Content Creation How do you capture ideas for your forum?

[joelr]

Do you have a special folder where you keep ideas? Do you bookmark links? Do you have a Notepad file on your desktop?

What are some ways that you capture inspiration for your forum?

 

[Nomad]

I am an old school guy, I use pen and paper to write my ideas. In the past, I used to trust my memory and never recorded my ideas because I though the best ideas will always stay in mind and bad ideas will just disappear. But as I grew older, I started forgetting ideas that I thought were brilliant when they came into my mind. So these days, I write my ideas. When I don't have a pen and paper, I write on a notepad on my phone.

 

[Ravenfreak]

Honestly I don't even jot my ideas down, when they come to me I immediately take action and add the new features. I don't like to waste time, and I wouldn't want to forget something or put it off.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

I do most of my idea generation on the spot. I'll typically look at the last reply of a post and generate an idea from what was said in it. However, the idea might not be about the same topic.

For example, let's say I make a post about how long of a hike you like to go on. And someone replies that they like to do 10 miles and eat in lunch in the middle of it. That generated me an idea to ask what people are eating while hiking. That's what I try to do with every reply made on my forums. Most of the time, it works but sometimes it doesn't.

For my blog, I plan ahead and use Google Sheets to store ideas, the keywords I'll be targeting, and due dates. Each time I write from Sheets, I try to add 2-3 more topics to the list.

 

[Shortie]

I used to find that ideas for topics and activity came easily but over the years I have found that if I don't write down or jot an idea down somewhere, I will forget about it.

I find that jotting ideas down in either the notes section on my phone, notepad on my laptop or on a pad of paper helps me remember topic ideas.

 

[Cory]

These days, most of my ideas are generated through my member base because I feel like I've exhausted most ideas for my forum in the past.