2 ⏐ 100 Inbound Marketing Content Ideas

Table of Contents

Content Creation is at the Core of an Inbound Marketer’s Job 3

Blogging Content Ideas 4

Twitter Content Ideas 9

Facebook Content Ideas 14

Creating Content is Just the First Step 17

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3 ⏐ 100 Inbound Marketing Content Ideas
 

Content Creation is at the Core of an

Inbound Marketer’s Job.
From Tweets to blog posts to Facebook page
wall posts, there is a lot copy, messaging and
engagement to push out to your audience.
This is why the inbound marketer’s role is one
that requires so much creativity. Content has
to be timely, accurate, relevant, thoughtful,
unpredictable, informative – even funny. The
same old content day in and day out can get
stale, losing that community engagement you
were after in the first place.

The question is: where do you come up with

fresh ways to accomplish that seven days a
week?

And what do you do when you are just jump-started a social presence on Twitter or
Facebook? What should your company be blogging about?

This list of ideas is meant to inspire the content you create for your community. Broad
and generic in focus, it’s not meant to focus too strictly on the technology that helps
you carry out these ideas and offer something for everyone. We hope this brainstorm
helps you think of some fresh ideas of your own.

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4 ⏐ 100 Inbound Marketing Content Ideas
 

Blogging Content Ideas

Multi-media and Visuals

1. Do a screencast with Screenr of your

product and share it on your blog.

2. Show a step-by-step guide on how to do

something in a screencast, how-to video,
or show the steps in a series of photos.

3. Create a music video for your company

and post it on the blog.

4. Share a cartoon or create an original one.

How-to’s and Tips

5. Write a how-to article. Give instructions

with screenshots or photos on the steps
someone needs to take to do
something.

6. Point out common mistakes in your

industry and offer solutions on how to
fix or avoid them.

7. Offer a list of benefits for doing

something.

8. Share a list of some things to avoid.

9. Relate your how-to content to a current event or a celebrity. Example: “5

_____ Lessons from Lady Gaga” or “What the Election Teaches Us About
____”

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5 ⏐ 100 Inbound Marketing Content Ideas
 

Use Existing Content

10. Take the contrarian position. Find

someone else’s article that you
agree or disagree with. Introduce
your blog post with what you
specifically agree or disagree with it,
and support your argument with a
few concise points.

11. Do a weekly or daily links-roundup of

relevant news for your community.

12. Find tips in other content, create a list of those tips and give links to those
articles as the sources.

13. Share an excerpt from an eBook or white paper with a call to action to
download it for the rest of the information.

14. Share an excerpt from an

upcoming webinar with a call to
action to get the rest of the
content in the webinar.

15. Share your slides from a recent

presentation.

16. Share conference takeaways.

17. Do a round-up of last year’s/last

month’s/last week’s most
popular posts.

18. Re-interpret existing content: Collect the top motivational YouTube videos for
your audience, top eBooks, top webinars or infographics.

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Incorporate Other Platforms

19. Create a Slideshare presentation of new

statistics related to your space and share
that in a blog post. Tag the Slideshare
presentation with relevant keywords for your
company to leverage SEO benefits of the
platform.

20. Ask a question on Twitter and share the

results with a Storify embed.

21. Collect Tweets from a webinar or conference

hashtag, show them off with Storify and
offer your own takeaways in the blog post.

Research

22. Respond to industry research

with your own perspective. Offer
a fresh angle to spark
conversation.

23. Do a survey with Survey Monkey

among your community members
and create an infographic based
on the results.

24. Do a poll of your Twitter community with a Twtpoll or your Facebook

community with a Facebook Question and post the results on your blog.

25. Do an in-depth case study about one company, or offer a few examples of how
other companies do something successfully.

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7 ⏐ 100 Inbound Marketing Content Ideas
 

Thought Leadership

26. Record an interview with an expert in

your field and post it to your blog.

27. Get experts to offer a tip and do a

round-up of their recommendations.

28. Feature guest posts from industry

experts.

