Content creates community, brand awareness and brand affinity, and it pretty much makes up the only marketing language that today’s sophisticated audience will engage with in a meaningful way. 

However, what content works, and what doesn’t? Well, nobody really knows. There is no hack to making sticky content. It’s all a game in which you have to be sensitive to your audience’s needs, wants and emotions. 

Of course, you can learn the winning elements of attractive content the longer you play the game, but even then, consistently producing content ideas that hit the sweet spot with the audience is no easy game. That’s why we thought we’d help you out. Some of these ideas are serious, but like in all good content, some of them are included to make you do that cheeky grin you do. We hope all of them kick your imagination in the figurative ass. Feel free to go forth and use these ideas, and modify them to fit you and your company.

1. Interview your team’s mothers and call it – Hey mum! Look at me! No hands!

Be sure to ask the mother’s what it is they think their kids do.

2. Do the mum interviews on Instagram Stories and give your followers the option to also ask the mothers anything

3. Record a discussion between you and another person who lives in a completely other bubble that you and your company live in

Choose the topic of the discussion at random 

4. Do a live stream on Instagram, or Facebook, of a day in the life of your office

Mount the camera/ phone on the wall and try to forget it’s there. 

5. Interview somebody interesting in your field while building a piece of IKEA furniture with them

This would be particularly fitting content for architects.

6. Do a talking head video in which each team member deconstructs one thing they do

aka. you, as a content creator, would deconstruct a piece of content you’ve produced and why you made it the way you did.

7. Call everybody in Austria with the last name Mayer and give them your company’s elevator pitch

Record it and make a podcast, or video, out of it. 

8. Do a series of Instagram Stories in which you ask your followers to meme pictures that are relevant to your industry

9. Interview people who have started businesses – ask them what they’ve learned

10. Interview people that have sucked at starting businesses and are now bankrupt – ask them what they’ve learned

11. Interview your employees on the way home from work for the duration of their commute

From the office to their front door.

12. If you work in a complicated field, make a video about how you would explain your job to aliens that have just turned up on earth and are curious

13. If you’re a graphic designer, post on Instagram a graphic you put together during your lunch break

14. If you’re a copywriter, post on Instagram – in beautiful typography, of course – the 4 lines you wrote when inspired by observing people on your way to work

15. If you’re a construction company, make art out of your construction helmets and publish it on Instagram

Flip the gender stereotypes attached to the construction industry on its head! Content that contradicts our firmly rooted preconceived ideas is often a sure winner!

16. If you’re a medical clinic, publish videos that debunk a lot of the misinformation floating around about medicine online

17. If you’re a medical clinic, interview doctors describing their best and worst experiences on the job

18. If you’re a hotel, publish Instagram stories of the funniest reviews you’ve ever gotten on Tripadvisor

19. If you’re a hotel, organise a fashion show with a local designer and have them photograph the models jumping on the beds in the rooms

20. If you’re a university, publish a ‘word of the day’ on Instagram that nobody uses anymore, but should

And, of course, invest in a graphic designer to make it look pretty with some fancy typography

21. Ask your friends questions each week what they think of a certain topic relating to your industry. Note down the questions that come up. Answer their niche questions in a series of videos, or blog posts. 

22. Speak to the customer support people at your company and ask them what the most commonly asked questions from customers are

Create a ‘How to…’ blog post series that addresses each of these questions individually.

23. Ask your customer support what are the most bizarre questions they’ve ever gotten and publish a blog post about it

24. Think of the lifestyle your typical community lives by. Publish photography on your Instagram that reflects that lifestyle

25. If you’re a real estate agent, publish a blog post about the reasons people shouldn’t hate on their real estate agents

Real estate agents have feelings, too.

26. If you’re a real estate agent, publish a blog post about interior design and living space tips

27. If you’re a transport company, strap a GoPro to a driver’s head and live stream their journey on Facebook

You could do a different route everyday!

28. Do blog posts about the random (and sometimes awkward) topics that are on the fringe of your company’s world and nobody ever writes about

Like if you’re a tech company, write about how you kind of like how nobody except a select group of people understand what you do. Or, if you work in an office job, and so does your target audience, write about the good, bad and the ugly of office romances. 

29. If you’re a restaurant, make cooking videos of your dishes and publish them on Instagram

The production of these videos is easier than you think.

30. If you’re a restaurant, make your dishes look so Instagrammable (as in make it look like beautiful food porn) so that your customers can’t resist photographing them and posting it on their Instagram feed

Make them do the work for you.

