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A great source of ideas is the collection of people you follow online. Inspiration can come from anywhere, so it is important to watch what they create and see who they follow as well.
Part of finding ideas is learning from others.
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Think about the people you subscribe to now,
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people that you read on a daily basis,
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people you follow on Facebook and Twitter.
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What are they creating and how can you be inspired by that?
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Those are the obvious first places to start when you're looking for inspiration
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and learning from others.
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But take it a step further—who are they following?
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Most sites still have a blog roll,
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or you can go out to Twitter and see who they're following.
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Go out and look at that content—a step beyond, because if the people
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who are inspiring you—go look at the content that is inspiring them,
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and I promise you it's going to inspire you even more.
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Now for me, I consume a lot of different content. We've already talked about that.
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But take, for example, Chase Jarvis.
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He's a photographer and director in Seattle.
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He inspires me every single day.
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Now I don't go shoot ski videos, but he shoots them,
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and then he shows behind the scenes.
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He shares photos on Instagram.
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I'm constantly inspired by him and his work.
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And he's very open in sharing the people who inspire him,
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so I'm constantly getting a lot of new content from different people.
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Another place I go on a regular basis is out to Vimeo.
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What's great about Vimeo, as opposed to other video sharing sites,
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is the people I follow, I can see when they like a video.
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So everyday I go out, and I have a feed of videos that people who inspire me
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have clicked on the like button and that they're enjoying.
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I'm always discovering something new, whether it's a travel video
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or an instructional video—that's what inspires me.
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Now finally, as you're out there don't just be consuming this.
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Really be paying attention—listen, watch, and observe.
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Every morning I'm out on Twitter looking at what people are sharing.
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Sometimes it's the same old, same old.
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But every once in awhile something really breaks through,
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and I would miss it if I wasn't paying attention.
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One of the most crucial parts of content marketing, of blogging,
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of social media in general is listening.
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Pay attention to those people out there.
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Pay attention to the networks that you like.
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Pay attention to the topics you're interested in, because you never know
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when something's going to spark an idea in your head.
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And that's going to be the next piece of great content you create.
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