Just about anybody with even the most basic writing skills and a little patience can write at least one press release or article. It’s not too difficult to write about a subject that you know well, especially if it’s about your own company and products – or perhaps those of a client. With a little effort, it might even attract enough attention to get shared and linked to. The trick is to be able to rinse and repeat the process over and over again. That’s the challenge of public relations, social media and content marketing – you need great content, and plenty of it.

Once that first article is published, you need to move on to the next one and the one after that. By the time you get a dozen or so pieces of content under your belt, you’re probably going to be grasping at straws trying to come with new article ideas. Once you’ve run through product announcements, new hires, and grand openings, what’s left to write about? Plenty – but you need to have a system in place that generates newsworthy content ideas in order to create a steady stream of fresh and relevant articles that will attract and hold your audience’s attention, get shared, and generate inbound links to your site.

Tap into News and Events Occurring in Your Industry or Niche
Staying on top of breaking news and developments in your particular industry is one of the most effective methods of generating current and relevant ideas for content that connects to your company and product lines. You might already subscribe to one or more trade publications that cater to your field of interest that can be mined for fresh content ideas.

Another great technique that you should be taking advantage of is Google Alerts. This is a free service that enables you to receive an email notification whenever Google indexes new results about your selected topic. You may choose to receive an alert for various types of content such as:

• News
• Blogs
• Video
• Real-time updates
• Discussions

Visit https://www.google.com/alerts to get started. If you’re signed in to your Google account when you create a new alert, you can have up to 1,000 verified active alerts at a time; otherwise you’re limited to three unverified alerts. Options include the ability to select the frequency with which your alerts are delivered, the type of sources you want to see results from, and the email address that you want your alerts sent to.

Thoroughly Research Your Industry
The more background material you have at your disposal, the richer and more relevant your content will be. Dig deep into historical trends, current forecasts and trends, analyst’s reports, and the various web properties of major competitors within your vertical or niche. Subscribe to as many industry, trade association, and competitor blogs as you can find. You’ll gain valuable insight into the topics that are currently being written and talked about.

Follow Important Thought Leaders and Influencers for Your Industry
Thought leaders and influencers tend to be at the forefront of new developments and trending events for their particular industry or niche. Because they make the investment in time and energy to fully immerse themselves in their field of interest, they typically are the respected “go-to” authority source for the latest news and information.

As you begin following blogs about your industry, make a list of the names that continually come up as guest bloggers. Start following their blogs and social media accounts. Alltop.com is a great source for identifying thought leaders and influencers – the top bloggers for a variety of niches can be found with a free search of the Alltop database.