29. Publish responses to frequently

asked questions about your industry.

30. Create a list of trends to watch.

31. Compare and contrast: Different

products, different approaches,
different companies, different
people, different places, etc.

32. Do a review of other non-competitive products or services that your

community cares about.

33. Be a journalist: Be the first in your space to offer industry takeaways about
breaking news.

34. Explain what a current event or topic in the news means for your industry or
community. Example: “What ____ Means for ____.” “Why _____ Matters for
_____.”

35. De-bunk common myths.

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8 ⏐ 100 Inbound Marketing Content Ideas
 

Make it About Your Community

36. Interview your favorite customer.

36. Post a Flickr slideshow of pictures from a recent event.

37. Run a contest and give away something relevant to your community.

38. Ask for guest posts from community members.

39. If you have company news to share, talk about it in a way that makes it about
the reader. Example: If someone gets promoted, talk about how why were
successful. Inspire your audience.

40. Publish a post relevant to the current season or holiday.

41. Outline the top practical use cases for your product, service etc.

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9 ⏐ 100 Inbound Marketing Content Ideas
 

Twitter Content Ideas

Responding to Followers

42. Check your @replies regularly

with a Twitter client. Reply to your
users questions.

43. Assign Tweets to the appropriate

team member who can answer
the question if you cannot.

44. Offer to email with a community

member if they have further
questions.

45. Have a blog post answering FAQ’s that you can refer to. Link to it regularly.

46. If you work in a regulated industry, pre-write 140-character responses to

common questions that are pre-approved by stakeholders so you can still
engage in real-time with those who are asking questions.

47. @reply someone if you only want

your followers who follow them to
see the Tweet. Use the .@ trick if
you want all of your followers to see
the Tweet.

48. If a conversation turns to a heated

debate, know when to take it off of
@reply and use DMs.

49. Thank people who comment on

and share your blog posts.

50. Thank people who share your

webinars and ebooks.

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10 ⏐ 100 Inbound Marketing Content Ideas
 
51. Write as you would write in regular conversation. Use emoticons and
exclamation points. Write in first-person. (Example: “I’m sorry.” “We’re
excited.”) It shows that an actual human is behind the Twitter account.

Twitter Tools

52. Find and follow your competitors’ followers

using FollowerWonk. Learn from them, and
Tweet the type of content and hashtags that
they care about.

53. Use a separate Twitter app on your phone for

your personal account and for your business’
account to avoid posting content meant for your
personal account on your business account.

54. Add UTM codes to your Tweets to track your referring traffic form Twitter in
Google Analytics.

55. If you’re Tweeting as part of a webinar or Twitter chat, kindly alert your
followers and recommend that if they don’t want to see your Tweets to use
Proxlet to mute you. 

56. Use SocialBro to identify demographic information about your Twitter

followers. Learn factors like nationality and gender, and participate in relevant
holidays. (Example: Happy Boxing Day to our Canadian followers!)

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11 ⏐ 100 Inbound Marketing Content Ideas
 
57. Measure your click-throughs on the links you share with Bit.ly. Replicate the
kind of language you use in those Tweets to increase engagement from your
followers.

58. Don’t wait for Google Alerts. Maintain and monitor a Twitter list of the actual
publications and companies that matter most to your industry and community.
When news breaks about your industry, you’ll be the first to share it. This
builds authority.

Sharing Your Content

59. Post Tweets of your blog posts. Use

a variety of headlines and test what
drives the most click-throughs.

60. Schedule Tweets of blog posts on

the weekends, as people read on
the weekends too. Also post
Tweets of blog posts at night, as
this targets people in other time
zones.

61. If your blog post is a list of tips, offer one tip with a link to the post as a
“teaser.”

62. If you feature tools or other companies in your blog posts, cc them on the
Tweets to let them know so they retweet your content.

63. If you’re creating evergreen content on your blog, don’t be afraid to schedule
Tweets of old blog posts. A few months later, they are still valuable to your
audience and they may have missed it the first time.

