How to Find Content Topics

Whether you’re beginning to strategize your content efforts or are well amid it, writer’s block can strike anyone at any time.

Fortunately, in the B2B world, there is no shortage of inspiration to get you unstuck and back to producing engaging content for your audience.

Let’s dive into the best ways and sources to find content topics.

LinkedIn

Let’s start with what’s likely an obvious one. LinkedIn is this go-to platform for the B2B world, so it’s filled with ideas and inspiration (once you get past the overly theatrical anecdotes and far-reaching metaphors).

Follow notable professionals and companies in your niche and research the topics that are covered and discussed, and ask yourself:

• Which topics are garnering the most engagement?

• Any polarizing topics?

• Any misleading information you can disprove?

• Can you identify any content gaps?

• Are there any common threads or themes?

Trade Publications

This is an important part of your due diligence for multiple reasons. Not only is this a great source of inspiration, but it also doubles as a bit of competitive research.

Think of your niche’s trade publications as a frenemy.

Of course, there will be moments to partner with them, especially regarding your earned media efforts. Still, they are also a quasi-competitor to your own media platform because you compete for attention from an overlapping audience.

You’ll want to look for trending topics. What are common themes among the articles published?

You’ll also want to identify content gaps. What’s either not being covered at all or not being covered deep enough?

Industry Events

Industry events are a great two-for-one scenario. You can both research content topics and cover the event itself for content.

You can listen to speakers at the event (and better yet pay attention to the questions they are asked) to identify core topics and themes.

Don’t forget about the audience. Ask them what they think of the content they sat in on. What was good? What wasn’t? What was lacking?

You can cover the content from the event and pull attendees aside for interviews to build your own content.

Attending the right industry event can set you up with months of content for your media platform and social media channels.

Sales & Account Management

Content/marketing teams and sales and account management teams must work closely together. That is a topic all by itself, but, for now, let’s focus on why this is important for content ideation.

Your sales and account management colleagues are on the frontline, so they know better than anyone the pulse of your niche and audience.

They know your customers’ and prospects’ wishes, concerns, challenges and desires. They can tell you what content resonates the most with them and what doesn’t.

Most importantly, you can work with sales to identify roadblocks to closing deals and understand objections from prospects.

Together, you can build content to counter these objections and alleviate the concerns of your prospects.

Over time, you can build a complete content library for each stage of the customer journey to assist sales in moving the pipeline along.

Customers & Prospects

Do you know what’s even better than talking to your colleagues about customers? Talking to them directly yourself.

The best way to understand your audience and create content that resonates with them is to ask them about their work.

Talk the time to understand their pain points, ambitions and what matters to them.

Schedule interviews with customers and prospects on or off the record, depending on their preference.

If the interview itself can’t be used for content, you’ll at least obtain valuable insights you can use as inspiration in the future.

This might seem like an obvious point, but so many content creators never directly engage with their core audience and it shows.

Double Down on What Works

After you’ve published enough content and have enough data points, you should be able to see what content has been most successful.

Don’t overcomplicate it! Do more of what’s already working!

Maybe you’ve found a popular format or, perhaps, a certain topic always engages your audience.

Use these signals to guide future content or even reformat popular topics for different media and channels.

It’s easy to get stuck in the mindset that you continuously must reinvent the wheel and be original with content. This type of thinking only increases the difficulty level.

You know what works — do it!

Bonus: Get Out of Your Bubble

This is useful for all facets of life — get out of your echo chamber and experience something different!

The best way to find inspiration is to get out of your day-to-day grind: go to a new place, try something new, or even just get away from your desk and go for a walk.

Shake things up to gain a new perspective. This helps you make new connections from bespoke points and draw interesting parallels that others from your niche don’t see. This is what makes content unique!

If you’re only head down in your own niche, you’ll develop tunnel vision and begin to lack depth and nuance — the world doesn’t need more of that!

You’ve read my newsletter, now go outside 😀