31. Ask your colleagues what their favourite Instagram accounts to follow are. Publish an Instagram Stories series ‘Instagrammers we like to stalk’ and be sure to tag all of them

This works like a charm for community growth

32. If you’re a restaurant, post on Instagram and in blog posts content from other restaurants that you admire 

The internet is big enough for everybody. Seeing other restaurants as competition brings you nothing. Posting about them as a food lover and fellow restaurateur positions you as an authority in the scene, and puts your good nature on display.

33. If you’re a club, take a before (at 9pm) and after (at 5am) photo of your crew and the club

34. Make memes that are self-deprecating! 

Nothing beats taking the piss out of yourself on social media!

35. Produce a DIY-standard video yourself – similar to the famous viral DollarShaveClub one below that sells your products in a quirky way

Everybody loves a company that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

36. If you’re a website hosting company, create a listicle blog post of all the weirdest websites on the internet

37. Come up with a content idea and then ask Redditors what they think about it

If you’re truly daring, ask them to ROAST the idea!

38. Type into Google trends a theme that relates to your industry, choose 5 of the similar search requests and combine them to make a content idea

39. Click on the Instagram profile of somebody you could imagine being in your ideal target audience and check out what they’re posting/ commenting about. Use this insider info. to create content. 

40. Go to Youtube, check out videos that relate to your industry and check out the comments section underneath each video. Use this information to create content ideas. 

41. Go to your competitor company’s blog (if they have one. If not, YAY! for you) and steal their content ideas. But make them better (insert evil cheeky grin, here)

42. If you’re a mechanic, write a blog post about how to find a mechanic you can trust

43. Make up funny fake statistics about your industry, or about topics your target audience will relate to. Put it into a pie chart and publish it as a post series on Facebook

While obviously pointing out the facts are complete and utter bullish**

44. Post a poll in Instagram Stories asking your audience what kind of content they’d like to see more of

And than make it.

45. If you’re a designer, post polls in Instagram when you’re in the middle of designing something and ask your audience to contribute to the creative process

Do you like option A more, or option B?

46. If you’re an airline, strap a GoPro to the bottom of a plane and live stream it on Facebook

47. If you’re an airline, publish a blog post about the funny stories of staff catching people in the middle of joining the ‘Mile High Club’

48. If you’re a tech company, do interviews with your CTO about everything BUT tech

49. If you’re a fashion brand, do an Instagram series of fashion bloopers in which you do photoshoots with models of how NOT to dress

50. If you’re a fashion brand, make videos of how (and where) your clothing items are made

Unless your clothes are made in some dodgy factory in Bangladesh. By some kid. Who is paid in gummi bear wages. Then you probably shouldn’t. Then on behalf of the kid in the Bangladesh factory – stop making f***** content, fix your factory in Bangladesh and pay your workers more wages. 

51. If you’re a tech company, do your own fashion shoot of fashion, according to programmers

52. If you’re a fashion brand, produce a photography post series that features a model wearing your clothing while also holding and petting a cat, or dog.

‘Cuz, cats and dogs are cute and the internet loves them.

53. If you’re a tech company, post photos of your employees pets sitting at their desks with their paws on the keyboard

Ok, this one was a test. If you think this is a good idea, you’re wrong. Very wrong. Get it out of your head altogether.

We said NO!

54. If you’re a fashion brand, do an Instagram story series in which you ask your audience to meme this model

We all have been doing it anyway at every fashion show we’ve gone to, right?

55. If you’re a tech company, do an Instagram story series in which you ask your audience to meme the picture of your employees pets at their desk…

We said NO!

56. If you’re a car company, publish photos on your Instagram of the beautiful settings your cars are parked in reflected in the shiny hood of the car

57. If you’re an alcohol company, have a content brainstorming session at which your alcohol is served. Publish a blog post of the outrageous ideas you and the team come up with.

58. If you sell food products, make a short food porn video for Instagram that begins with an extreme closeup and then reveals the product looking damn delicious

The surprise factor is important here, so be sure to make the extreme close up obscure.

59. If you’re selling food products, create a blog post in which you give your products Tinder profiles

60. If you’re working in an office, create original and funny memes about office life

61. If you’re working for an airline, create original and funny memes about life at an airline

62. If you’re a creative, create original and funny memes that take the piss out of creatives

There’s no funnier content than self-deprecating content. We can’t say it enough. 

63. If you work for a startup, create original and funny memes that take the piss out of the code language that startups use

It’s all about bootstrapping and blitzing when you gotta’ pivot and burn rate is solid. Let’s discuss this further in a scrum.

64. Do a ‘Honest Trailer’ about what your job is like

65. Publish a listicle of why you and your industry have a love-hate relationship

Honesty is very attractive.

