How I Come Up With Content Ideas
One of the questions I get asked a lot is – “Tahryn how do you keep coming up with different, creative and fun content ideas?”
And my response is usually something along the lines of – “Welcome to my brain!”
Now as much as my brain is wired that way, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a bit of a process for coming up with content ideas even if it happens kinda subconsciously at this point!
But I’ll let you in on a secret – I don’t have a magical list of prompts that I pull from every Monday morning. And I definitely don’t sit down and ask ChatGPT to give me 30 content ideas. Nor do I have a secret vault of 5,000 viral hooks hidden away.
Shockingly most of my content ideas come from doing my actual job.
From:
- Noticing the same conversations with my clients three times in one week
- When I make a decision in my business and realise there’s a useful lesson underneath it
- Disagreeing with a dumb marketing take
- Or simply taking a break and walking Maggie
That’s pretty much where most of my content begins.
And I think this is worth talking about because there is currently so much focus on helping business owners create content that we’ve skipped over the part that actually makes the content worth creating, which is where the idea came from in the first place.
So in today’s episode of the How I Do Content Podcast, I want to take you inside how I actually come up with content ideas, how I decide whether an idea is worth turning into content, and what I do with that idea once I have spotted it.
Because if you can get better at this part, you stop needing someone else to constantly tell you what to post.
Client conversations are one of my biggest sources of content ideas
Client conversations are probably one of the most obvious sources of content ideas, but I’m not just listening for random things I can turn into a post.
I’m paying attention to repeated language, repeated beliefs and the moments where someone thinks the problem is one thing, but I can see there is something else sitting underneath it.
For example, maybe you’re a designer and clients keep telling you they need a new logo, but once you dig into it you realise the bigger problem is that their whole brand no longer reflects the level of business they have built.
Or maybe you’re a naturopath and people keep coming to you focused on one symptom, but you have seen often enough that there is usually a much bigger pattern underneath it.
Those moments are useful because there is a gap between how your client understands the problem and how you understand it because of the experience you have.
And that gap gives you something far more interesting to talk about than simply sharing another tip.
I also pay attention when someone says, “Oh, I’ve never thought about it like that.”
Those moments matter because the things that feel obvious to you are often only obvious because you have been doing this work for years.
Your audience has not heard you explain it 100 times, so if something consistently creates a shift for a client, I take note.
I also get content ideas from decisions I make in my own business
A lot of useful content is hiding underneath the decisions you make in your business.
The actual decision is usually not that interesting by itself.
Maybe you decide to stop offering a certain service, change the way you deliver something, put your prices up, add a new boundary, narrow who an offer is for, or stop doing something that used to work really well for you.
The more interesting question is why you made that decision.
- What did you notice?
- What kept happening that made you realise something needed to change?
- What did you learn from doing it the old way?
- What trade-off were you willing to make?
That’s where the useful content usually lives because you’re not just telling people what you did, you’re showing them the thinking and experience behind it.
For example, maybe you stop offering a fully customised service and move to a more structured process because you have realised that clients actually get better results when they are not presented with endless options.
The content idea is not simply, “I changed my service.”
The more interesting idea is, “More choice does not always create a better client experience.”
I pay attention to the things I react to
Another useful source of content ideas are things I have a reaction to.
Sometimes it’s advice I disagree with. Sometimes it is something in my industry that annoys me because I think it is being oversimplified, overpromised or taught without enough context.
The useful part is not the reaction itself. It is figuring out what’s underneath the reaction.
Maybe everyone in your industry says clients want more options, but your experience tells you they actually make better decisions when the process is simpler.
Perhaps you keep seeing people promise a quick fix for something you know takes time, and what bothers you is the unrealistic expectation that creates.
Or maybe the standard advice works in one situation but you have seen enough examples to know it causes problems in another.
That’s where the content idea starts to become useful, because now you’re not just saying “I disagree.”
You’re explaining why you see it differently, what your experience has shown you and what you would recommend instead.
And I think that’s one of the easiest ways to create stronger authority content, because you’re showing people how you think rather than simply repeating the accepted advice.
Not every thought needs to become content
Once I have an idea, I still don’t automatically turn it into a post.
I want to know whether there is actually enough there to say something useful or helpful.
Sometimes I have written down a topic rather than an idea.
“Burnout” is a topic. “Some business owners are trying to fix burnout by taking more time off when the bigger issue is the way their business is structured” is an idea.
The difference is that one names the subject and the other says something about it.
Then I ask whether I actually have something to add.
- Do I have an example?
- Have I seen a pattern?
- Do I have a perspective that changes how someone might look at the problem?
- Do I have a useful distinction or a different way of explaining it?
- And most importantly, does this matter to the person I want to work with?
If I can’t answer that, it might still be interesting, but it probably does not need to become business content.
I develop the idea before I turn it into content
Once I know there’s something worth talking about, I spend a little bit of time developing the thought before I worry about the format.
Let’s say a designer notices that clients keep asking for more options, but the projects with fewer options actually move faster and get better results.
Before turning that into a post, there are a few things worth thinking through.
- Why do clients ask for more options in the first place? Maybe they think more choice gives them more control.
- Why does that sometimes make the process harder? Maybe it creates more second-guessing and makes it harder to make a confident decision.
- What has the designer learned from seeing this happen repeatedly? Maybe that part of their role is not to give the client every possible answer, but to narrow the options and make a clear recommendation.
Now there’s something useful to say.
The content could become a post about why more choice is not always better, an email about the role of expertise in the client experience, or a story about what clients can expect when they work with you.
The format comes after the idea has been developed.
Then I make the content idea work harder
Once I have a strong idea, I’m not using it once and moving on.
One good idea can be used in several different ways without becoming repetitive.
If you’re a designer and the idea is that more choice can make decision-making harder, you could teach the concept in one piece of content and then use another to show how your own process solves that problem.
You’re not trying to invent three completely different ideas.
You’re taking one strong piece of thinking and using different formats and angles to make it work harder.
And that’s really the point I want you to take from this episode.
You probably do not need more content ideas nearly as much as you think you do.
You need to get better at noticing what’s already happening around you, recognising which observations are worth developing, and then spending enough time with the idea to work out what you actually think about it.
Because that’s what gives you content that sounds like you, reflects your experience and gives people a reason to pay attention.
And this is exactly what we are doing inside Get Scrappy, Get Weird, Get Paid.
I’m going to help you get better at spotting the ideas already sitting inside your client work, your experiences, your opinions and the way you see things, then turn those ideas into marketing that people actually want to pay attention to.
Because once you know how to find the good stuff, you do not need to keep chasing more prompts, more trends or more things to post.
You can get scrappy with what you already have, get weird enough to follow your own perspective, and turn those ideas into marketing that helps people understand why they should choose you.
If you’re ready to create marketing that feels more original, more memorable and more useful for your business, come and join me inside Get Scrappy, Get Weird, Get Paid.
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