29 Sources of Inspiration for Content

To generate ideas a good content marketer should constantly be feeding their – these sources are a goldmine of inspiration when you're looking for ideas.

Author Shelley Walsh

Date 19th April 2024

Thinking of ideas is not easy. Your brain hurts and it will do anything it can to avoid working that hard. 

The brain is a muscle and the more you flex it, the better it becomes at idea generation. Therefore, the more you do concept work, the more you become used to having ideas. 

I’ve spent a lot of time studying and writing about creativity and idea generation, brainstorming, ideation and the hard truth is that there are no shortcuts to having ideas. 

What I have learned from many, many years in creative industries and simply doing the hard graft is that to get good ideas out, you have to put good ingredients in. 

The ability to create good ideas consistently involves much preparation and research on a constant basis:

  • Watching what others are producing
  • Reading a diverse range of topics
  • Exposing yourself to culture
  • Searching through random parts of the internet
  • Getting offline and looking at things

I do focus on reading offline books as widely as I can, especially psychology, behaviour and creativity but also random subjects such as sleep, learning languages, biology, business, classical history and biographies. When we work online so much, getting offline has huge benefits in exercising the brain and keeping it agile.

Aside from all the cultural input, keeping up with trends and what others are producing is essential.

If you want to generate ideas, then the first stage is to sit down and spend some time searching for inspiration in order to feed your brain with some ingredients, that it can start to bake its own ideas with. The following are a list of sources that I use on a regular basis.

(If you’re specifically looking for data sets as a starting point for your inspiration then I have a full list of the best free data sources here).

The best sources of inspiration for content marketing ideation/idea generation

User-generated content

Reddit

The sentiment towards Reddit has varied over the years, especially within the marketing sphere. Because practically everything is user-generated on the site (except for when brands enter the ring), both posts and subreddits can be tinged with personal opinion and bias.

That said, provided you’re aware of this and choose your sources carefully, there are a number of data-based subreddits which can be incredibly helpful as springboards for your own ideas.

For content ideas the best subreddits are:

  • Dataisbeautiful – A subreddit dedicated to interesting data visualisations which bring to stats and figures to life.
  • Datasets – A collection of crowd-sourced datasets you can analyse yourself and harness for your next campaign idea
  • MapPorn – Here you can find many maps which demonstrate survey data or statistics via geography, making the points more tangible.
  • InternetIsBeautiful – A great place for finding useful websites and niche resources which aren’t necessarily common knowledge online.
  • Todayilearned – Here people submit facts and tidbits that they’ve only just learned, sharing them with others so they can also educate themselves.

YouTube

Currently the most popular video-based social media site, YouTube has thrived off of user-generated video content since its release.

Many early users have gone on to create hugely successful channels that produce high-quality content, while some newcomers have innovated on the platform and raised the bar for content creators. Here are a selection of trusted, top-quality YouTube channels to get you started:

  • TED-Ed – The well-known nonprofit conference’s youth and education video page, posting ‘lessons worth sharing’ with clear animations and voiceover to support the impactful content.
  • Crash Course – John and Hank Green’s venture into high-quality educational content. Although it started with a focus on world history and biology, it is now divided into a wide range of categories so viewers can quickly grasp common topics.
  • Big Think – The idea behind Big Think is to help people get smarter, faster. Leading the pack on expert-driven educational content, videos feature reputable and well-known figures exploring big ideas and core skills to help people thrive.
  • Kurzgesagt – The team behind Kurzgesagt believe nothing is boring if you tell a good story. They’re trying to explain the universe and the complexity of our universe, one straight-forward video at a time.
  • Vsauce – Led by educator Michael Stevens, the Vsauce channel discusses a range of scientific, psychological and philosophical topics while going on tangents to explore questions from different perspectives.

Media Outlets

Newspapers and news outlets are great sources of inspiration, covering current affairs and offering a breadth of content to review. You can find stories which incorporate stats, graphs and infographics too, which can be useful to see how dense information can be conveyed simply.

Listed below are a number of examples which offer prime journalistic content for you to review, as well as checking back in regularly to see what new content as been included.

If you have aspirations of landing placements or coverage from a top-tier media site, then searching each of these sources will give you an idea of the topics, and the level, which you should be aiming for.

