We all know that content marketing is an important piece of your brand’s puzzle. But whether you’re a new or seasoned blogger, finding ideas for your brand’s content is not always easy. Where do you find ideas that will engage with your audience, aren’t overdone, and will add value to your brand (along with a little bit of SEO help)?

1. Find a problem and solve it

The best way to provide value to your readers is to solve their problems. What issues do your customers and leads have that your products or services can solve? How can you frame your content in a way that helps your readers solve these problems, but also makes them want to buy what you have to offer?

“All in all, listening for the problems people need solutions for, is our greatest content asset at the moment,” says Matt Erickson. Listening for problems includes jumping on your social media channels and seeing what people are complaining about, sending out customer service surveys and also checking out what the competitors are doing and not doing.

As Jung Nguyen of Small PDF states, there are two types of trending topics. The first is those with high search volumes and then there are those that get shared a lot. Both types of trending topics can be found via search, topic research and SEO tools.

You can also find trending topics via the most-shared hashtags on Twitter or Instagram. HARO is a great resource for finding out what topics are trending by examining what questions are being asked. Or, go old school and skim the news and see what people are reading about. Develop content that makes sense for your brand around this trending topic.

“We largely use our social media to find new and trending topics for our blog. We also pay close attention to any trending hashtags within our industry to get an insight into current popular topics. This provides us with great insight into what people are talking about and the kind of questions that are being asked,” says Alex Nowak of Workout Depot. His team then looks through the comments on social media posts to help them find the right information to write about.

3. Subscribe to content in your industry

Whether that is a blog or a Facebook group, find the ones that are relevant to your niche and keep up on the content and discussions that are happening. This will ensure your content is very relevant to your audience, as well as topical.

“I have joined many Facebook groups that are relevant to my niche. These are the places for great discussions. Checking these groups’ content regularly helps me in understanding trending topics,” says Nirmal Kumar of Online Rockers Hub.

4. Highlight what makes you great

Many businesses feel like they can’t be promotional in their content so as not to drive readers away. But, it is your blog and you can definitely promote your products and services. The trick is to do so in a way that is interesting and valuable to your readers. For instance, letting your readers know about why a new product will help them is a great soft-sell tactic. As well, if the product is trendy, your readers want to know why everyone is in love with it.

“We mainly highlight trendy upcoming products and new supplement releases in our blogs. To stay on top of what products are new and interesting, we follow manufacturer’s and brand’s Instagram and other social media profiles to be some of the first to share about new products, says Jennifer Neylon of Supplement Warehouse.

5. Use the tools

There are plenty of tools on the market that help brands come up with topics for their content and many of them are low-cost and even free. These include Ahrefs, Google Trends, Buzzsumo, SEMrush, Exploding Topics, Ubersuggest, Spyfu and Social Animal. Each has its own pros and cons and features that will help you come up with ideas for your content marketing.