooner
People love content that is lists because it’s easy to consume. For each of these you can make all different types of content. You can do an image with the lesson or lessons in the caption.
You can do a series of 15 second clips of the different lessons and post in your story. You can also do an Instagram live that covers all the lessons.
The key takeaway is the figuring out the formula of what’s working. Once you figure that out, you will have and endless stream of content your audience will love!
Content Creation Idea # 4 Problem Dumping
I’m a sales guy and so is Barry. In sales you start with the problem and work your way back to a solution. This content creation idea works in the same concept.
The goal of this exercise is to get as much down on paper as possible in a short period of time. Go to a quiet place and put yourself in your audience’s shoes.
Now start writing down what problems they are experiencing for your niche. Don’t filter or judge each one, write them down.
So let’s do this a short verison of this exercise for personal development:
- Unclear vision
- Lack of motivation
- Doesn’t know how to set goals
- Fear is holding them back
If I spent more then 10 seconds on this the list would be a lot longer. Now that you have a list of problems, go through each one and rank them in order of how common they are.
For example, if you hear the problem over and over it would be a one, if you rarely hear that problem you mark it a 3. If it’s somewhere between then make it a 2.
Take all the number ones and you can come up with an entire series of content for each problem.
Let’s take unclear vision as an example.
Here’s some ideas you can do with this:
- visualization exercises
- how to make a vision board
- why a vision board is critical to your success
The more you learn about your niche the better. This content creation idea will turn from a dripping faucet into fire hydrant.
Content Creation Idea # 5 – Others in the industry
To be clear, I’m not suggesting you go out and copy someone else. The key is to be original. Look up and start following others in your industry. See what topics they are talking about and then apply your own view point to the topic.
If you were in the personal development niche you would follow people like:
- Tony Robbins
- Jim Rohn
- John Maxwell
- Les Brown
Check out their social media profiles and start making a list of the topics they are discussing.
Once you have the list of topics, select the ones you have a unique point of view on and get cracking on the content!
Content Creation Idea # 6 – Recycle Old Popular Content
Your Instagram following is a living breathing organism. Your account is growing for the following reasons:
- You are active on the platform
- You put out great content
- You engage with your audience
You don’t want to deprive your new followers of meaningful content. So go back and find the popular posts and recycle them.
You can copy and paste or tweak them. Or you could take the popular topic and create some fresh content on the topic as well.
Even if your account isn’t growing it’s still good practice to recycle old content.. Very few of your followers will see all your posts. When you recycle them it gives them a chance to see your awesome content.
Content Creation Idea # 7 TikTok
You probably haven’t thought of using TikTok to find content ideas. You are going to use TikTok to find a very specific type of content. Your mission is to find what’s trending. If it’s trending on TikTok then it will more than likely trend on Instagram as well.
You don’t need any fancy tools, all you need to do is log into TikTok and look around.
Here’s a video that breaks it down the how:
The key is to find out what’s trending an blend it with your other content so you maximize your reach. Capitlizing on trends will get more eyeballs on your content. The more eyeballs, the more followers, the more traffic you will generate.
Content Creation Idea # 8 – Instagram Stories
Instagram stories are an awesome way to engage with your audience. You can leverage this into find more content ideas. All you have to do is ask a question.
In the personal development niche all you would have to ask is “What are you struggling with?” or “What’s holding you back?”
Then you sit back and watch the answers come in. You then take the answers and plan topics from them. You don’t need to decide if you should or should not make a topic out of it. Your audience is telling you what to talk about. If one person is bringing it to your attention then a lot more in your audience is having that problem as well.
Your audience will appreciate your concern. They will also enjoy the content you create to help them with their problems.
Wrapping it all up
Now you are empowered with 8 content creation ideas for Instagram that aren’t ideas. Each one is a content creation idea stream.
Make sure you check out our post on 7 Simple Steps To Grow A New Instagram Page to help you shortcut the path to being Instafamous.
If you found this post useful let us know in the comments.
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