One of the things that makes blogging, article marketing, and public relations for your website so hard to keep up is the constant need to come up with new content ideas. One great source of fresh content ideas is as close as your television or newspaper.
Local events, holidays, national news, and even world events are great sources for new content to blog about, to write articles, shoot video, or even as a base to write new press releases. Not only are people already interested in these topics, but they also tend to get searched on in search engines, so it’s an opportunity to get boost in search engine traffic. Here are few examples:
Holidays- Holidays like Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Thanksgiving…even Groundhog’s day gives you a great reason to create holiday-related tip sheets, articles, or crafting or art tutorials. For Groundhog’s Day, The Naughty Secretary’s Club wrote a cute blog post on how to make a ground hog puppet.
Local events- Do you have a local art show, craft show, or exhibition that’s of interest to your customers or readers? Offer to write an article for a local publication (either online or offline) about the event. Or perhaps you’re participating in one of these events? Use this participation as a reason to write a press release or a blog post about the event. The Publicity Hound, Joan Stewart talks about how write press releases based on local events in her free ecourse 89 Press Release Tips.
Word events- World events like the 2010 Winter Olympics and the Haitian relief efforts is news that everyone wants to keep informed about. With a little thought, you can figure out how to make these events relevant to your article writing or blog. For example DIY Life wrote a nice blog post about Craft Hope for Haiti which is an Etsy store that donates it’s proceeds to Haiti relief.
Popular culture or trends- Don’t forget to look to pop culture and trends for content ideas. What are some of your favorite television shows? Movies? Music? Books? Design*Sponge has a great series on it’s blog called “Living In” where a popular movie, television show, or book is chosen as a interior design inspiration. Here’s a blog post about the animated movie Fantastic Mr. Fox.
So, the next time you open up your newspaper, watch your favorite TV show, or go to the movies, keep your eyes and mind open. The inspiration for your next blog post or article might be closer than you think!
