Social media content creators have become more important than ever before. With an estimated amount of 3.78 billion global users, social media has become one of the most dominating industries in the world. But this also means that these individuals work for an industry that is quite demanding and requires a lot of dedication. 

Content creators are responsible for portraying brands in the best possible light on social platforms, and so they cannot produce just anything. Their content has to be:
  • eye-catching
  • interesting
  • influential, and
  • relevant to the industry of the brand.
However, it can be incredibly hard to produce captivating and niche content when you are feeling … well, uninspired. 

If you are a social media content creator that just cannot seem to shake off that creative block, media update’s Lara Smit is here to outline three ways that will help you find inspiration again. 

Let’s dive in, homies!

1. Let your creative freak flag fly

If you’re caught up in a routine of producing similar content again and again, it can easily make you feel less passionate about your job. Additionally, feeling like you’re stuck in a rut of monotony can be demotivating and leave you feeling uninspired when coming up with new ideas. 

However, you can break away from the mundane and feel inspired again by simply getting creative.

Creativity lets you find the sweet spot between work and play — making your job more fun and fulfilling. Furthermore, it has numerous mental health benefits which contribute to your: 
  • productivity 
  • concentration, and
  • imagination.
How? Well, creativity helps you get into the ‘zone’. The ‘zone’ —otherwise known as a ‘flow state’ — is a trance-like state in which your attention is fixated on what you are doing. 

It’s a great mode to be in because your thinking and performance is optimised. Therefore, when you have completed a task in this mindset, it really feels like you have achieved something. This, in turn, makes you feel positive about your work and inspired to do similar work in the future. 

Being in the ‘zone’ is also quite an meditative and indulgent sensation. This means that your work will feel less taxing and stressful, which boosts your overall mental well-being. 

Another great mental benefit about being creative is that it exercises the most important muscle in your body — your brain! How? Mundane activities and patterns of behaviour tend to leave parts of the brain dormant as they aren’t being used. But, by being creative, these inactive parts become activated again.

With more parts of your brain being used, you will find your work more stimulating and engaging, which inspires you to climb off that hamster wheel and do more! By using these new parts of your brain, you’ll also find that it will be easier to come up with new ideas for content and think outside of the box that you’ve been operating in. Your ideas will also be of a better quality with all this new brain power and your mental slump will turn into a spike of inspiration!

2. Use visual tools

Visual tools are an excellent way to find inspiration. How? While they help you to gather imagery that you feel is representative of the business that you are creating content for, they offer you pre-existing creative ideas to work off of. It’s kind of like lighting one creative candle (so to speak) with one that’s already lit.

This imagery generally serves as a visual guideline that motivates the style and tone of the content that you create.

A great visual tool to use is a mood board. This is a board that you can physically attach a collection of images to. These visual elements will represent a particular look or evoke a specific feeling that you believe resonates with the brand. 

They sort of serve as a visual director for your content and help you to keep your posts consistent. Additionally, creating mood boards is a physical process that also gets your own creative juices churning. 

You can, in addition, create digital collages on blank templates that serve as mood boards, which allows you to play around and get creative with images. 

Pinterest is a good example of a digital mood board and is actually a guilty pleasure for many. It is similar to physical mood boards in that it allows you to collect images that you associate with your brand. 

However, this particular tool takes the process one step further and serves as a search engine for these images as well. Therefore, you can search for images and save them to the different digital boards that you have created. 

This allows you to upload, save and organise content (be it images, videos or quotes) that you like — adding another dimension to your collections. 

It is an ultimate inspiration-haven. Need we say more? 

3. Take those mental breaks

There’s a famous Shakespeare quote that reads: 
“Love runs away from those chasing her, and those who run away, she throws herself on his neck.” 

Similarly, inspiration is hard to come by when you are constantly looking for it. 
Sometimes when you become comfortable or familiar with content creation, you start losing your appreciation for it. Therefore, your job starts feeling like a mundane chore and you develop mental blocks. This makes feeling passionate and innovative about content very difficult because your mind resists it in any way that it can. 

It is at these times that you need to take a step back and recuperate. A few good ways to do this is by participating in hobbies such as:
  • reading
  • spending time in the sun
  • exercising or playing sports
  • spending time with pets, friends or family
  • watching movies or series
  • baking or cooking 
  • listening to music, and
  • meditating or doing yoga, to name a few.
But why does this help?

When you continue to focus on not being able to produce content, your stress increases and can become overwhelming. 

By distracting yourself, your stress will decrease and you will feel as if you can manage it better. Additionally, doing the things you love boosts your endorphin, dopamine, oxytocin and serotonin levels. 

These ‘happy hormones’ don’t just elevate your mood but give you more energy and confidence to tackle work. Furthermore, they improve your brain functions — making your memory and cognition a lot better!

Happy hormones like serotonin also help you to sleep better, as well as process stress and anxiety hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. Therefore, you will feel well rested and relaxed when it’s time to start creating content again!

What are some other tips that can you give to content creators to help them stay inspired? Let us know in the comments section below.

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Interested in learning more about social media content creation? Then make sure you read our article How social media platforms are accommodating content creators.
*Image courtesy of Canva