8 Tips for Generating Great Topics for Content Writing

1. Keep track of everything.

Even if you come up with a list of bad content ideas, write them down anyway. Anything your team brainstorms could be used later or spark up another idea. It’s worth it to keep track of every idea because you’re definitely not going to remember every detail of your brainstorming session a few days later.

If writing things down on a piece of paper or a whiteboard isn’t engaging enough for your brainstorming team, then find some other visual ways to brainstorm topics for content writing. For example, give every member of your team a sticky note pad. When someone comes up with an idea, they can write it down on a sticky note and put it on a designated “brainstorming wall”.

It doesn’t matter how you keep track of your content ideas, but you should always write everything down. You never know what idea could come in handy, and it’s just safer to have everything written down in one place.

2. Set a time limit for each brainstorming session.

You don’t want to trap your team in a never-ending brainstorming session. Setting a time limit for each session will motivate everyone to come up with content ideas to meet the goal of the session. A time limit is a good way to keep your team on track during the meeting.

Each brainstorming session might need a different time limit. It all depends on what you want to accomplish during each session. If you’re brainstorming for a big project that you have coming up, you might want to set a longer time limit.

A time limit will also ensure that you’re not burning out your team members. It can be tiring trying to come up with a bunch of amazing topics for content writing for long periods of time.

3. Assign a moderator for each session.

Assigning a moderator will help your team stay on task and stay productive. You want to choose a moderator that knows about the project you’re brainstorming for. Your moderator should be able to change the direction of the conversation if it gets off course.

You don’t want your moderator to dictate the conversation or present a ton of ideas. You want the moderator to be able to keep the conversation going and motivate other people to contribute their content ideas.

Your moderator should also make everyone feel comfortable. You should try to pick a more outgoing or social person that will make your team feel like they can participate in the session.

4. Set some goals for your brainstorming sessions.

You want to encourage a free flow of ideas during a brainstorming session, but you should set an objective or goal for each session. That will give your sessions some direction right from the beginning. The brainstorming session won’t be as productive if you don’t set some goals beforehand.

If you go into a brainstorming session without any direction, you won’t get anything productive done. You want to make sure you’re setting SMART goals for each session.

What are SMART goals?

SMART goals are:

• Specific: Set specific goals for your brainstorming session so you have an idea of which direction your session should go in. For example: “We will come up with x number of topics for content writing during this session.”
• Measurable: Make sure that the goals you set for your session can be tracked.
• Attainable: You want to make your goals reachable. You shouldn’t center your meeting around an impossible goal.
• Realistic: Don’t make your goals reach outside of what your team is capable of. You want it to be challenging, but you want to actually be able to accomplish those goals once you set them.
• Time bound: Give yourself a deadline for your goals. Or, in this case, set a time limit on the brainstorming session.

5. Ask your team to come prepared to the brainstorming session.

Give your team a few days notice about the meeting and what you’ll be discussing. You want people to have an idea of what to expect so they can come prepared with ideas or questions to ask the rest of the team.

Preparing your team and having them come prepared to a brainstorming session will kick start the conversation almost immediately. This way, you could start the session off on a strong note with some solid topics for content writing from people who came prepared.

Also, ideas that people bring to the meeting could spark other content ideas. People work well together when they can bounce ideas off of each other and perfect original ideas as a team.

6. Create an environment where your team feels comfortable sharing topics for content writing.

If your team doesn’t feel comfortable with each other, you’re not going to be as productive. Make sure that everyone is okay with sharing their content ideas. You don’t want to feel judged when you’re sharing your ideas with your co-workers, or for your lack of ideas.

Everyone should feel free to say any idea without fear of being judged or uncomfortable. If you’re gathering a new group of people together, come up with a way to break the ice and warm everyone up. You want the content ideas to flow naturally and that won’t happen until everyone feels comfortable with one another.

7. Get an outside perspective.

Bringing in a person from outside of your content marketing team could prove to be beneficial for your brainstorming session. Whether your team is running out of topics for content writing or your content is just lacking something special, an outside perspective could spark the inspiration you’re looking for.

Not only could an outside perspective help inspire your team with some fresh, new content ideas, but they could also give you an idea of what you’re doing right and wrong. You want to bring in people that are really involved with your company, and who are focused on helping the company grow.

8. At the end of the brainstorming session, sort your content ideas into categories based on how good the idea is.

Your team is bound to come up with some content ideas that probably aren’t great, which is totally okay. You just want to make sure you separate out the bad or mediocre ideas. Categorizing all of your brainstormed ideas will help your team separate the good ideas from the bad.

Separating your topics for content writing will help you decide which ideas are worth expanding upon and using to create new content. You shouldn’t completely throw any ideas out the window unless you know that you won’t be able to use them. Separating all of the ideas will help you figure out which ideas have potential, but still need some work in order to successfully execute them.

Learning how to brainstorm effectively for your content marketing team will make it easier for your team to generate great content ideas. Keep these 8 tips in mind the next time your team is leading a brainstorming session.