3 Ways to Crowdsource Ideas for Content Creation
What are some of the most common ways to digitally crowdsource ideas?
- Look through your website’s comments section
- Use surveys to ask your audience
- Consider your social media presence
Content creation has never been more rigorous than the past few years. The digital age marked the rise in significance of data and information. Once you fall behind, there’s no telling how far you have to go to reach the ones in front. Content is everywhere, but the ideas of what should be talked about get fewer and fewer as time goes on.
With that being said, some blogs use their WordPress survey plugin to their advantage—asking their audience themselves what they should write about! This is just one of the many tactics used today when it comes to crowdsourcing.
Crowdsourcing is basically making use of your audience or community to think of new subjects to talk about! It’s a common way for content creators to take a break from all their brainstorming. Gathering topics and ideas from your audience is a very unique way of conceptualizing content because there are so many ways that you could identify interesting topics and attractive themes!
In that regard, here are some of the most common ways to crowdsource ideas for your content creation process!
Skim Through Your Blog’s Comment’s Section
A blog that has a brain stimulating idea can cause a few discussions in your own comment section! Readers who are not afraid to voice out their opinion are the ones that you would love to have the most when you plan on crowdsourcing. There’s a big difference between the perspective of a content creator, and a reader—and maybe in that regard, you’ll find something worth writing about!
Sometimes discussions turn into debates, particularly when two individuals with differing viewpoints clash. When the two people are relatively knowledgeable about the topic at hand, this feud can result in an interesting topic to explore that, depending on the depth of information available, can easily turn into a theme for multiple blog posts!
There is much to get from looking at the comments section. This is a treasure trove of unsolicited discourse that can easily be accessed by the creator can introduce different viewpoints and eventually spawn more topics to talk about.
The best thing about getting topics from your reader’s comments is that they would usually be a bit natural. They wouldn’t think too much about it, rather they’ll let their inner curiosity take over, resulting in ideas that anyone who reads your blog would be equally curious about!
Use Surveys and ask your Audience Directly!
There is a difference between spawning discourse and getting ideas from there, and actually asking your audience for topics to talk about. And in some cases, the latter is the better choice—not because random discourse among commenters aren’t significant, but rather because of the particularity that comes with asking through a survey.
In most cases, content creators would have a vague idea of what they want to write next. Sometimes they have a selection of topics ready but isn’t sure whether or not their audience would like them. So the best course of action would be to ask the audience directly to pick which one they would want to read about!
Not only is it a way of collecting your audience’s ideas, but it can also be a platform in which you get to know what your audience deeper through the topics that they choose! Knowing more about your audience can ultimately give you better, more accurate content ideas that they would surely read!
But don’t think that your surveys would only get your typical responses such as ideas that are related to your usual content. Sometimes people get a little overboard and suggest the wildest things! And even when they’re completely nonsensical, there’s a chance that you can get ideas from these suggestions still!
Consider Your Social Media Presence!
So we’ve talked about unsolicited ideas from the comments and explicitly asked suggestions through surveys. The next one you should put your eyes on is the social media posts that your content get!
Even when you have social media sharing tools on your blog, that doesn’t mean that you’re making full use of your social media presence. Make sure you have a thorough social media strategy because if you have one and you use it properly, you increase the chances that your content gets a lot more attention than it initially had.
Though it’s tedious, take a look at the comments and the posts where your content is involved. Just like in the first point, these areas are a great place to look for some interesting topics and ideas for your content creation!
Key Takeaway
Content creation is a difficult process, especially with all of the people that try to create content at any given time. you should make it as unique, interesting and as informative as possible while ensuring that it’s something that people would actually look for.
Check out your comments section, use WordPress survey plugins, and of course, social media in your efforts and see how many things are worth talking about in the eyes and minds of your audience!