How to find audience-relevant content ideas: 13 sources to try today
Masooma Memon
GatherContent Contributor, Writer
Are you struggling to come up with winning content ideas? Admittedly, great content that resonates with your audience is never born without having clarity on what your audience wants. It’s only when you know the questions your target audience is asking that you can create the very best content.
So, where do you start? Where should you be looking for audience-relevant content ideas? We’ll answer this for you in this post as we dig into 13 must-try sources for new content ideas.
On we go.
1. Brainstorm with customer-facing teams
Customer support and service teams are a treasure chest of effective content ideas. The trick? Asking the right questions. For example, ask them what questions the target buyer has on so and so topic.
Also, quiz them over questions that leads and customers frequently have. Then, convert those FAQs into topic ideas.
2. Talk to your customers
Instead of looking for content ideas all over the place, ask your customers. This eliminates guesswork as your target buyers tell you their pain points.
In fact, one-on-one interviews – even customer surveys – are an effective way to source topic ideas.
Ask your target audience what they need help with including struggles they have when using your product/service. Then, create new product-related content to answer the questions.
💡Pro tip: Talking to your customers is also an excellent way to learn the content types they prefer to consume.
3. Source ideas from social media
Social media is a rich source of content ideas. There are three ways to go about using social platforms for ideation:
Ask your audience what they’d like to learn about. This works best when you have a well-engaged, established audience.
Listen to the questions your target audience is asking. For example, reading others’ comments (not necessarily on your post but, say, an industry influencer’s posts) can give you a good list of questions.
Look up Twitter chats happening in your niche. Then, track the topics that the chats discuss. From there, you’ll get a clear idea of the topics that gain traction.
Simply take the topic of a chat and create your own content around it. If there’s an expert sharing their insights during the chat, you can embed their tweet(s) to improve your content’s credibility too.
Alternatively, look at the questions that Twitter chats discuss and the questions participants ask during the chat. This will give help you add more ideas to your content calendar.
Good to Know: Easily create your editorial calendar within minutes using GatherContent. Simply add due dates to your approved content ideas. Then, select the Calendar view to see everything in your pipeline in a calendar layout.
Use GatherContent to view all content in calendar format.
5. Surf Q&A forums for content ideas
Another place to unearth questions your target audience is asking is Q&A platforms. These include Quora and Reddit. You can also look at discussions in Slack communities that your target buyers use.
Search for a keyword on Reddit and Quora. From there, the platforms will pull out questions asked on the topic. However, keep in mind, the deeper you explore these forums, the better your chances of findings key questions your audience is asking.
6. Go through blog and YouTube comments
Besides combing through social media comments on others' posts, including discussions in Facebook groups, read through blog and YouTube videos’ comments.
Don’t get comments on your blog posts? Don’t have a YouTube channel? Fret not. Look for YouTube channels and blogs your audience is subscribed to. Also, search for industry influencers they follow – a tool like Sparktoro can help you find this information.
Now, read through the comment section on each influencer’s Instagram posts, YouTube channel, and blog. You’ll leave with a big list of content ideas to explore.
7. Conduct Google search
Type in your keyword in the search bar. As you do so, look at the suggestions Google makes for new content ideas.
Type a keyword slowly into your Google search box to see what suggestions the search engine makes for new topic ideas.
Next, look at the People also ask section to identify more potential content ideas. You can also use these to outline an SEO-optimized comprehensive guide or a pillar page on a broad topic.
Look at the People also ask section for new content ideas.
Finally, look at the Related searches at the bottom of the search engine results page. Here you can find more ideas for content to create for your small business.
Study the Related searches section for more audience-relevant topic ideas.
💡 Pro tip: Using Google to search for ideas is a great way to get some keyword research done. In particular, look at Related Searches for long-tail keywords to add to your content.
8. Extract topics from research reports
Chances are, you create massive survey-based reports and white papers every year. For instance, ones that read ‘State of [topic].’ If you don’t, others in the industry would be doing so.
Read through these reports and highlight findings around what others are struggling with. Then, create helpful content around it – providing valuable solutions.
Even your old content is a great source for content marketing ideas. How so, you ask? Simply revisit content that has performed well in the past.
Look at what those posts are lacking. Now, either create new posts or refresh old posts. The former is a great way to create backlinks for your old content.
