- How do you find great content ideas for social media
when you're feeling stuck, unmotivated and uninspired?
Grab a pen and your handy-dandy notebook
because this video is gonna go in-depth.
I'm gonna give you seven tips for finding content ideas
for social media, let's go.
Hey everybody, this is Roberto Blake,
helping you create something awesome today.
Welcome back to the channel.
Every year I like to do a video update on ideas
that you can use for finding content, you know,
like a lot of people get stuck
and they don't feel like they have any original ideas left,
they don't feel like they can do something new
and innovative and it can be really stressful.
So let's get into the seven ways you can deal with it.
Tip number one is to stop obsessing over originality.
I know that this sounds weird but here's the reality,
original is overrated in the sense that you know what?
There's a proven market demand for certain types of content.
Making something that nobody is invested in,
that nobody pays attention to,
whether it's in your Instagram,
whether it's in your YouTube, your TikTok,
that's not gonna feel great.
Now I believe in making content just for yourself sometimes,
but if you're somebody who gets demotivated
and de-energized by a lack of attention
or lack of engagement, then again,
original ideas don't always pan out.
Really what you should be focused on
is what are you known for
and what does your audience expect from you?
So don't obsess over always having
to come up with something new or reinvent the wheel.
There are things that you can do that are proven to work
and maybe until you come up with something
that you're really excited about, you should stick to that.
You can also piggyback off of another idea,
there is nothing wrong with that, it's fair game.
The originality will come in the execution, not the idea.
One of my mentors, Gary Vaynerchuk, has a say,
"Ideas are crap and execution is the game."
And I think what he's really getting at
is that you know what?
Anybody might have come up with that idea
and it may or may not be a good idea,
but how do you execute on it?
Can you do it better?
Can you do it differently?
What is your unique spin on it?
That's why a lot of people who may do a trending video,
actually can be successful because the execution,
the originality behind it is not the idea,
it's the cinematography,
it's the on-camera presence and performance,
it's the editing that makes it original, not the idea.
Tip number two, I want you to remember the last time
that you got really excited about something.
Your passion, your excitement, your enthusiasm,
these things are what actually draw people to you
and make them emotionally invested in you.
Can you find and figure out what's the last thing
you were really excited about and is it something
that you can help the audience become excited about?
When I'm stuck and I think about content ideas,
sometimes I'll go and I'll think about
well what's something that I just finished
having a great conversation with somebody about?
Because that's an idea, or what was the last thing I did
that really got me pumped?
That's an idea for content.
A lot of you, it's not that you are lacking ideas,
it's that you're uninspired
because you might be going through the motions,
you might be overthinking things
instead of like trusting your feelings
and looking at what's going to really push you
and what's going to challenge you
and what's going to be something that's going to be fun.
You need to really learn how to enjoy the process more.
Tip number three, look at what's already working
for people in the platform whether it's TikTok,
whether it's Instagram.
If you're on TikTok, consider the fact that there might be
a popular song, or a popular theme,
or a popular trend right now
that you could be taking advantage of
until a new idea pops in your head.
The same thing with content on Instagram or YouTube.
Recently, I did a video a while back
around how much money I make on YouTube.
It was inspired by another content creator.
Shelby Church did a video
about how much she got paid for a million views on YouTube
and how much she makes on her channel
and I really liked her take on it
and I decided that I could add my own twist on it
that my audience would appreciate it
and that it really actually inspired and motivated me
for some other new content ideas
that revolve around the concept of transparency.
So sometimes just by following a trend
or using an idea that was inspired by another creator,
that process could lead you
to making all kinds of other content and getting new ideas.
The other thing is maybe there's something
that is going on in another platform
that might be interesting
to do for the platform that you're on.
You might be able to take something very cool
from another platform like YouTube
over to something like TikTok
and be more successful at it there.
The same thing for Instagram.
So just kinda think about that a little bit.
Tip number four, look at your best performing content
and see if there's any inspiration that you can find there.
If something was working in the past,
there's a reason for it.
Your audience has a demand for it
and you have plenty of analytics
in these different platforms to help show you that.
So if something is in demand, why not make more of that?
Why not see if there's a twist or a variation
that you can do on content that's already working?
Someone who's amazing at this, Chad Wild Clay.
A lot of you have probably seen that Chad Wild Clay
has been blowing up, I've known Chad for years,
like he's freaking brilliant and I'm really excited
for what is happening for him as a content creator
because it's pattern recognition.
He sees something working
and then he triples down, he doubles down.
And I think that that's a very powerful lesson.
You can find creative ways to look at what's already working
and say, "Can I tweak this a little,
"can I put another twist on it?
"Like what's another creative way to do this stuff?"
Really just take a hard look at what your audience wants
and how you can best serve them
and yeah, I know that it might feel boring
or repetitive in some way,
find a way to challenge yourself to up the ante then.
Tip number five, react to something awesome.
If you can't come up with ideas on your own,
here's the good news, you can always react to something.
I know a lot of people don't always appreciate
this form of content
but there are creative ways to approach it.
Somebody who's doing an amazing job with this
is one of my favorite content creators, Graham Stephan.
He's known on his main YouTube channel
for his personal finance and real estate videos
but he also has another YouTube channel,
a second channel called The Graham Stephan Show
and The Graham Stephan Show,
he actually reacts to this series called Millennial Money
where he goes over people's budgets
and then he spun off another idea from Millennial Money.
He would either like read these posts or watch these videos
about people's budget and he would react to it.
