6 Great Options for Magnificent Blog Post Formats

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Hosting a blog for your organization or brand can be a great way to build an audience and foster a loyal following.

But, if you blog with true consistency (Yes! Good for you!), eventually, you will hit a wall, where you and your team are out of ideas.

This is an illusion.

Once you have hit this wall two, three, a hundred times, you start to realize that blog post ideas are a renewable resource—there are always more of them out there, just waiting for you. You don’t have to resort to useless fodder or cat videos, either—good ones!

In fact, I would go so far as to say the ways you can offer value to your audience are endless.

So where are all these ideas? They’re waiting for you, but sometimes you have to do a little legwork to find them.

Finding new topics

To start, get your brain mulling over some potential topics to tackle in your upcoming posts. Don’t worry about a position or angle for the article yet, just get brainstorming on subjects.

These questions can help get the wheels turning:

What gets you excited?

What frustrates you?

What would you like to know more about?

What new trend have you heard about?

Borrow from the bank

Still stuck? It happens. This is why at Stanton, we keep an idea bank.

This bank is kept on our shared server, so we can all access it from anywhere, and lets us all keep contributing to the blog even when we don’t have time to draft a full post. It also makes it easy to find a topic even when you’re stumped.

Start this habit with your team, and when you hit a rut, cash in on one of those stored up ideas.

Once you have your subject matter, it’s time to refine your angle and post structure.

Here are six approaches to stellar blog posts to get your creativity flowing:

Once you have an idea for a topic you’d like to write about, there are endless directions you can go with that nugget.
The following formats for posts are tried and true formulas to deliver value to readers in an easy and accessible package.

1. List/Roundup Post
A list of items, insights or resources around a focus topic.
Example: Key Insights from New York’s #CEWeek

2. How-To/Guide Post
Offers guidance on best practices, often in a series of steps.
Example: How to Use Visuals to Communication the Complex

3. Hot Topic/Trend Post
A spotlight or commentary on a new development or emerging topic in industry news.
Example: Two Reasons Trump and Sanders are Masters of Political Communication

4. Mashup Post
How [industry topic] is like [something unexpected].
Example: Three Key Ingredients to Whip Up PR Success

5. Curated Post
Highlight a great article from elsewhere and add your two cents.
Example: You’re Already a Genius: Creativity, Systematized

6. Insights Post
A personal take or reflections on a key aspect of the industry or signature brand value.
Example: Take a Walk on the Client Side

Get Writing

Hopefully these blog post formats sparked some inspiration for you. Now there’s nothing left to do but get writing!

However, if you’re still looking for that spark, this list of options is only the tip of the iceberg—other resources online list 17, 25, even 101 post templates to choose from, so if you don’t like these, keep looking.

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