Content ideas: 7 places to find them, and how to keep a backlog
Where good content ideas come from: customer questions, reviews, comments, sales calls, search data, competitors' ads and the calendar. Plus how to turn one idea into ten posts and keep a backlog that does not go stale.
Marián Cabadaj
9 min read
A list of content ideas helps for about a week. Then the list is used up, and you are back at a blank Monday.
Accounts that never run dry have a method for finding ideas. They read customer questions, reviews, searches and the ads their competitors keep running. This post shows where those ideas are, how to turn one idea into ten pieces, and how to keep a backlog. The examples are real ads that are running on Meta now, taken from the public Ad Library on October 18, 2026. We show them as patterns. We do not know how each one performed.
Why do content ideas run out?
Ideas run out when they come from your head. A brainstorm gives you twenty topics you find interesting, and your audience does not always agree.
Evidence keeps coming in. Every week brings new support emails, reviews, comments and searches, and each one is a person telling you what they want to know.
What makes a content idea good?
A good idea has three parts: a real person who wants it, a reason they want it now, and one thing you can show or say better than anyone else. If you cannot name the person, the idea is a guess. Keep the guess, but do not make it first.
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Add as preferred sourceWhere do the best content ideas come from?
Seven places give you most of what you need. You do not need all seven every week. Pick two or three and read them on a fixed day.
| Source | What to look for | Where it lives |
|---|---|---|
| Customer questions | The question you answer more than twice a month | Support inbox, live chat, DMs |
| Reviews | A sentence a customer wrote that you could never write yourself | Your store, Google, Amazon, Trustpilot |
| Comments | The reply that starts an argument or gets the most likes | Your posts and your competitors' posts |
| Sales calls | The objection that comes up on every call | Call notes, recordings, CRM |
| Search data | The questions people type about your category | Google autocomplete, Google Trends |
| Competitors' ads | The angle a competitor keeps paying to run | Meta's Ad Library |
| The calendar | A date, a season or a moment your buyer already cares about | Holidays, launches, TV, sport, deadlines |
The first four come from your own customers, so most of what they hold is yours alone. The last three are public, so your competitors can read them too. Your edge comes from the first four.
How do you find content ideas in what customers already say?
Start with your own customers. Their questions and their words are the one source no competitor can copy.
Turn the most common question into a post
Open your support inbox and sort by the question you answer most. That question is a post. Animal EDventure Park & Safari turns a question many visitors would ask into its headline: "Do You Really Want To Play With Our Otters?" Then it answers in one line: "They don't want hugs. They want hostages."
eMeals does the same with a problem: "Tired of trying to figure out what to cook and when to shop??" The picture shows four dinners. The customer reads the problem first and the answer second.
Copy the sentence from a review
A review gives you a line in the buyer's voice. Kristina Penn's ad is a review, word for word: "Believe me, you will not want to send it back. I am old and I have used a lot of foundations through the years. This is the best I've ever used." A brand would never call its buyer old. A customer can, and that line makes the ad believable.
Reviews also sell. The Spiegel Research Center at Northwestern University found that a product with five reviews is 270% more likely to be bought than a product with none (Spiegel Research Center, 2017). What this means for a small brand: your first five reviews are worth a post each, because they do the selling for you.
Read the comments, then ask for more
Comments tell you which part of a post people care about. MAGS Custom Rods built a whole place for them: its fan forum asks anglers to "post your catches, show off your custom builds, get feedback". Every catch a fan posts is a post the brand did not have to plan.
Write down the objection from every sales call
If you sell on calls, the same three objections come up again and again: price, time and "will it work for me". Write each one on a card after the call. An objection you hear five times a month is a post you should publish once a month.
How do you use search data to come up with content ideas?
Search shows what people want to know when no brand is in the room.
Read Google autocomplete
Type your category into Google and stop before you press Enter. Google says that "autocomplete predictions reflect searches that have been done on Google" (Google, 2020). Add "how", "why", "can you" or "vs" after your category or product name and write down every suggestion.
New questions come in all the time. Google says that 15 percent of the queries it sees every day are ones it has not seen before (Google, 2019). What this means for a content team: search data is never finished, so check it once a month.
Simple Canvas Prints runs an ad for a blog post with a title shaped like a search: "4 Ways to Display Photos During Your Wedding Day". The post answers a question a bride types, and the ad puts it in front of her before she types it.
Check the timing in Google Trends
Google Trends tells you when people search, not how many. Its numbers are on a scale from 0 to 100, based on a topic's share of all searches in that place and time (Google Trends Help, 2026). So a 100 means "the most interest in this period", not a search count. Use it to see when a topic peaks, then post two weeks before the peak.
How do you get content ideas from competitors' ads without copying them?
Read the angle. When a brand keeps an ad running, it keeps paying for that angle, which usually means the angle works well enough to keep the budget on it.
Search your category in Meta's Ad Library, and look for the same angle across different brands. When three advertisers in different fields use one angle, it is a pattern you can use. Our free competitor ad finder opens all four public ad libraries for one brand at the right place.
One angle, two very different brands
"Go behind the scenes" is a pattern we found across many advertisers. Amazon FC Tours writes: "Go behind the scenes and see Amazon's fulfillment process in action. 8 free tours are available weekly." The picture is a group in headsets between the shelves.
Moka Origins uses the same angle for a chocolate factory: "FREE Chocolate Factory Tours every Saturday at 10am or 2pm!"
The idea to take is "show how it is made". The words, the photo and the offer must be yours. A post that copies a competitor's picture teaches your audience to remember the competitor.