So then he came with the idea of what if I reached out
and contacted these people and then to collab with them,
even if they're not YouTube creators
when they were featured in the CMBC Millennial Money thing
and what he did was he would drive out to them
in his Tesla and then he'd film a video with them
with their permission and confront them about their budget
and overdramatisize it just a little bit
and have fun with them and give them
some great personal finance advice,
and it's a really great idea and it was so refreshing.
And it started with reaction videos,
and then evolved into this other component of the show
where he gets to go and confront them,
it's a great and very smart format.
I've actually been thinking of doing something similar
on my second channel, I have a second channel,
I'm gonna link to it up here for you guys to check out.
I haven't uploaded to it in a while,
I have so much footage for it,
but something I've been thinking of is
I want to do reactions to social media articles,
I want to react to what the mainstream media
says about social media influencers
'cause I don't agree with most of it.
So I wanna give my take and perspective
and speak from somebody that's more like, you know,
attached, I would say, to the actual,
actual content creators, and to the culture,
and to the industry instead of being an outsider
that's critiquing on it.
So I wanna react to that,
I wanna correct some of the assumptions
or correct some of their facts,
or give a different perspective.
In fact, someone I think who does a great job
with journalism when it comes to social media influencers
that I could react to is Taylor Lorenz.
She does some amazing work
and there are a couple other interesting sources
that I wanna pull.
So let me know if that's something you'd be interested in.
Tip number six, if you're feeling stuck
and like you have no ideas,
then the reality is you're probably
not even consuming great content yourself
and that doesn't mean
just like scrolling through social media,
I'm talking about books, movies, television shows, music,
you need to feed yourself creativity.
If you wanna put out creativity,
you need to consume creativity.
Now there's a balance between creating and consuming
and you definitely want to make sure
that you're putting yourself in a position
where you're not consuming so much content
that it's either influencing your work entirely
or that's taking you away from the time that you need
to put out great content.
But I think you have to find great sources of content
to consume and I think that that will actually help you
and motivate you and inspire you.
And finally tip number seven,
when all else fails, go to your audience.
And there's a lot of ways to do this.
A lot of you could be getting recommendations on content
from your audience in the comment section.
If you guys are reading and replying to comments,
there is no way that you don't have more ideas for content
because the audience is usually very vocal
and they have an opinion about it.
Now some of you might say, "Well Roberto,
"I don't have a large audience like you
"and other people in this platform or that platform,
"or the next platform."
Well okay, fine, if you don't have an audience
where you're getting feedback from,
go ahead and check out my Discord server.
There's a link in the description,
you can join the Discord server,
don't go in there and spam and self promote
because the moderators will be ruthless
and they will take care of you.
So just go there and give some value,
comment on other people's stuff,
and then once you've paid that forward,
people will also be willing to give you feedback
and give you ideas, so you have that collaborative ability.
So there's no excuse,
even if you say you have a small audience,
I'm sure that if you went to them,
they would tell you what they want to see.
Now there's also another way to utilize
your audience for content.
Someone who does a great job of this is PewDiePie
and another person who does a great job of this
is Gary Vaynerchuk.
So a lot of you probably know who PewDiePie is,
he's the largest solo YouTuber on this platform,
the largest homegrown content creator
with over 100 million subscribers.
And one of the things they did that was brilliant
is called user-generated content.
He does a show called Meme Review
and he uses the memes that people
are posting in his PewDiePie subreddit.
Now again, you guys may not have a big enough audience
to where you have your own subreddit
but the point is you could actually
do something collaborative with your audience.
Similar to how PewDiePie is doing his meme reviews,
Gary Vaynerchuk did something
where he went to his Twitter audience
and used them for YouTube to be able to farm questions.
He did a show called the #AskGaryVee Show.
And it's what took him from 28,000 subscribers
a few years ago to about 400,000 subscribers
until he did another show called DailyVee
which was more vlogging.
Let's talk about the #AskGaryVee Show.
So what Gary Vaynerchuck and his team did
was actually quite brilliant.
They took five questions from Twitter
and then they would take that
and make those the questions for the show
and Gary would just react to those questions
and they'd film it.
And so it was actually really a great way
to acknowledge people in his community,
get questions from one platform to grow another,
drive some traffic, and a lot of people would watch the show
to see if their question got answered.
So it was a way to bring the community together,
have this user-generated content,
and to make the channel a destination.
And like I said, it very rapidly grew him
from 28,000 subscribers after like nine years,
he had 28,000 subscribers and within a few short years,
I think it was two or three years,
he exploded to over 400,000 with the #AskGaryVee Show.
And then later switched formats to the DailyVee Show
and that took him the rest of the way
to over two million subscribers.
So, lesson of this video is when you run out of ideas,
there are a lot of sources for motivation, inspiration,
and there are a lot of ways that you can make content,
and it doesn't always have to be something original
or out-of-left-field or unexpected or over-the-top.
There are a lot of ways that are practical
for you to approach content while you're feeling stuck
and you can use that to light the spark of your creativity
and move forward.
Question of the day, what is the social media platform
that has you the most excited right now?
Are you looking into streaming?
Are you doing stuff on TikTok?
Are you new here on YouTube?
Let me know in the comments section,
what social media platform has you pumped right now?
I'm actually excited to get back to doing stuff
over on Instagram, you can follow me there @robertoblake.
Anyway, like this video if you like it,
don't forget to subscribe,
check out the other awesome stuff here on the channel.
As always, you guys, thanks so very much for watching
and don't forget, go out there
and create something awesome today.
Take care.