38 Tools for Getting More Ideas: An Idea Generation #Bufferchat Recap

What are the best ways to generate fresh content to keep feeding the blog or social media stream?

This week’s #Bufferchat discussed just that with Courtney Seiter, Buffer’s head of content marketing.

We were so excited to have our largest attendance yet—197 contributors and 1800 tweets—and to see so many new, bright and shiny faces! Check out the full Storify curation here.

Here’s a look at some of the tips and tools highlighted in the chat!

What is the best way to find out what content your audience wants or needs?

• Ask your audience! (@courtneyseiter)
• Listen for comments/questions about your existing posts (@courtneyseiter)
• Check the competition to compare (@pascalclarysse)
• Look at internal site search terms (@anthonydnelson)
• Look at analytics to see what worked (@erikjfisher)
• Observe, discuss, research (@artgelwicks)
• Put together a list of influencers to watch (@circus_st)
• Experiment! (@amandagebhard)
• User your list of FAQs (@krisbradley)

Tools to engage, listen and analyze:

• Quaraloo (for surveys)
• Google Alerts
• Google Analytics

Tools for generating and organizing content ideas:

• Pinterest
• Pocket
• Trello
• Evernote
• Feedly
• an “idea notebook”
• Moleskine notebooks
• Buffer
• Notepad for Windows
• Google Docs
• Notes for iPhone
• Excel
• Post its
• Spreadfast
• Swayy
• OneTab (Chrome extension)
• Brandwatch
• Scoopit
• Google Play Newsstand
• Facebook “Save” feature
• Hackpad
• SumAll
• Tailwind (for Pinterest)
• Iconosquare (for Instagram)
• TweetDeck
• Hootsuite
• IFTTT
• Project Tab Manager (for Chrome)
• CoSchedule
• NoteSuite for Mac
• Socioclip
• Flipboard
• Medium
• Kapost
• Slack
• Simplemind
• Freemind
• Basecamp

Where do you go for inspiration?

• Practice free association (@artgelwicks)
• Pinterest, YouTube, the great outdoors (@ameliantips)
• Unplug (@erikjfisher)
• Blogging buddies to brainstorm (@youtoocanbeguru)

How often should you reexamine your content strategy?

Answers on this question varied from “constantly” to “monthly” to “I don’t have a strategy!” — it seems there’s no “one way” to adjust your content strategy to fit new ideas.

At Buffer, we evaluate and tweak on a weekly and monthly basis. You can see all of our monthly our monthly content and marketing reports on our Open blog.

Were there ever times you were surprised by your audience’s reaction and adjusted strategy?

Thanks to everyone who participated in this awesome chat! Join our Google+ community for the latest news on #Bufferchats and join us next week, July 30 at 9am Pacific, Noon Eastern to chat with Jay Baer about Youtility!