Tips for Generating Endless Content Ideas

Have you ever been overwhelmed with the demands of creating content? Here's how I overcame it and am now energized by it! Leaders are expected to build a continuous factory of content. You're being counted on to communicate compellingly. Sometimes, the creation process gets stuck in a block that makes us dread it. I write and speak frequently. This has left me stuck at times. I recently discovered how my Working Genius can spur creativity. Knowing your two Working Geniuses, use this system to stoke creativity. 𝗪𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 - Reflect on an important subject, then react with questions. • Gather as many questions as you can. • Answering the questions is your content. 𝘌𝘹𝘢𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦: 𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘐 ...?  𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘰𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘯 ...?  𝘞𝘩𝘺 𝘪𝘴...?  𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘧...? 𝗜𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 - find problems in subjects that are meaningful to you. • Spend time searching for them. • Come up with solutions to the problems. 𝘌𝘹𝘢𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦: 𝘐𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺...𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘴𝘶𝘤𝘤𝘦𝘦𝘥.  𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘪𝘴... 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 - read the news or updates on meaningful topics. • Ask - what do I think about this?  • Answer with your point of view (POV). 𝘌𝘹𝘢𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦: 𝘔𝘺 𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘯 ...; 𝘐 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘰 ... 𝗚𝗮𝗹𝘃𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘇𝗶𝗻𝗴 - Find topics that are delayed or just haven’t started yet. • Create something that will get it moving by considering the 'why.'  • Use that purpose to sell everyone why something should go. 𝘌𝘹𝘢𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦: 𝘌𝘳𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘱𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘺 𝘪𝘯 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘤𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘥, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦'𝘴 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘸𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘥𝘰 𝘪𝘵... 𝗘𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 - get involved with topics that need help, especially the ones you care about. • Who or what needs help right now?  (Use an AI tool for options if stumped.)    • Consider "How can I help?"  Your answers are your content. 𝘌𝘹𝘢𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦: 𝘏𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘐'𝘥 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 ... 𝗧𝗲𝗻𝗮𝗰𝗶𝘁𝘆 - what’s not done yet that you want done?  • How many subjects can you find that are incomplete?  • Build a finishing plan for the topic. 𝘌𝘹𝘢𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦: 𝘏𝘦𝘳𝘦'𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘱𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 <𝘴𝘶𝘣𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵> 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘵... ------------------------ Hey there, I'm Jeff Gerhardt! My mission? Empowering business leaders to create legacies that last forever. What we achieve together: • Businesses with crystal-clear focus, driving high performance. • Achieving work-life balance for quality family time. • Uncovering and pursuing your God-given purpose. Curious? Let's connect. DM me, and let's build something extraordinary together!

Constraint is what often unlocks boundless creativity for me. Blank paper? Nope. Not an idea in my head. Weird blob that bled through one page of my sketchbook to the next? Often those are jumping off point for some of my wildest work! Like this jacket in progress pictured here: the parameters of the jacket's shape are letting me go absolutely wild with the crochet shapes I am filling it up with. I'm making color and shape and texture combinations I never would have made had you told me to just "crochet a jacket" from scratch. Less options = more creativity. The same is true in social marketing and community work. It's really frightening and paralyzing to hear "use social media to market your brand!" or "build your community online!" Wut. How? That's a blank page! When I'm working with clients for either type of strategy the first thing we do is set up some guardrails and baby steps. You aren't talking to everyone on the internet, so who -are- you talking to? You don't have time to make every type of content, so what type do -you- want to make? A fun exercise I've done in the past is to challenge clients to make a piece of content in less than 5 minutes using only images currently on their camera roll, and it cannot be a rehash of a trend. Try it! You'll be amazed what you already know how to create. Set some constraints, then go make something. Chances are, you'll come out of it with more creative ideas on how to achieve your goals.

