Content is the golden nugget in the digital world. No matter what the industry, company or cause, there’s huge unprecedented demand for relevant, value-add content. And search-friendly content that boosts your rank in search engines organically. Oh, and did I mention “free” content?

But like all things ‘golden’, content that meets the criteria is actually quite hard to come by. Most firms struggle to develop and deliver it. Evidence: the newsletter that is perpetually a noose around some junior staffer’s neck. The blog post that hasn’t been updated since February. The Twitter feed that contains a few retweets of sports scores. The idea is so simple. The execution is anything but for most companies.

How can you create and distribute a steady flow of stuff that your customers actually care about? Here are 9 ideas we use to bust the logjam and get the content flowing:

1. Recycle. Your posts and tweets from a few months ago can be refreshed (new heads and call to action) and reposted. To those who missed it, it is new and fresh content. To those who saw it, it’s a reinforcement of your message.
2. Repurpose. Drip email campaigns that you’ve created can become blog posts. Blog posts can become newsletter articles. Newsletter articles can become contributed content for magazines and community newspapers.
3. Bundle. A series of blog posts on the same topic or theme can be packaged together and bundled as a presentation or ebook.  One of the best sellers in the 1980s was a book called “All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten” by American minister and author Robert Fulghum.  The title of the book is taken from the first essay in the volume, but in all the book contains 50 short essays ranging from 200 to 1000 words on topics ranging from surprises, holidays, childhood and death.  He acknowledged that the essays were written over many years to friends, family, parishioners and were never thought of as being bundled into a book.
4. Go granular. It’s amazing how many steps, side processes and sidebars can be identified in any given process. Like peeling an onion, there’s always another layer deeper you can go.
5. Go contrarian. For a change of pace, develop a list of “don’ts” instead of a list of “do’s”. Argue the left side of the issue instead of the right side of the issue (a great trick if you can still make the right side look right)
6. Go personal. Whatever your topic, give a personal example in the form of a story.
7. Entertain. A headline that entertains will draw in readers far greater than an academic headline, or one that reads like a table of contents. Be creative. Your readers have lots of choices for content. Your headline is your advertising as to why they should read yours.
8. Rant. Nothing tells a story or gets a point of view across better than an example drawn from real life. Especially an example that will draw emotion for the readers.
9. Interview experts. Q&A interviews with thought leaders, strategic partners, or flat-out interesting or creative thinkers makes for compelling text or audio content. Think outside the box and draw parallels. Our local university recently brought in Leon Leyson, the youngest survivor of the infamous Schindler’s list to talk to business executives about the outer limits of executive responsibility. A compelling parallel which was leveraged across media channels.