Brainstorming Tools for Better Content Ideas

Writer's block is a serious condition that can infect anyone.

The biggest challenge with writer's block, however, is that it comes at the most inopportune times. In fact, it is seemingly never a problem when a writer has too much time on his or her hands (in the rare cases when that happens). Rather, writer's block tends to rear its ugly head at the moments when creating content matters the most, which in most cases is right before deadline.

To help content creators beat this condition and gain some inspiration, Website Magazine has put together a list of brainstorming tools that can remedy even the most severe cases of writer's block. Check them out below:

Buzzsumo

Buzzsumo can be leveraged to analyze what content performs best for any topic or competitor. The platform offers a content discovery solution that enables users to search for content that resonates best with audiences, content that is currently trending and content that is about to trend. The solution searches content across all of the main social networks, and can be used to filter content by type, social network, author, domain and more.

Scoop.it!

Scoop.it offers a variety of solutions for content creators, including a Knowledge Sharing platform that enables users to create private hubs where team members can discover, curate and share content. With this type of solution, team members can always have a collection of content to inspire ideas for writing. In addition to this solution, Scoop.it offers a content curation service and content marketing software.

Contently

Contently offers a solution for creating, distributing and optimizing content. Users can leverage the platform from the ideation stage to the marketing stage. Plus, Contently offers a stream of content suggestions to help users' brainstorming initiatives, enables users to collaborate on ideas and surfaces popular stories from the week before so team members have an idea of what topics are resonating with their audience.

TrackMaven

With TrackMaven, brands can track the performance of their competitors' marketing campaigns to discover which content topics are succeeding. The platform tracks competitor data across a variety of channels, including LinkedIn, earned media, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, SEO, ads, Google+, email and more. What's more, TrackMaven's data-driven insights can be leveraged to learn the ideal channels, posting schedules and target audiences for content marketing initiatives.

Inboundwriter

Inboundwriter is a content marketing tool that not only forecasts content performance for writers, but can also be leveraged for content suggestions on specific topics. In fact, users simply enter a topic or a headline when they are ready to write and Inboundwriter suggests a list of related alternatives that have a higher probability of success. This can be leveraged to help writers' not only create more engaging content, but also flush out the angle of a certain subject matter.

Social

Social sites provide some of the best options for generating content ideas. Writers can visit sites like Twitter or Quora and search keywords to see what audiences are talking about. What's more, many social management tools also enable users to gain insights on trending topics. For example, if a pet store owner types in the hashtag #newpuppyproblems on Twitter and notices someone complaining about puppies chewing on their leashes, the owner could create a piece of content to address this problem.

Portent Idea Generator

If you have a subject idea for content but not an angle, give Portent's idea generator a try. Th tool enables users to enter a subject and sift through a variety of title suggestions, which can help users decide on an angle for their next blog post. While the suggestions tend to be a little offbeat, they can help spark a writer's creativity.