Good to Know: Use GatherContent to manage all your content in one place. This way, you can create a central content repository that’s accessible to teams at all times. In particular, writers can use this content bank to add internal links to new content easily.
Use GatherContent as your central repository so you can manage all content creation in one place.
10. Spotlight customer success stories
If you’re focused on customer success and retention, you’ll probably already have an idea of which of your customers are reaping results using your product/service.
Or, you can go through your product reviews on third-party platforms and reach out to customers who’ve left positive comments.
From there on, get customers to share their struggles before using your tool and results after using it. Use the information to create case studies.
And, don’t forget to extract convincing testimonials from the case study content to share as social media posts featuring praise from real people.
Good to Know: Make sure all your case studies follow a consistent layout and style by creating a case study template with production notes. Add inline notes to your brief templates so writers don’t miss important instructions.
Use GatherContent to create template-based briefs for your case studies.
11. Look at webinars for fresh ideas
Whether you host webinars or not, this is another useful source for content ideas. The aim? Watch through webinars for understanding what’s covered under the topic. This, in itself, will give you plenty of ideas for fresh content to create.
For example, if a webinar host is talking about nurturing leads in X ways, you can do an in-depth piece on how you nurture leads at your company. This way, your content will take a unique angle and help earn your readers’ trust by taking them behind the scenes of how you do things.
What’s more, make a list of questions that webinar attendees ask and use it to inform more content ideas.
12. Subscribe to audience-relevant newsletters
Newsletters are also great sources of unique content ideas. As with webinars, adopt a unique angle to creating content on ideas you source from newsletters.
You can also feature the insights from the newsletter itself. This way, you can elevate your content’s authority as well.
13. Look at your competitors
Lastly, study the content your competitors are creating. Use it to inspire your own content ideas.
Keep in mind: you don’t need to copy and paste content ideas. Instead, take a different angle – for example, create a roundup or expert quote post on a topic your competitor has already covered.
Similarly, look at the FAQ page on your competitors’ sites. Turn the relevant ones into content ideas.
To sum up, by searching these sources, you’ll have a ready list of content ideas in no time. Once done, use this checklist to validate your ideas and find the best topics to power your content strategy.
So, where do you start? Where should you be looking for audience-relevant content ideas? We’ll answer this for you in this post as we dig into 13 must-try sources for new content ideas.
On we go.
1. Brainstorm with customer-facing teams
Customer support and service teams are a treasure chest of effective content ideas. The trick? Asking the right questions. For example, ask them what questions the target buyer has on so and so topic.
Also, quiz them over questions that leads and customers frequently have. Then, convert those FAQs into topic ideas.
2. Talk to your customers
Instead of looking for content ideas all over the place, ask your customers. This eliminates guesswork as your target buyers tell you their pain points.
In fact, one-on-one interviews – even customer surveys – are an effective way to source topic ideas.
Ask your target audience what they need help with including struggles they have when using your product/service. Then, create new product-related content to answer the questions.
💡Pro tip: Talking to your customers is also an excellent way to learn the content types they prefer to consume.
3. Source ideas from social media
Social media is a rich source of content ideas. There are three ways to go about using social platforms for ideation:
Ask your audience what they’d like to learn about. This works best when you have a well-engaged, established audience.
Listen to the questions your target audience is asking. For example, reading others’ comments (not necessarily on your post but, say, an industry influencer’s posts) can give you a good list of questions.
Look up Twitter chats happening in your niche. Then, track the topics that the chats discuss. From there, you’ll get a clear idea of the topics that gain traction.
Simply take the topic of a chat and create your own content around it. If there’s an expert sharing their insights during the chat, you can embed their tweet(s) to improve your content’s credibility too.
Alternatively, look at the questions that Twitter chats discuss and the questions participants ask during the chat. This will give help you add more ideas to your content calendar.
Good to Know: Easily create your editorial calendar within minutes using GatherContent. Simply add due dates to your approved content ideas. Then, select the Calendar view to see everything in your pipeline in a calendar layout.
Use GatherContent to view all content in calendar format.
5. Surf Q&A forums for content ideas
Another place to unearth questions your target audience is asking is Q&A platforms. These include Quora and Reddit. You can also look at discussions in Slack communities that your target buyers use.
