You are a Content Idea Generator

9 ways to come up with endless new ideas

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"Where do you find ideas for content?" is one of the biggest questions I get asked.

I post 2-3 blogs/week here and 30+ tweets per week on my personal account. Plus all the content for the brand accounts I run.

Here's 9 ways to generate endless content ideas.

Method 1: Ask yourself what a younger version of you would like to learn.

I'm 25 and a full-time creator now so I write a lot of my content to an 18-year-old version of myself who was trying to figure out how to make it as a creator.

There are millions of people on the internet similar to a younger version of myself who will resonate with this content. So ask yourself, "What would 18-year-old me want to know?" Then answer those questions.

Some questions I try to answer for my 18-year-old self:

  • How do I grow a loyal social media following?

  • How do I get into startups and tech with no college degree?

  • How do I make money online?

Method 2: Repurpose your best content into new content.

Remember, no idea is truly original. Steal from yourself to make new content.

Look through your best tweets. Turn them into longer posts. Look through your best posts. Turn them into tweets and LinkedIn posts. It's what all professional creators do.

9 months ago, I wrote a piece called 10+ Years Losing on the Internet. Last week, I published a thread with the same concepts, updating it with everything I learned. The thread got 90,000+ views and I dropped the link the original piece at the end.

Method 3: Look through your reading highlights.

Ryan Holiday writes quotes from his favorite books onto paper notecards and categorizes them in boxes. That's a little too much extra work for me.

Instead, I use an app called Readwise that organizes my highlights across books via Kindle, newsletters, and articles from around the web and then integrates them into Notion. Whenever I need ideas, I look through Readwise for powerful quotes and notes.

Method 4: Start creating and follow the rabbithole.

Non-creators will never understand this:

No creator has a fully formed idea pop in their head. The idea is formed while creating.

When I write a blog post, I nearly always come up with ideas for other posts. As MrBeast films videos, he always thinks of new things to add (much to the annoyance of his team).

But this is how creative minds work. The act of creating lights up a spark. As you type words or paint a canvas, more ideas pop off like fireworks.

If you're looking for ideas for content ideas, try:

  • Writing about a conversation you had with a friend

  • Filming a vlog about your day

As you do these things, ideas pop off in your head like fireworks. Trust your gut, follow the ideas, and keep on creating.

Method 5: Remix others' content

No idea is truly original.

Every tweet, book, whatever is a remix of another idea. And that's completely fine. Every big creator understands this to be true. We all take inspiration from each other.

All creators remix ideas and put their own flavor on it. "It's not stealing if you put a spin on it," writes Pressfield. If you're trying to create great content on Twitter, look through popular tweets using tools like Tweet Hunter and put your own spin on it.

Never forget every content creator is a content-kleptomaniac at heart.

Method 6: Look through your texts/DMs for ideas you shared with friends.

Hearing this idea from podcaster Danny Miranda blew my fricking mind.

I send funny texts and articles to my friends 10x/day, but never thought to look through my texts for content ideas. Now I'm doing it all the time.

Method 7: Ask your audience what they want to see you do more of?

I learned from one of my readers Abhishek that he wants to see me do more pieces about career hacking like my post Digital Apprenticeships. So I'll be doing more of that.

Like a business, the only way to grow an audience is to provide value to your consumers. So ask your consumers what they want to see more from you about.

Method 8: Talk to ChatGPT.

ChatGPT is a free AI writing tool. It's the hottest new app since Angry Birds.

You can ask ChatGPT to write you a blog on _______ or write 10 tweets about ______ and it will write original content synthesized from sources across the web.

I'm not saying to use ChatGPT to write your content. Maybe for SEO blogs, but that's about it. ChatGPT just isn't good enough to replace a serious writer ā€” no humor, wit, or style. That being said, ChatGPT is quite helpful for idea generation.

Method 9: Look at keywords with low keyword difficulty and high global search volume.

This is like searching for keywords on Google Trends, but on steroids.

This will show you content that is being searched heavily on Google, but doesn't have any good content out there. You can rank high with little competition.

Where do you store your content ideas?

I use a content calendar on Notion. I turned it into a template. Just press duplicate