In order to keep up with all that competition on Social Media, one should have a constant stream of content out there; unfortunately coming up with new ideas is not easy. Coming up with innovative ideas for content on the go is challenging enough, let alone in busy periods; such as summer in the international education industry. That is why brainstorming sessions are ideal in order to expand your pool of content; only downside is some team meetings might involve a lot of talk that eventually goes nowhere. Instead of sitting your team down to shoot all of their ideas, create an atmosphere that helps them think outside the box.

Here are some points on how you can set an atmosphere that gets those creative juices flowing: 

Come up with Bad Ideas

Some team members might be reluctant to shoot out their ideas for fear of them sounding stupid; so why not create an environment where no idea is a stupid one. Start a brainstorming session with a bad idea exercise, this will set a more playful tone and will encourage your team to share all of their ideas later no matter how silly they might feel the idea is.

Break & Build Ideas

One way of creating more ideas is to break it down or build it up; you can start with a generic theme, then break it down into segments and see what ideas spring from each segment. Another option would be to ask your team to jot down three ideas, then pass them on to another team member and have them try to build on those ideas.

Play Word Games

These are a great way to get your team out of the traditional mindset and get them thinking of more unconventional ideas. 

A great word exercise is what we call a ‘word storm’ - write down one word then ask your team to come up with any other word they associate with the original one.Once done group them together according to how they relate to one another, the goal is to come up with less obvious words that audience may associate with you.

Mind mapping is another powerful tool - create a diagram with a central idea, then branch out and create topics, sub-topics and sub-sub-topics and you can build your ideas from there.

Another exercise is what we call Essence Words - come up with words or phrase that capture the ‘essence’ of the message you want to put out there, or the topic you want to promote, no word or catchphrase is too crazy, you will find that each one will spike more ideas down the line.

Create a mood Board

Mood Boards have been proven to significantly improve information recall in comparison to more conventional methods of learning. The imagery, colors and layout can surface emotions that can spark new ideas. This method is especially useful when coming up with new branding and design concepts. A mood board is a more visual variation of ‘Mind Mapping’ we discussed earlier, where you have one original idea and the imagery can stem from that.

As we’ve mentioned at the start, coming up with constant fresh ideas for content might sound overwhelming; however brainstorming sessions, apart from giving you a sense of sharing the burden, it also gives you a range of ideas from other people that you might never have thought of. If you stick to the exercise mentioned above, you not only get more ideas but you can ensure that these sessions do not go off topic. Stick around for more points on how to get those creative juices flowing in your brainstorming sessions.