Search for a keyword on Reddit and Quora. From there, the platforms will pull out questions asked on the topic. However, keep in mind, the deeper you explore these forums, the better your chances of findings key questions your audience is asking.
6. Go through blog and YouTube comments
Besides combing through social media comments on others' posts, including discussions in Facebook groups, read through blog and YouTube videos’ comments.
Don’t get comments on your blog posts? Don’t have a YouTube channel? Fret not. Look for YouTube channels and blogs your audience is subscribed to. Also, search for industry influencers they follow – a tool like Sparktoro can help you find this information.
Now, read through the comment section on each influencer’s Instagram posts, YouTube channel, and blog. You’ll leave with a big list of content ideas to explore.
7. Conduct Google search
Type in your keyword in the search bar. As you do so, look at the suggestions Google makes for new content ideas.
Type a keyword slowly into your Google search box to see what suggestions the search engine makes for new topic ideas.
Next, look at the People also ask section to identify more potential content ideas. You can also use these to outline an SEO-optimized comprehensive guide or a pillar page on a broad topic.
Look at the People also ask section for new content ideas.
Finally, look at the Related searches at the bottom of the search engine results page. Here you can find more ideas for content to create for your small business.
Study the Related searches section for more audience-relevant topic ideas.
💡 Pro tip: Using Google to search for ideas is a great way to get some keyword research done. In particular, look at Related Searches for long-tail keywords to add to your content.
8. Extract topics from research reports
Chances are, you create massive survey-based reports and white papers every year. For instance, ones that read ‘State of [topic].’ If you don’t, others in the industry would be doing so.
Read through these reports and highlight findings around what others are struggling with. Then, create helpful content around it – providing valuable solutions.
Even your old content is a great source for content marketing ideas. How so, you ask? Simply revisit content that has performed well in the past.
Look at what those posts are lacking. Now, either create new posts or refresh old posts. The former is a great way to create backlinks for your old content.
Good to Know: Use GatherContent to manage all your content in one place. This way, you can create a central content repository that’s accessible to teams at all times. In particular, writers can use this content bank to add internal links to new content easily.
Use GatherContent as your central repository so you can manage all content creation in one place.
10. Spotlight customer success stories
If you’re focused on customer success and retention, you’ll probably already have an idea of which of your customers are reaping results using your product/service.
Or, you can go through your product reviews on third-party platforms and reach out to customers who’ve left positive comments.
From there on, get customers to share their struggles before using your tool and results after using it. Use the information to create case studies.
And, don’t forget to extract convincing testimonials from the case study content to share as social media posts featuring praise from real people.
Good to Know: Make sure all your case studies follow a consistent layout and style by creating a case study template with production notes. Add inline notes to your brief templates so writers don’t miss important instructions.
Use GatherContent to create template-based briefs for your case studies.
11. Look at webinars for fresh ideas
Whether you host webinars or not, this is another useful source for content ideas. The aim? Watch through webinars for understanding what’s covered under the topic. This, in itself, will give you plenty of ideas for fresh content to create.
For example, if a webinar host is talking about nurturing leads in X ways, you can do an in-depth piece on how you nurture leads at your company. This way, your content will take a unique angle and help earn your readers’ trust by taking them behind the scenes of how you do things.
What’s more, make a list of questions that webinar attendees ask and use it to inform more content ideas.
12. Subscribe to audience-relevant newsletters
Newsletters are also great sources of unique content ideas. As with webinars, adopt a unique angle to creating content on ideas you source from newsletters.
You can also feature the insights from the newsletter itself. This way, you can elevate your content’s authority as well.
13. Look at your competitors
Lastly, study the content your competitors are creating. Use it to inspire your own content ideas.
Keep in mind: you don’t need to copy and paste content ideas. Instead, take a different angle – for example, create a roundup or expert quote post on a topic your competitor has already covered.
Similarly, look at the FAQ page on your competitors’ sites. Turn the relevant ones into content ideas.
To sum up, by searching these sources, you’ll have a ready list of content ideas in no time. Once done, use this checklist to validate your ideas and find the best topics to power your content strategy.
Masooma Memon is a pizza-loving freelance writer for SaaS. When she’s not writing actionable blog posts or checking off tasks from her to-do list, she has her head buried in a fantasy novel or business book. Connect with her on Twitter.
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