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Incorporate Other Platforms

64. Let your Twitter followers know about

a great contest or discussion
happening on your Facebook page or
LinkedIn group and invite them to be a
part of it. Don’t beg for likes and
members, though. (It’s annoying.)

65. Share your email newsletter on

Twitter. Invite people to sign up for
your newsletter by sharing a link to the
landing page where they can sign up.

66. Do a Twtpoll – ask your followers a

question. Use the results for blog
content.

67. Participate in relevant Twitter chats

related to your community.

68. Don’t cross-post your content to Facebook and LinkedIn – they are different
platforms. Treat them individually.

69. If you’re working on a blog post, ask your community members for help. Reach
out to them and ask for their tips. It shows that there’s a person behind the
Twitter account.

Create Original Tweets

70. Offer a daily tip just for your Twitter followers.

71. Tell a joke or a riddle.

72. Use pictures. Show what you’re working on. Offer

a behind-the-scenes looks. Take a picture at a
conference or event.

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13 ⏐ 100 Inbound Marketing Content Ideas
 
73. Ask your followers a question or for their opinion on a relevant topic. Collect
the Tweets with Storify and use them for a blog post.

Follow Friday

74. Use #FollowFriday to shine the light on

your most engaged community
members.

75. Do a “Special edition” #FollowFriday

and give it a theme – group special
community members together for a
specific reason, trait or contribution to
the community

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14 ⏐ 100 Inbound Marketing Content Ideas
 

Facebook Content Ideas

Posting Statuses on the Wall

76. Don’t automate Twitter updates to your Facebook page. They are different
platforms, so treat them differently.

77. Tag other companies and people in your statuses for increased engagement
and cross-promotion.

78. Reply to users’ comments and “likes” on your statuses.

79. Have a guest host. Have a celebrity, influencer or company executive take
over your Facebook page for an hour or a day to interact directly with
community members and answer
their questions.

80. Ask for your community’s opinion -

Talk about a question that was
asked somewhere else (blog,
Twitter, etc) and pose that to your
Facebook audience.

81. Ask for your community’s ideas –

Ask them what they would like to
see in your next blog post, ebook,
webinar, advertisement, event etc.

82. Tell the first part of a joke and let your community finish it. (Example: “Why did
the chicken cross the road?....”)

83. Tell a riddle.

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84. Ask a hypothetical question. (Example: “Would you rather ____?” “If you could
_____”)

85. Share links to your blog posts on your wall, and use the status area to pull out
one key fact, statistic or tip from the post as “teaser.”

86. Share a link to your weekly or monthly newsletter. Create a custom tab for
signing up for an email newsletter with a tool like Shortstack. Make sure to
keep the sign up form on the Facebook tab for higher conversion rates.

87. Share information about your company: news coverage, job openings,
promotions and milestones. Use numbers, as those stand out to people.

Photos

88. Tag real people in photos – Their

friends will see those photos, and it
will drive a new audience to your
page.

89. Post a mystery photo – Have people

guess who the mystery person, what
the secret object, or what the location
is in the comments.

90. Host a caption contest – Get people

to write the best caption for your
photo.

91. Share pictures from a local meetup,

event or conference.

92. Did you interview an industry expert

for your blog? Post pictures of the
interview in action on Facebook and
offer your fans a “behind the scenes”
glimpse.

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16 ⏐ 100 Inbound Marketing Content Ideas
 
93. Post pictures from a conference.

94. Post pictures of your product. Use the

captions for descriptions. (Example:
recipes, styles tips, an update about a
new feature etc.)

95. Compare and contrast two products in

a photo. Prompt your community to
add their thoughts in the comments.

96. If you share an infographic or image on

your blog, share just that image on
your Facebook page and a link to the
post on your page as a “teaser.”

97. Use the top photo strip of your Facebook page in a creative way. Spell out a
word for a particular campaign, make a cartoon by connecting the images or
show unique headshots of employees.

Analytics

98. Celebrate holidays – Post a status wishing everyone a happy ______. Use the
demographics information in Facebook Insights to learn about what regions
are represented in your community.

