As a business owner, nothing is more frustrating than staring at a blank page when you’re trying to create your marketing content.
Where do you begin? And how can you create enough ideas to write blog posts, social media posts and how can you turn them into video content?
“ If you’re not prepared to be wrong, it’s unlikely that you’ll ever come up with anything original.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds, the Power Being Creative
Brainstorming really starts with that quote from Sir Ken Robinson.
Because I believe what happens when we get to that frustrated point in brainstorming, we start going through our ideas and we’re like, “Oh, I don’t have time for that. I don’t have money for that. That just seems like this is a crazy, crazy idea.”
But here’s the thing my friends, you’d be surprised at how the little pieces of that big idea are really that space you should be in instead of staring at that blank page.
And if you are not prepared to allow yourself to be wrong, you’re not going to come up with anything original.
That’s a really important piece when it comes to brainstorming because not everything you’re going to come up with is going to be perfect. Your ideas are going to take time to develop.
I know this for a fact because when I first launched the Create Your Business program, I started off with the workbooks helping you build your business and then when I was working with the branding coach, it all just kind of came to me like someone turned on a light bulb in my brain.
And I started making changes from that place. I allowed myself to be wrong about certain things so that I could keep moving into being a more original version of a content development program.
Let’s talk about the science of brainstorming
The science of brainstorming is broken up into three steps: imagination, creativity and then innovation.
Imagination
Imagination is actually the source of your creativity. Contrary to what most people believe, imagination and creativity are not the same thing.
Imagination is what I refer to as a mental experience. We imagine things that have existed. We imagine things that might have existed or maybe something that hasn’t existed at all.
So spending time within your imagination is the first place for you to start with your brainstorming process.
{ if you don’t know how to do this, just stare out the window and daydream – that’s one of the best ways to kick up your imagination! }
Creativity
Creativity is the act of doing something. It’s actively producing something in a deliberate way.
When we take what we came up with in our imagination and move it into the actual physical act of doing something, then it becomes creativity.
So whatever you participate in doing for your ‘creative’ activity, there’s a clear relationship between the creative activity you engage in that adds more value to the ideas that came to you during the time you spent in your imagination.
Let’s say that your creative activity is that you’re going for a 15 minute walk or baking a cake or gardening. When you are actively engaged in the creative energy of doing this activity, you’re allowing your content ideas to flow.
That is creativity.
Creativity is the physical act of doing something that’s tapping into the right-creative side of your brain. You’re physically doing something and not just living in your head with your ideas and imagination.
Innovation
Innovation is when we take action on what we have developed during those moments of creativity.
One of the best examples of understanding why innovation is not an invention has to do with smartphones. The phone itself is an invention, but the smartphone is an innovation. Because believe it or not, you can still use your smartphone to talk on the phone.
I know most of us would rather text or email. We’d rather use our smartphone to go on social media or play games or whatever you do to waste time. But it’s a phone because … it actually says it in the name.
So the telephone was the invention, but the smartphone is the innovation.
So think about brainstorming your content ideas like this:
We start off with digging into our imagination and what we can think about mentally in our content ideas and then we take these ideas out of our head and turn it into something that can actually create value to our community.
That’s where creativity comes in.
The next step is to plan to do some type of physical activity for the creativity of your content ideas to come to fruition. And then the innovation is actually taking action on that creative idea.
I want you to think about brainstorming your content ideas differently because for this to be successful, it’s not like, oh, I’m just gonna do a whole list of stuff and this is what I’m gonna do.
Instead think about your brainstorming process in this way:
- What could I do to spark my imagination?
- What could I then do to bring out my creativity to do something? What creative activity do I like to do that I can physically participate in to give myself time to marinate in my ideas?
- The creative activity will lead to the innovation of taking action on this content idea. What could you do to take action and do something different with these content ideas?
And the innovation could be starting a new YouTube channel. Your innovation could be a different way that you do reels on social media. The innovation could be setting up a podcast and doing interviews.
Bringing it all together
It’s important to know the differences within the phases of brainstorming of your content ideas. And to know when and how you’re moving from one mode to the next.
Where your imagination can help come up with a branding story within your marketing messages, creativity can make what you imagine possible. And then innovation will take your imaginative thoughts and the power behind what happened during your creativity experience and turn it into an action you can take to improve upon what already exists.
If you want to do something different with your content strategy, work on finding ways to spend more time in your imagination. Because when you truly let your imagination uncover new ideas, there’s a real opportunity to develop engaging content that can become innovative breakthroughs.
Want more tips like these to give you better results with developing your content ideas?
When you find yourself getting stuck on what to post on your social platforms, it’s time to learn a new way to get it done — and to stay consistent with it!
If your marketing plan doesn’t feel aligned with your goals, customers aren’t connecting with you, your messaging is off and your sales are flatlining …
… something needs to change.
Marketing should be a priority for your business. But when it starts to feel overwhelming, when it feels frustrated to stay consistent, that’s the point when that plan gets pushed to the side and the strategy becomes ‘figure it out later.’
If this feels like where you are then it’s time to change your approach to your marketing and that time is NOW.
Because all these marketing platforms that you rely upon for your marketing are constantly changing and knowing how to make these fit into your business is essential.
And to do this, you need to look at the full picture of your marketing, not just each single social platform.
It’s time for you to focus on how you’re going to make that marketing plan bring you results.
THIS is exactly why I created this FREE masterclass: How to get organized to stay consistent
In this free training, you’ll learn how to:
- Develop the Heartbeat of your Content Strategy: Learn how to pinpoint the content topics that show your expertise and share your marketing messages.
- Establish a Routine and Develop a Content Workflow: Develop a routine that will make you more efficient. You’ll become an assembly line with your content creation and find ways to make your work more efficient.
- Create a detailed Content Plan: Learn how to develop a workflow process that you can manage AND how to stick with it so you can reach more customers.
Click here to watch the free masterclass – How to get organized to stay consistent – and learn the simple marketing techniques to stay consistent with your marketing to help you grow your business and create consistent revenue.
Watch the Masterclass: How to get organized to stay consistent
