Key Takeaways
- Use your competitors and data to find new ideas
- Scour social media platforms to see what your audience is talking about
- Brainstorm with your tribe to bounce around ideas
Are you fresh out of YouTube video ideas? You’re not alone. One of the biggest challenges that YouTube creators face is finding continuous sources of inspiration. That’s a tall glass to fill.
But having a process to come up with new ideas can help keep your content fresh and your inspiration meter on overdrive. We’re going to share some expert tips and tricks to help you come up with YouTube video ideas.
How To Come Up With YouTube Video Ideas
Here are some of the best methods for coming up with YouTube video ideas:
1. Analyze the Competition
If you’re struggling to come up with ideas, scope out the competition. What are other creators doing?
Don’t copy their work. Use it as inspiration, and put your own creative twist on whatever idea catches your interest.
When checking the competition, it’s important to view their content not only from a creative scope but also from an analytical one.
- Which videos get the most views and comments?
- Which ideas or topics can you improve on?
Other creators can be a great source of inspiration, but it’s crucial to ensure that you’re making that idea your own.
2. Check Google Trends
Want to create more timely content? Check Google Trends to see what people are searching for today – or whenever.
The great thing about Google Trends is that you can get insights for audiences around the world. If you have a lot of viewers and subscribers in the UK, for example, you can see what people are searching for in the UK to create content that resonates with them.
You can view search trends for each day, or you can explore trends over the last 12 months.
You can also see what’s trending on YouTube to get more inspiration and ideas for your content.
3. Use Analytics To See What Content Performs Best
Data can help you come up with fresh ideas for content that people actually want to see. Search trends are a great place to start, but what about your own channel data?
If you have an established channel and your audience is growing, there’s a good chance that you have a wealth of data right at your fingertips that you can use to come up with new ideas.
Analyze your video content. Which videos:
- Had the most views?
- Had the most likes and comments?
- Didn’t get much traction?
Make a list of your top and worst-performing videos and use them as inspiration for new content.
For videos that didn’t perform well, maybe you can try taking a different approach to the topic or putting a new spin on your idea.
4. Answer Social Questions
Social media can be a valuable resource for ideas and inspiration. Use it to your advantage. Search sites like Reddit for posts related to your niche or industry. What are people asking? Are there any questions or topics that haven’t been covered by other creators?
If so, write them down as ideas for your own videos. You may be the first person to create content on the subject, and that gives you a great opportunity to go viral.
Choose questions and topics that will resonate with your audience. Be sure to comb the comments for even more ideas or points to hit on in your video.
5. Brainstorm With Your Tribe
Who do the top YouTube creators spend their time with? Other creators. You can and should brainstorm with your “tribe” of people who have the same goals and ambitions that you do for your channel.
Why?
You can bounce ideas off of each other and avoid creating content that won’t resonate with your audience well. You’ll find that Jimmy Donaldson (Mr. Beast) brainstormed ideas with his friends daily when starting out, but be sure that your tribe is trustworthy and won’t steal your ideas.
6. Revisit Your Old Content
Your old content is a goldmine for ideas. Revisit the videos that you have and figure out:
- What videos worked well that you can build off of
- Which videos are outdated and could use a fresh perspective
- Different angles that you can take on a given topic
Opening up your YouTube Analytics and spending time reviewing your old content will be eye-opening. Even if you create the world’s best video and it’s your first upload, it may never receive the traction it deserves.
You can redo this content when your following is larger, and it will likely perform much better.
Another option is to create update videos on topics. For example, if you started a weight loss channel and it’s diverged from the niche and you haven’t updated people on your journey in a while, you can update them to show them where you’re at now compared to the original video.
7. Read Books and Blogs
Experts are, well, experts. These individuals know a topic so well that 95% of people cannot match their wisdom. If you want to teach people about fitness, you need to:
- Read fitness books
- Read blogs
- Get certified as a trainer
- Exercise
Why?
The more you know about a topic, the easier it will be to come up with unique ideas. If you look at the best content on YouTube, it’s often from people who are experts or have such a deep passion for something that they can create great content.
Educate yourself and you’ll find that more and more ideas will come to you effortlessly.
Books and blogs will help you come up with new ideas or angles for a video that you may not have considered previously.
8. Do Keyword Research
YouTube is a search engine. The platform is owned by Google, which is why its search works so well. But you may have overlooked that the platform receives 14.3 billion visitors per month.
And how do people find the content they want to see?
They go to the search bar and type in keywords or the phrase that they’re interested in. You can conduct your own keyword research to come up with ideas. For example, let’s assume that you like juicing vegetables.
You can go to YouTube and type in juicing and the auto-correct will recommend juicing:
- Recipes
- Beets
- For beginners
- Tutorials
- Benefits
- Watermelon
Based on this list, you can come up with six quick videos to make. You can keep expanding on this list to find more ideas. Other platforms work well for this, too. Ahrefs, Google Trends and other tools can help you find highly searched terms or keywords people are interested in.
9. Bonus Tip: Don’t Do What’s Already Been Done
One of the tips that you need to think about when trying to come up with YouTube video ideas is: don’t do what’s already been done.
Why?
Because Paddy Galloway recommends it. If you don’t know who Paddy is, he’s worked with the world’s largest YouTube creators, including Mr. Beast. He and his team are responsible for billions of views.
When he announced he reached 500,000 subscribers with just 33 uploads, he gave some advice:
- Don’t do what has been done before
- Don’t just do “what works”
You’ll still get views by doing what works for others, but you’ll struggle to reach 1 million views on a video or stand out enough for others to want to follow you.
Coming up with YouTube ideas is important. A higher production value will help you increase your odds of appeasing the algorithm and gaining followers. However, don’t let idea paralysis stop you from starting.
A tip to keep in mind when you’re stuck on ideas and not creating content is that even Mr. Beast recommends uploading 100 videos as quickly as possible.
Why?
You’ll learn so much from each video. Creators create. When you create 100 videos, you overcome your fear of the camera and have video data that you can rely on to know what really works and doesn’t work for your audience.