66. If you’re a food delivery company, do a video series in which you do food reviews about delivered food, but like you’re reviewing a fine dining restaurant

67. Think about something that everybody wonders in your industry, or what your customers may wonder, then write a blog post about it

68. If you’re an architecture company, create a photography-driven blog post (and break it up into Instagram posts later) that showcases the biggest architectural bloopers of all time, according to you

69. Whatever it is your company does, do ‘How to…’ hacks about what your company specialises in

70. If you’re a construction company, produce short videos that tell the story behind the houses you build

eg. It took 356 bricks to build this house, while its 22 solar panels makes it completely self sufficient etc.

71. If you’re a furniture designer, offer interior decorating hacks that are customised for particular personality types

eg. for the introvert, plush couches surrounded by walls of books are safe havens for when you want to escape the world.

72. Cooperate with an illustrator to go crazy and create for your Instagram feed colourful illustrated content that relates to your company

73. Create photography posts for Instagram that features your product integrated into settings that you could imagine your customer using it

74. If you’re a tattoo artist, publish in carousel posts on Instagram the illustrated design and (swipe) the finished tattoo

75. Write about the learnings that you had during a very stressful time at work when working on a project

It’s a subtle and more humble way of saying – ‘look at the cool projects we’re doing!’

76. Make the most boring thing in your job sound interesting in a blog post

77. Make the most boring tools and equipment you use in your office seem interesting by photographing it in an Andy Warhol-poppy-kind-of-way.

78. Do a blog post about how you used to do things when you first started in your field and how you do it now as a more experienced pro in the job

79. Do an Instagram Story shout out asking your followers to reveal how they used to do things as amateurs fresh in the job, and how they do it as pros now

80. Have a 2D Mario brothers-like game produced with the story line, ‘ a day in the life of a (insert CEO job here eg. bank CEO)

If you’ve got that kind of budget, that is. 

81. Think of what is the burning moral message your company wants to make and start a content series that puts this powerful message out there

82. Ask your team what books they’ve read that have changed their way of thinking about how they work and live. Do a blog post listing these books. 

Be sure to mention how it changed their way of thinking. 

83. Ask your team what documentaries they’ve watched that have changed their way of thinking about how they work and live. 

Do a blog post listing these documentaries. 

84. Collect a bunch of the most common questions you get coming to your company in emails and messages. 

Publish a blog post featuring these questions along with your answers to them.

85. Think of how you do things differently at your company to most other companies. Give this method a name and publish a post about it as if it’s some new revolutionary idea.

And BOOM! You’re a thought-leader!

86. Ask another company that’s from a completely different bubble to yours to swap offices for a day. Document the office swap in Instastories.

Call the series (insert dramatic drum roll, here) ‘Office Swap.’

87. Create Spotify playlists that you think people within your industry could listen to while working

88. Create Spotify playlists that you think customers could listen to while using your product

89. Discuss the hot topics in your office aka. your industry in 15 seconds in Instagram Stories

90. If you’re target audience is the tech-savvy, ambitious, young, curious, and light-hearted type, create content that comes from a philosophical angle about work life

91. If you’re a gaming company, or your target audience is keen on fictional online worlds, create a science fiction podcast in which you discuss the stories out there that feel like fiction, but are based on fact

92. If you’re a bank, produce a podcast about one of the most taboo topics – money – in the most radically honest way possible. 

93. Do a collaboration with another company that is completely in another field and do a takeover of each other’s Instagram Stories for a week

94. Think of something you and your team can improve on and create a challenge out of it for a week. Maybe make this a series and give yourself weekly challenges.  Document your progress with the challenges in Instagram Stories.

95. In bold and beautiful graphics, post stats and facts that are kind of insider knowledge for your company and that tell piercing truths about your industry

96. Think up an outrageous concept for an artistic portrait fashion photography shoot of your team and have a pro photographer shoot it. Publish the photos sporadically on Instagram.

Example: organic employees – the photographer adorns each employee with flowers and plants – a daisy field in a beard, ivy hair etc.

97. Produce a content series in which you become proud residents of where your office is based 

Showcase your neighbourhood in beautiful streetscape photography and post it on Instagram. Interview the owners of the businesses in your area and post the interviews on Instastory, or in blog posts.

98. Produce a content story in which you learn something from somebody working in a completely different field to yours eg. what can a baker teach a programmer

99. If you’re in the creative industry, include your audience in the creative process by giving them two options of a design, a slogan, packaging and asking them – Would you rather?

100. Create short, 15 second testimonial videos that feature successful past projects. Include a team member in there who worked on the project and explains why they loved working on it and how they came up with the end result

101. Create a blog post about why creating a blog post that gives 101 fresh content ideas for businesses away for free seems like a good idea when you start, but becomes one very bad idea when you’re at the 59th idea and you’re demanding from the creative lobe of your brain – More, more, more!!!