Which dates are worth building content ideas around?
Dates give an idea a reason to exist this week. There are three kinds, and most calendars only use the first.
Holidays and seasons
Black Friday, back to school, summer. Everyone posts on them, so bring an angle only you have.
Moments your buyer already talks about
A TV show, a sports final or a local event. Chicago Food & City Tours tied a whole tour to a TV show: "Say, 'Yes, Chef!' on our new Food Tour that takes you to Chicago's iconic restaurants seen in the hit TV show, 'The Bear!'" Fans of the show already know those places. The tour gives them a reason to visit.
Deadlines and countdowns
A sale that ends, a launch day, an exam date. Magoosh puts the deadline on the picture: "20% off, ends Oct 20th", next to "Score 5 points higher on the GRE guaranteed". The test date is the buyer's deadline, and the offer has its own.
How do you turn one content idea into ten pieces?
Most ideas die after one post. A good one can carry ten. Here is "the question we answer most", cut ten ways:
| Piece | Format | What it shows |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Short video | You answer the question in 20 seconds |
| 2 | Carousel | The answer in five steps |
| 3 | Single image | The question in big type, the answer in the caption |
| 4 | Story poll | "Did you know this?" yes or no |
| 5 | Customer quote | A review that answers the same question |
| 6 | Founder post | Why you built the product around this answer |
| 7 | Behind the scenes | How you make the part that answers it |
| 8 | Blog post | The long answer, for search |
| 9 | The answer, plus one link | |
| 10 | Ad | The best piece of the nine, with a budget |
Same product, many pictures
ATM Anthony Thomas Melillo shows how far one line can go. "Meet the Judo Pant, an everyday pant with distinctive details" ran on at least seven separate ads in the Ad Library on the day we looked. Each one used a different photo: a studio shot, a seated shot, a close crop of the tie.
The founder version of the same idea
The founder piece (number 6 in the table) is the one most brands skip. Kara Simm of Sunshine Sitters writes: "I started Sunshine Sitters because I know how hard it is to find childcare you truly trust, I've been there myself." That is a customer pain, told by the person who had it first.
If you need to sort your ideas into themes first, our guide to content pillars shows how to pick three to five. If you need the platform side, our guide to social media post ideas shows how one idea changes shape on each network. For one network at a time, see our Instagram post ideas and TikTok ideas.
How do you keep a content idea backlog that stays useful?
A backlog is one list where every idea waits until you make it. Without one, an idea from a sales call is gone by Friday. Use a sheet with these columns:
| Column | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Idea | One sentence, such as "Do otters like to be held?" |
| Source | Where it came from: support inbox, 6 times in March |
| Evidence | The exact email, review or ad |
| Format | The first piece you will make |
| Date | When it is worth the most |
| Status | Idea, making, posted or killed |
Which content idea should you make first?
Give each idea a score from 1 to 3 on three questions, and make the highest total first:
- Proof. Did a real person ask for it? A question asked six times beats a topic you like.
- Timing. Is there a reason to post it this week? A date or a season adds a point.
- Reach. Can it become five or more pieces? An idea that fills the table above earns its place.
Kill an idea that has sat in the backlog for three months with a score under 5. A short backlog of strong ideas is worth more than a long one nobody reads.
How Selzee finds content ideas for your brand
Selzee is an AI ad generator for ecommerce brands, apps and local businesses. It researches your market, your customers and your competitors across your site, your reviews, Reddit and social media, and it reads what your competitors run in the Meta, TikTok, Google and Pinterest ad libraries. That covers three of the seven sources in this post: reviews, comments and competitors' ads.
The ad below is one Selzee made for itself. It turns one pain, hunting for ad ideas across endless tabs, into a four-line story about Alex.
From that research, Selzee recreates, for your brand, the ads and posts that are winning right now, with your products, logo, fonts and colors. Every one comes with the angle and the insight it is built on, so you can see which source each idea came from. You edit a headline or a product shot by asking, approve the ones you like, and ship them to ad platforms and social media in one click. Every day it learns from the ones you did not approve.
If you only need ideas for one account today, the free content idea generator gives you six post ideas, each with its format, its opening line and why it would work.
Content ideas: FAQ
How do I come up with content ideas when I have none?
Open your support inbox, your last ten reviews and the comments on your last five posts. Write down every question and every sentence a customer wrote. That is usually more than a month of ideas. Selzee reads your reviews and your market for you and turns what it finds into posts.
Where can I find content ideas for free?
Your reviews and comments are free to read, and your support inbox is yours alone. Google autocomplete and Google Trends show what people search. Meta's Ad Library shows what your competitors pay to run. You can start with Selzee for free and see posts made from that research.
How many content ideas do I need for a month?
About five to eight strong ideas, if each one becomes several pieces. One idea cut into five formats fills a week. Selzee makes new posts and ads every day for you to approve.
Is it okay to take content ideas from competitors?
Take the angle, never the creative. "Show how it is made" is an angle anyone can use. A competitor's photo, words and design are theirs. Selzee recreates winning ad patterns with your own products, logo and colors.
How do I know which content ideas worked?
Compare each post to your own average for the same format, after the same number of days. Then move the winners back to the top of the backlog with a new format. Selzee learns every day from the ads you do not approve, so the next batch fits you better.
The short version
Read your customers first: their questions, reviews, comments and objections. Then read search data, competitors' ads and the calendar. Cut every good idea into several pieces, give each idea a source in the backlog, and make the one with the most proof first.
If you want this done for your own brand every day, see how Selzee works on your brand.