Last week, I was sitting in front of my computer, drinking a glass of rosé, and letting season one of "Arrested Development" play in the background for the hundredth time. That's the usual setup for my most inspired content creation sessions.

Only, this time, I had nothing to write. It wasn't my typical case of writer's block—when I have a bunch of ideas but can't seem to get them onto the page.

This was different.

It was a feeling that I was too close to the subject—that I had written and read so much on content marketing that everything I thought of sounded like an echo of something I'd already written or read.

What on earth could I contribute that would be new and valuable to others?

Then, I realized I don't have to have all the ideas. I could crowdsource content creation from those who are more qualified to determine what would be valuable to my audience.

Draw on your network's expertise

Crowdsourcing your content is not sending out a tweet asking the world what you should write about. And it's definitely not accepting all the spammy submissions for guest posts from SEO companies offering to pay you $50 to let them publish articles on your blog.

Crowdsourcing is the act of drawing inspiration, ideas, and assistance from those who know more than you about what would be most valuable to your readers.

Here are three parties you should be looking to crowdsource from:

1. Your team

It shouldn't surprise you that your organization collectively possesses an immense amount of knowledge. The hard part is harnessing it in an organized way that allows you to create quality content. For example, we've developed a knowledge bank that allows us to extract, store, and source content from our team of more than 70 people.

Once you have an easy way to store and access this shared knowledge, there are plenty of tools you can use to collect it from your team. Populate your knowledge bank by sending surveys to your team, creating specific channels in Slack (one of those tools) for content ideas, or asking a question in your weekly 15Five (another tool) that prompts your team to generate blog topic ideas.

2. Your clients

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How to Crowdsource Your Content Creation Ideas

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

image of Kelsey Raymond

Kelsey Raymond is the COO of Intero Digital, a 400-person full-service digital marketing agency that offers comprehensive, results-driven marketing solutions.

LinkedIn: Kelsey (Meyer) Raymond

Twitter: @Kelsey_M_Meyer