Description:
Podcast and Video Ideas
New forms of content have slowly taken over the digital marketing space, capturing the imagination of viewers across the board.
Any field fathomable has tons of content in the form of videos and podcasts.
While the video revolution has been ongoing for more than a decade since the popularization of YouTube, podcasts have begun to gain ubiquitous familiarity. Many view it as the renaissance of radio.
Just as writing content brings problems of ideation, video and podcasts are also plagued by the issue of finding new topics to create content on.
Given the insatiable desire in the general public for fresh content, it eventually falls upon content creators to be innovative and keep experimenting.
There are many mistakes content creators make while identifying topics and ideas to create content on. Most of these mistakes are borne from the curse of conventional wisdom. In a field where content is the game, conventional wisdom is bound to fail more often than not.
This is because people have very subjective views about any type of content, making the very act of professing sweeping generalizations inconsequential and sometimes dangerous.
Every creator, either working alone or for a company, has to develop his/her own methodology to find and collate fresh content ideas.
Doing something and talking about it are two different things though. In most cases, content creators are not able to create a sustainable strategy to create new content ideas. This is because there is a general lack of planning and strategy involved in the process.
Most content creators do not follow a well-defined plan while scouring their niche for new content ideas.
In this article, we discuss how to create new ideas for podcasts and videos.
Know The Audience
This should be a biblical lesson for content creators, especially those in the podcast and video-making business.
Written content can go along without being accused of being repetitive and stale, but videos and podcasts are rarely afforded this luxury. Since people generally absorb video content on a deeper level than text, they are quick to point out any redundant and repetitive topics.
Now that it is established that videos and podcasts cannot risk being repetitive, the challenge of creating new content ideas comes back to the fore.
A simple way to keep finding new ideas likely to get traction is knowing what the audience wants to see.
There is a reason news channels cover elections three to four months before they begin. The same is true for sports blogs publishing content on a match that is going to take place weeks and months later. A news channel, a sports blog, or any other smart content creation machine knows its audience very well, which is why it knows the topics likely to engage with its audience.
How should a content creator identify an ideal audience?
The first thing that helps is if the audience identified is not a generic group of people, but an actual community.
In truth, rapid engagement and awareness are only generated by word of mouth. Word of mouth happens fastest in communities that interact a lot. A website like Reddit is a great place to find a thriving community with its own sub-culture.
Once a community is identified, and it fits with the general field of the company the content creator is working for, the process of audience identification is complete.
Know Their Desires
If you know the audience, what happens next?
The audience is the entity that should drive content. Only this way would a content creator ensure that all the videos and podcasts being created bring in great engagement.
How can the audience consciously drive content? For all practical purposes, no segment of the audience can drive content creation voluntarily. The duty to understand the desires of an audience falls upon content creators.
For example, consider a content creator working for a small online retailer of sporting goods. The audience identified belongs broadly to those interested in sports or sports professionals.
A content creator has to try and understand the desires of the audience, which in this case refers to sports enthusiasts and professionals. While enthusiasts would desire to learn more about the sport they like in general, professionals would like to know how they can improve their practice.
Based on these desires, a content creator gets a brief idea about all the different things the audience is likely to find interesting in the form of videos and podcasts.
Desires are very valuable as they give a glimpse into the psyche of the audience. They can become a treasure trove of fresh content ideas, changing with time and remaining rooted in the main topic.
Create a Suitable Format
Every type of audience relates to a specific format.
A shareholders meeting of a prime automobile company is likely to be very formal and structured with the level of seriousness the event warrants. A cricket match has its unique pre-match activities. A kids-movie has a very different set of rules and limits compared to a gritty film for grown-ups.
Understanding the expectations of different audiences is a part of being a content creator. One of these expectations is regarding the format of content created.
Content creators in an ideal scenario have to experiment with different formats of video and podcast content. In some fields, generic interviews are good enough to gain traction from a given set of audience. Other content creators experiment a lot before coming up with a content format most suitable for their audience.
Choosing a generic video or podcast format without taking into account the nature and tendencies of the audience identified defeats the purpose.
Despite creating excellent material for a video or podcast, everything can go downhill without the right format presenting the content. There are many examples in every industry to suggest the need for the right format to portray different types of information.
In Conclusion
In conclusion, this article covered three main ways a content creator can create fresh and innovative content ideas for their videos or podcasts.
About the Author – With more than a decade of experience under his belt, Gaurav Heera is the founder of DelhiCourses.in, an institute best-known for its digital marketing training in Delhi. Besides being an excellent digital marketing trainer, he has also worked with numerous brands and clients as a consultant.