Newspapers

  • The Economist – British-based newspaper outlet with a focus on in-depth global analysis and opinion within the world of politics, finance, business and technology, supported by clear, visual data.
  • Financial Times – Recognised worldwide for its integrity and authority, FT is a leading news organisation that offers fantastic examples of visual storytelling and journalism within its rigorously researched reporting.

News outlets

  • Bloomberg – Well-respected global news organisation which aims to show the world in all its complexities as well as cover breaking stories in more depth than other organisations within the industry.
  • Entrepreneur – American magazine and site which focuses on business and entrepreneurship. They keep abreast of the biggest trends in the business world while also offering detailed insights you can glean for content ideas.

Other

  • TED Talks – The main website for TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) with a huge library of thought-provoking, insightful and interesting talks given by industry experts.

Data-led sites

If you’re solely looking for excellent examples of data visualisation, these sites offer curated collections of online charts and graphs with a wide range of sources.

David McCandless is considered one of the leading data visualisation producers, with his site Information is Beautiful providing a wealth of inspiration for those looking to make data more accessible and aesthetically interesting.

The awards event that he also runs (IIB Awards), is a fantastic source to see some of the best up-and-coming creative minds in data visualisation.

  • Information is Beautiful – David McCandless’ website full of visualised datasets for users to explore and take inspiration from, showing how data can be distilled and clarified into something beautiful.
  • Flowing Data – A fascinating collection of data visualisations, data art and analysis run by Nathan Yau, exploring how we interact with data and technology daily.
  • Cool Infographics – This site is very to the point, playing host to a range of insightful infographics that the website author – Randy Krum – finds to be cool and interesting.
  • McKinsey Chart of the Day – Part of McKinsey’s sustainable and inclusive growth section, you can find a new daily chart that helps explain the changes we see to the world around us.
  • FiveThirtyEight – Now part of ABC News, 538 is still visualising current data on political and opinion polls, as well as doing data deep dives, which are especially useful when producing reactive content where you need up-to-date stats.
  • YouGov – A great source of global public opinion data, including trackers, ratings and surveys that measure general sentiment on practically any popular topic you can think of.

 

Data Sets

If you’d prefer to visualise your own data but need to track down the right datasets to do so, the following sites can provide you with openly available data to use. You can find more dataset resources here.

  • World Bank Open Data – With its wide range of data sets and other helpful resources, The World Bank provides access to global development data through a variety of lenses.
  • Kaggle – Sporting a huge library of crowd-sourced data sets, you can filter through many niche sets ranked by usability and size to find ones which are relevant to your interests.
  • DataHub – A curated collection of high-quality data sets, helping you to track down useful data categorised by topic.
  • Earthdata – For environmentally-focused data, NASA’s Earthdata gives you free and open access to Earth observation data. It’s full of fascinating scientific and geographic data revealing how our planet has changed over time.

General interest

It’s well worth keeping a finger on the pulse of what the internet is finding amusing and interesting at the current moment in time. Content in this area can help you discover more light-hearted ideas or trends that can capture the attention of your audience through sentiment rather than solely statistics.

If you have the agility and resources to create good quality reactive content, then looking at trend data can also reveal quick content ideas you can jump on as people’s attention on those topics grow.

  • Colossal – Colossal brings together discourse around new artworks, photography, crafts and interviews with prominent artists and experts to provoke deeper thought within the world of arts and culture.
  • Google Trends – Well-known for being able to track interest over time, the wealth of information Google Trends offers is great for diving deeper into any idea you have. Trends also assembles ‘Made with Trends’ visual data explorations for you to take inspiration from for your own campaigns.
  • Exploding Topics – A great tool for tracking what search terms are on the rise, indicating new content topics potentially worth exploring. You can see supporting topics to build out an idea, as well as check a forecast to predict if interest will build.
  • Glimpse – Asnapshot of the top 100 trending topics across search and social media. For terms you might not be familiar with, you can find a definition, related search terms and where it’s being talked about.

Whether you’re deep into an idea and need an extra push to find the right angle, or are simply looking for your next bit of great inspiration, these resources give you plenty of places to get started.

For those who need some help with the process of idea generation, also read How to Have Ideas gives you access to practical thinking skills and brainstorming techniques so you can start taking your content ideas to the next level.