How I Find Blogging Ideas

Welcome back!

I think blogs are awesome. Anyone with a computer can reach the world, long distance friends can keep up with one another, businesses can interact with the community at large, communities can form and capture the attention of politicians, the possibilities are almost endless. Blogs were one of the first means of social media, and they’re still growing. I work as a search engine optimization consultant, and I make a point of discussing a blog with each of my clients, because they open up opportunities to make a website more useful to the visitors that they’re trying to reach. One question comes up every time. What will we write about?

The answer will be different for every blogger, but everyone that contributes to a blog will need to have something to write about. Its not easy to come up with something meaningful to say on a regular basis, so its good to have a collection of tools to ‘prime the pump’ when its your turn to contribute. Here are a few of the steps that I take when coming up with ideas.

Do Interesting Things. Get out and interact with the world around you. If your blog is a company blog, then get involved in the community within your industry. Attend happy hours, go to conferences, find out what others are talking about and who the forward thinkers are. What do you think about where the industry is headed? Do you agree with the forward thinkers? As a professional within you industry, your opinion counts, and someone is interested in hearing it. Your blog is the place.

If its a personal blog then take up a new hobby and write about what you’re learning or experiencing as you go. Set a goal such as losing weight or writing a book or running a marathon, and blog about your progress.

Be Social. Blogs are a social medium. One method of making yours interesting is for you to be social. Go to concerts, join a book club or start a group around one of your favorite things. Do anything that will prompt you to interact with people. A long time ago a friend of mine started a bread pudding club. Once a month they’d get together at a restaurant that serves bread pudding for a meal, and, of course, dessert. I thought that was a cool idea. When you get to your computer write a review of the concert, or about how you tricked Richard into eating a spoon full of wasabi, or why your movie club is done with Coen brothers movies. Lets face it, people are interesting. A lot of ideas come to me just by being social.

Have An Opinion. People like knowing what others think about stuff. Tell the world what you think. People want to know why you refuse to use anything other than an iPhone, or why you refuse to buy one. Have you been a long time Black Crowes fan, but hate Chris Robinson’s solo work? Tell your blog why. If you collect anything then you have an opinion and your readers want to know about it. When I was 6 my Dad gave me a Bicentennial quarter, and I thought the drummer on the back looked cool, so I started collecting them. I still do. If I get one as change I’ll go out of my way to not spend it. At last count I had $28.75 worth of Bicentennial quarters.

Keep Tabs. As I’m going throughout my daily life, I try to think about things that would be interesting for my readers. Good ideas often come from random events in daily life, a commercial that I think is witty or entertaining, my response to a commentary that I heard on the radio or a conversation that I overheard in the grocery store. As these ideas come to me I make a mental note. Next time I’m near my computer if the idea is memorable then I blog about it while the memory is fresh.

Read Blogs. Create an account with Bloglines and get in the habit of subscribing to RSS feeds as you surf the web. As you read what others are writing about you’ll pick up a few ideas for your blog. When I feel like writing, if I don’t already have an idea, I’ll open Bloglines and peruse the new posts. If someone has an idea that prompts a response or that I think I can add to, then I do. I write the response on my own blog and link back to the original article. I try to find at least one or two new blogs to subscribe to each month, and I limit myself to 20 feeds at a time, so as new ones come in, the less interesting ones have to go.

Only Write About Things That Interest You. This is important. If you want your blog to be interesting for your readers, then it must first be interesting for you. No one wants to read something that the author didn’t want to write. Web citizens are sharp people, they’ll see through the text that you aren’t into the subject, and they’ll move on to another blog. Find something that you’re passionate about, write about it on your blog, and eventually the readers will find you.

The Secret Weapon. Sometimes its time to write and I have no idea what I’m going to write about. Its times like this that I lean on the web. There are a handful of sites that are useful for prompting ideas. Digg and Slashdot usually have something that’s interesting, so I start there. Lately Twine has been helpful in finding things that interest me. StumbleUpon is also good at presenting material that I like. Lately I’ve been using Blogstorm’s Hot Topics, and I like it.

True confession. When I started this post I had no idea what to write, but I’ve made a commitment to myself to update this blog at least twice a week. I surfed the web for 15 minutes and found Chris Brogan’s post on 100 Blog Topics, and boom, this post was born. See, the system works. Go forth and blog.