31+ Content Ideas in 30 minutes (my process to unlimited ideas):
Truman… Is this clickbait?
No, it’s my actual system that I use to come up with content ideas/ headlines out of thin air.
Recently, I used it to create 31 content ideas, 21 of those were Medium articles, 6 were PDF essays for Twitter and 4 were for my email newsletter. All in 30 minutes!
It took time to get to this point (8-months of studying and 1,100 followers later) so, I’ll breakdown the process so, you can learn faster.
I used it for this article and the rest of the month’s articles.
Let’s dive in!
The preparation:
I’ve been preparing for 8-months. 8-months of consuming content in my niche, writing and studying. I understand the ins and outs of my audience.
That’s what I want to talk about here…
Your personification of your audience!
In my head, this is one person who simulates the:
- Troubles
- Problems
- Goals
- Journey
… of my audience.
Right now, pull out a journal and create this. Go in depth about what “they” are like.
Having trouble?
Likely, your goal audience member is your past self from a month or two ago.
Does that help?
Good.
The 30-minute content idea session:
Identify a problem of your audience and write down a solution in the form of thread hook, heading, or any other medium.
Questions to ask yourself to make this easier:
- What’d you have trouble with in [your niche] 2 months ago?
- What questions do you or [someone else in your niche] get often?
- If you could talk to my past self about [subject in your niche] what would you tell them?
- What’s something that you recently did that would help your audience?
- How’d you achieve something that is a goal of your audience (clients, sales, followers…?)
Once you get started, the ideas just flow naturally. You can then, do twists off previous ideas in different positioning.
You get the idea now… It’s all about playing with your audience’s goals, problems, and journey.
Optimizing for the algorithm:
The first draft of your headline will be horrible…
- Not clickable
- Too vague
- Long and wordy
- Not personalized
So, take some time to edit for the platform you are writing for. For example, in Medium I’ve seen a lot of personal experience articles get large so, I’m going to angle my headlines to create articles that play to that.
After some practice you will be getting the results that I got.
How I write based on the headline:
It all starts with a draft… ALWAYS!
Writing with a draft makes the process smoother for me, I highly recommend you try it out.
After that, simply write.
I’ll go more in depth into my exact writing process a different time because I’m still honing it for Medium (comment your problems and I’ll answer share an answer in the comments and in an article).
Thanks for reading…
If you enjoyed and want more people to see this article all I ask is that you:
- Give me a few claps (12 sound fair?)
- Drop a comment/question (I’ll check it out)
And if you really want to support me?
- Drop a follow!
Much love,
Truman Writes
P.S.
I have more content…
If you want to read more right now, I’d recommend this recent article breaking down 7 principles I learned from writing online:
