One of the many responsibilities of a social media manager is planning engagement-driving, brand-awareness-building content for clients. But it's not always easy to come up with fresh new ideas for content, on demand.
Burnout and creativity fatigue are very real issues for social media managers. Thirty minutes of “research” on TikTok can quickly turn into 3 hours of doom scrolling — leaving you with little more than a dreaded feeling that you’ll never come up with a unique content idea again. (Oh yes, we’ve totally been there).
If you’ve ever found yourself staring at a blank content calendar, struggling to think of new topics to share with your social media clients – we got you!
Pro Tip: Bookmark this page for the next time you’re in need of a creative jumpstart.
Here are 5 ways to generate new content ideas as a social media manager…
1 | Ask Questions / Use Polls
One of the simplest ways to know what an audience wants is to ask them. You can use the built-in tools on various social media platforms to ask specific questions, or create polls, in order to gather information about the kinds of content customers want to see from a brand.
You can even make “content idea farming” part of your regularly rotating content plan & ask followers what else they want to see or learn, or what questions they have about a business’ products or specific subject matter on a weekly or monthly basis.
Bonus: Platforms like TikTok or Instagram allow you to reply directly to comments in new video posts, making it simple to have conversations with your most engaged community members.
2 | SEO on Social Media Platforms
Did you know that Instagram & TikTok are eating into Google’s core products? These platforms are a literal goldmine for content research, providing you with a front row seat to the search terms & keywords consumers are “Googling” off Google.
When you know exactly what questions they have, or what specific topics they’re interested in, (as it relates to your client’s business), you can strategically create content that answers their questions & solves their problems!
One of our favorite tricks when it comes to searching for new content ideas on Instagram & Tiktok is what we call the “ABC Method”.
To do it, you simply type a keyword into the search bar on TikTok or Instagram [in this example, we used TikTok & typed in “green tea”]. Then, take some time to go through the entire alphabet, letter by letter, and see what else comes up.
As you can see in this example, in the search bar we typed: “Green Tea A”, “Green Tea B”, “Green Tea C”… and so on.
This process provides you with the most popular long tail search terms for each letter – leaving you with plenty of new & interesting starting points for social media content ideas.
3 | Answer the Public
Answer the Public is a social listening tool that can help you generate new content ideas based on what people are actively searching about specific topics. This tool aggregates the questions and problems real potential customers have about a subject before buying a product or investing in a service.
For example, if your client sells a product related to “green tea” and you’ve run out of new content ideas, you can simply type those keywords into their search bar and generate plenty of new topics – all based on the most popular searches.
4 | Use AI Copywriting Tools to Generate New Ideas
Feeling stuck on what to post? Why not ask your favorite robot pal for some new content ideas?
While we don’t believe AI copywriting tools can replace a good [human] copywriter, they definitely come in handy when our creativity is depleted or we are plagued with a case of writer’s block.
In addition to helping you write better captions, hooks & headlines, these tools can help you generate new content ideas for social media too!
We often use Copy.AI’s “Blog Ideas” or “TikTok Brainstorm Ideas” feature or Writesonic’s “Blog Ideas” to generate new social media content ideas.
5 | Keysearch
Keysearch is an SEO keyword research tool based on popular internet searches. If you want to fall down a content ideas rabbit hole, start by typing in your general keyword, then look at the related “Search Engine Keyword Suggestions”.
For this example, we started with “green tea” then looked at the additional suggestions. This gave us a few different starting points for content ideas — things like “green tea benefits”, “how to drink green tea” and “green tea side effects”.
From here we can choose any one of these suggestions to break the idea into even more content ideas.
For example, if we click on “green tea side effects” and look at the new suggestions, we get even more specific content ideas…
Keep in mind that these are just a few methods you can use to generate new content ideas as a social media manager.
👉👉👉 YOU CAN ALSO FIND INSPIRATION WITH WEEKLY TRENDING IDEAS WITH PLANOLY, A SOCIAL CONTENT PLANNER.
Don’t forget that reposting & repurposing content that has performed well in the past is also a great way to fill your content calendar, especially if you’re feeling burned out creatively.
Not every post needs to be brand spankin’ new, because not every follower sees every piece of content you publish. Reduce your social media stress by recycling that content you worked so hard on!
Continue to double down on what you know works well for your clients then use these tips to sprinkle in a few fresh ideas whenever you need them!