99. Use the Feedback metric in Facebook Insights to see which statuses get the
highest %. Replicate that type of content, as this is the kind of content with
the highest engagement and best value for news feed optimization.

100. Add UTM codes to the links you share on Facebook to track what leads
are coming to your website from the page.

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Creating Content is Just the First Step

These are the first steps for using blogging and social media to attract leads to your
business. Most importantly, you’ll want to ensure that the blog posts you write and
share on social channels like Twitter and Facebook are optimized for search engines
so that you aren’t just attracting any kind of visitors, but the targeted audience that
can convert into a customer.

4 Tips to Make the Most of Your Content

1. You have first-hand control of your on-page SEO – so no excuses. Optimize for it.

Make sure you target the right keywords and

search phrases for your business, and that you
are consistent. The areas you’ll want to do this
with are in your meta tags, page titles and page
descriptions. You’ll also want to do this
throughout your blog post copy, and especially
in your H1 text, or blog post headlines.

Here’s something to think about: Google

doesn’t laugh. A cutesy phrase or rhyme appeals to humans in your headlines, but
Google may not recognize its relevance. But later on, when humans Google your
keywords, you’ll want your content to show up – and it won’t if it isn’t optimized for
search engines. You can work around this though by rewriting your page title as a
more literal description of the content and keeping an entertaining headline that
draws your audience in when they see it shared on social media.

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Here’s an example of how the Wall Street Journal did this:

You can use tools such as Google’s Keyword Research tool to identify the right
keywords and alternative phrases to use in your content, and research what popular
search phrases there are for you to use with Google Insights. Additionally, HubSpot’s
content management software includes a Keyword Grader tool that analyzes which
keywords are performing best.

2. Set an editorial calendar and stick to it.

Our research shows that companies with blogs

get 55% more website traffic, and that number
goes up exponentially whether you post once a
week, twice a week, and then up to several times
a day – wherein you become a thought leader in
your field. Our advice? Blog as often as you can
while keeping the content valuable for your
prospects.

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3. Include calls-to-action on every post.

You’re going to give away plenty of information for free with your blog content and
through the social channels you share it on. You want to optimize that content with
calls-to-action so you get something in return: prospects converting to leads. Include
calls-to-action for eBooks, webinars, newsletters, podcasts or events – anything more
substantial than a blog post that warrants a prospect filling out a form where they
can get more valuable content from you, and where you can get closer to converting
them into a customer.

You want your calls-to-action to match your content, like completing your outfit by
matching your shirt to your shoes. If you’re offering nutrition tips in a blog post, offer
a call-to-action for something related, like a nutrition seminar. It’s related content
and valuable to your target audience, so you’re not only attracting them in the first
place but also keeping them engaged further down the funnel.

HubSpot’s content management system includes a module for your calls-to-action,

making it easy for you to organize them and plug them right into your blog posts
before you hit “publish.”

4. When it comes to social media, share often.

Search is now social. In addition to keywords,

search engines like Google consider Tweets,
Facebook “likes” and Google “+1’s” in their
algorithms. So the more that your content is
shared, the higher it will rank.

Remember that not every prospect lives in your time zone, so one Tweet of a blog
post is not enough. If you’re in New York City and you Tweet your blog post at 9:00
a.m., your prospects in San Francisco are still asleep and they will miss your content
if they aren’t subscribed to your blog through RSS or email yet. Space out a couple of
Tweets and Facebook posts of your blogs articles to ensure that all of your target
audience members see them. And last but not least – don’t forget that the weekend
is often a time when people catch up on the reading they don’t have time to do
during the week. So a few Tweets of your posts on a Saturday afternoon can certainly
help your traffic.

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Next Steps
Your full inbound marketing strategy means attracting
prospects with this content, converting them and then
analyzing the results to see which of these ideas works for 30-Day
your brand and audience. HubSpot offers a host of tools
that will help you do all of this. Want to learn more? Free Trial
Get your free 30-day trial of HubSpot today.

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