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Take your head out the bucket….9 tips for blog inspiration

During a busy week it can be hard to focus the mind on ideas for blog articles, especially when it’s not your day job.  To ensure you can sustain a regular pipeline for your blog, it is helpful to develop an editorial calendar in the same way as you might for a newsletter or magazine.  Obviously it’s best to be news driven and use current developments as inspiration but many subjects can be planned well in advance giving you some leeway should you find yourself too busy to blog one week.

So what could you write your blogs about?

1. Comment on something in your industry sector – a new event, conference, forthcoming product launch, event you have attended
2. Offer free advice which has an intrinsic value to readers looking for initial guidance on a topic
3. Discuss new market research or a white paper recently published
4. Offer a perspective on a trade press article – akin to a letter to the editor, make sure you give full credit to those who inspired you and any other sources.
5. Share interesting content – favourite user case studies (preferably without promoting the competition), editorial leaders, videos or podcasts
6. Expand an article written by another blogger, offer an alternative viewpoint
7. Interview an industry figure and publish it as a Q&A
8. Ask some industry colleagues, clients, associates to write a ‘guest blog’ for you.  As well as providing varied content, this has other link building/community building benefit
9. Above all make time to gather inspiration.  It’s too easy to get swept away by the ‘busyness’ of the day and not flick through magazines, read your Linked In Group updates etc.   That’s all useful idea generating fodder….

And if after trying all these ideas you still don’t have the time to blog, it might be time to call in the professionals!

If you have any other suggestions for writing a decent blog, to help me make the list a round 10, I’ll be delighted to hear them, please get in touch.