Using your Online Community for Blog Post Ideas
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You know what there’s a lot of? Internet. You know what else there’s a lot of? People on said internet.
And people have questions and comments and thoughts and things to share. And we can utilise that for our content creation and gathering blog post ideas.
I don’t know about you, but sometimes coming up with blog posts can be a bit of a challenge. I can do it really well for other people, but sometimes thinking up ideas for my own blog, especially when I’ve been blogging for so long, can get a bit yuck.
Sometimes we need to think outside the box a little bit when it comes to blog post ideas. So! The following ideas are for you to take and run with, but you’ll need to decide for yourself what works and what doesn’t. But I’ve found these places to be a fountain of sweet, sweet knowledge and ideas. And I hope you do too.
Where to find blog post ideas in your online communities
Your community online is so important, and can make quite a difference to what you might write and create. One way to get blog post ideas is to literally ask your audience. Use polls, question boxes, quizzes, and get them to comment on posts. Speaking of such things …
Instagram comments
Have you ever read the comments of other people’s Instagram posts? It’s a gold mine! Head to an account that’s similar to your own, and check out their posts. In their comments, people are going to be chatting, and if they have something to say, you know they’re darn well gonna say it.
But we can use those comments as ideas for content.
Whether they be concerns they raise, questions they ask or general comments that spark ideas. Keep a note of what ideas you come up with, as usual, and be on the lookout for more comments.
Instagram sticker responses
If you’re anything like me, you’ll love an Instagram Story sticker. You know the ones, the polls, the questions, the quizzes. I love answering them and also putting them in my community and seeing what they reckon.
There are two ways you can use Instagram Sticker response for content ideas:
- Use responses and results from your own Stories to generate content for your community. You already know that it’s going to be mega helpful to them because you’ve asked and they’ve answered.
- Use responses and results from other people’s Stories. More often than not, Instagram users will use Story stickers and then share the results. Even if you haven’t actually participated in the polls, questions or quizzes, you’ll be able to see the answers if the creator shares them. You can then see how people are responding and create content accordingly.
Facebook Page comments
Have a Facebook page? Follow Facebook pages in your niche?
Much like the Instagram comments strategy, you can gain ideas from people’s comments on Facebook too. Check out the results of polls, how people are responding to links being shared, and what they’re saying about them.
Facebook Groups
Likewise, Facebook groups are FULL of your people. If you’re in Groups that are in your niche or that are for your ideal audience, then they’re going to be posting questions, raising concerns, sharing their struggles and more.
💡 Check out Bold Beinnger Bloggers for a free Facebook Group
Threads
I am loving Threads. Ever since I joined up in 2023, I have been using it nearly daily to just chat away, meet new people, connect with some incredible bloggers, and even made connections with business women who have then hosted classes in The Blogging Room. It’s such a great space.
And it’s full of blog post ideas.
No matter what your niche, you’ll be able to find questions from people asking things, you’ll see comments and re-posts from people, all with blog post ideas in there for you. Definitely worth paying attention to.
Check out the forums
But don’t troll them. Sites like Reddit and Quora are rife with questions and comments; it’s literally a place for people to chat and find answers.
One single search for ‘blog commenting’ on Reddit gave me the ideas below. Six ideas from one single thread that only had 11 comments in it.
Read other people’s blogs
Read other people’s blogs, first and foremost, because you love to do it, but also because other people’s inspiration can become your own.
You may be reading a blog post, and it might trigger an idea or a memory that you can turn into a piece of content. If you do end up doing something that turns out to be very similar to someone else, make sure you do credit them, even if it’s just “I saw this fantastic post the other day by [blogger], over at [blog name], and thought it was brilliant”; something that acknowledges them and their ideas.
You’ll find that people don’t mind you borrowing their ideas and doing something similar, as long as you link back to their post.
Ask your blogging friends
Make a survey or simply ask your blogging friends what kinds of posts they enjoy reading. You might find that there are actually quite a few things that you might quite like to blog about, but hadn’t really thought of it before. And you can do that online, or you could do it offline, too.
At the end of the day, ideas are everywhere. You just gotta know where to look. And sometimes, that means stepping outside your own lil’ brain bubble and into the chaos of the internet. People are talking. Your community is talking. You just have to listen.
Next time you’re staring at the blinking cursor of doom, wondering what on earth to blog about next, go and have a bit of a snoop. In the comments. In the groups. In the quizzes and questions and chats. Heck, even Reddit.
Your next great blog post idea might already be out there, just waiting for you to spot it. 👀
And if you really don’t like coming up with blog post ideas yourself, check out the Blog Post Idea Vault. There’s plenty in there just waiting for you!
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