How to Come up with New Blog Post Ideas

Over the past few weeks, I’ve had difficulty coming up with new blog post ideas. Because the more creative and unique your content is the more readers, traffic and commentators you’ll have.  So finding that creative content is important, the question is: how?

Here are some methods I’ve used:

Use Social Media

If you have a following on Twitter, tweet, asking for some suggestions. If you use LinkedIn or Facebook, update your status and ask away.  Take advantage of Buzz, Friendfeed, Ping.Fm and any other social network that you use to explore the question.

Read a Book

It’s always helpful to sit down and read an amazing book that has aspects to it that connect to your blog. In my case, I could read titles such as The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, Crush It, The Tipping Point, jotting down ideas that might inspire me to write a blog post.

Ask other Bloggers

What’s better than asking other bloggers directly for some input? Every blog has different content, another edge and approach. Sharing ideas could mutually benefit both sides.

Paper or Doc

Take out a piece of paper or create a new document for blog post ideas. Sit down and spend time brainstorming to add any idea that comes to mind. Then, later on, every time you think of something else list it right away. That way you always have ideas available.

Run a Contest

An approach that I took was launching a contest in which one of the main entries was suggesting a post. That will get your readers excited about sharing ideas, which can benefit everyone.

Extend a post

Check out older posts that had lots of comments, views and interest. Try adding a second part, updating it with new information, or making a spin-off version. For example I saw how successful this post was:  10 Quick Tips to Boost Your Blogging Skills and decided that extending the post would provide another great article which led to 10 Quick Tips to Boost Your Blogging Skills (Part 2).

Use Your Personal Experiences

Connecting my personal experiences has helped me come up with ideas on many occasions. For example, reading AM New York on the train to school everyday led me to writing a post on why the newspaper and magazine industries need a makeover. Take time to think about experiences you could write about that took place offline or online.

Have any other suggestions or tips?

PS: If you have any posts that you’d like to see here, please share below. I’d appreciate any idea!