⏰ Short on time but need cool content ideas? Yesterday, my team and I did a quick exercise and came up with 20+ short-form video ideas in 5 minutes. And you can steal it if you want. Yesterday, I walked my team through an exercise to generate short-form video ideas. It's an idea anyone looking to create more content can use, and I can guarantee that within 10 minutes, you can have more ideas than you need, which can then be executed relatively quickly as well. Here are a few things you need to know: 1) With platforms like Instagram, TikTok, or even here on LinkedIn you have to keep in mind your audience and goals. For the former platforms, you may find that there needs to be more entertainment built into the messages, which may or may not get you there. 2) Next, someone still has to translate the concepts developed into recorded content. The good news is those platforms seem to favor authentic and off-the-cuff over high polish (e.g., you can use your phone and a few best practices to be successful. 3) Finally, with any platform - you have to think about what your customers, users, followers, and viewers need and want. Ultimately, for me, there is a strong desire to be helpful and to create content that helps my audience grow in their abilities and be more successful. So here's what we did: I asked each person in the meeting to pick an article for our blog. I didn't care if two people picked the same one. I didn't care if it focused on #camtasia or #snagit. Then, I gave them 5 minutes to do the following: A) Read the blog (or some of it) B) Write down ideas that are useful that could be turned into short-form content. C) At the end of the 5 minutes, everyone shared some ideas and recorded them on a project board. D) I asked everyone to take one of the ideas and go and make it by our next meeting. We didn't do all of the work needed to get to done. Some ideas still need a few bullet points so they can be talked about cohesively. Other ideas were still a bit broad or could be broken into multiple videos. We also didn't take the time to record right then and there. But in 5 minutes, 9 people easily generated 20+ ideas. Obviously, we're focusing on specific platforms, but I imagine you could do this to focus on solving customer problems, for #onboarding ideas, academy or community content, reducing support cases that are really #training and so much more. That's it. 5-minutes to generate a ton of ideas to solve problems, help customers (internal or external), and fill up the idea coffers.

Coming up with content ideas is the biggest hurdle I hear about, but it’s actually the easiest to solve. Try this method of capturing ideas and You might be surprised at how many ideas you have. First, why this works (and what you’re doing now doesn’t): The human brain likes shortcuts— Predefined processes for handling situations. Consider your home. Everything has a place. Your silverware has a drawer. Your towels have a cabinet. What would happen if they didn’t? Imagine that every time you had something to put away, you piled them in a corner of your living room. The pile just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Just imagining it creates stress. It builds overwhelm. Now, imagine trying to throw a party with that pile of stuff sitting in the corner. That’s what you’re doing with your ideas. Idea generation is one process. Implementing them is another. When you try to combine these, you get stuck. This is what most people do. They try to think of an idea while it needs to be produced. And everything grinds to a halt. One of the most productive shifts in content marketing is separating idea generation from content production. Every time I’ve built a system or workflow for content production, it's been a game changer. A good idea generation workflow needs to be: → One single place to hold all the ideas. → Accessible to you anytime, anywhere. → Easy to open and close — and document your idea — without disrupting what you’re doing. Start there. Create an ideas doc or task list. I’ve built these in Notion, Airtable, and Google Docs. Build whatever works for you. But whatever you choose, make sure there’s an app you can install on your phone to meet the "accessible anytime, anywhere" requirement. Don’t create sublists. Don’t have Post-it notes. Don’t create one list on your phone and one on your computer. You’re adding clutter, chaos, and stress. Over time, that one list will require organization. When you start to feel like you need categories or groups for the ideas, it’ll be time for more structure. But for now: Create one List. Remember, your Ideas List is always there, and it only takes seconds to write your ideas down. Start paying attention to the ideas that pop into your head. Then, write them down in your one single list. Every time. Repeat as the ideas come. I think you’ll be surprised at just how often that is. 🗨️ Comment below: How often do you think ideas come to you right now? Never? Every once in a while? Daily? Be sure to 👍 this post if you'd like me to share each of the next steps in the workflow with easy ways to get started.