5 Content Marketing Ideas for January 2022

Content connects a business to consumers not just for selling but also for sharing information, humor, and skills. But generating content ideas can be challenging.

Remember that content marketing is the act of creating, publishing, and promoting articles, podcasts, and similar that attract, engage, and retain an audience of customers.

What follows are five content marketing ideas almost any business can use in January 2022.

1. Start a Podcast

Podcasting has moved from a fringe medium to a common way to share ideas.

In the U.S., there are approximately 120 million podcast listeners, according to Statista. If all of those are adults, something like 45% of Americans older than 18 listen to podcasts.

So podcasts are popular. They are also versatile.

A podcast can cover any topic. At the time of writing, Privycast, an entertainment show about toilets and bathrooms, had 42 episodes on Apple Podcasts.

Privycast is an entertainment podcast about bathrooms.

If a podcast about the restroom can exist and even attract an audience, so can a podcast about fashion, tools, do-it-yourself products, fitness, and so on. Every business can find an opportunity to start and maintain a podcast. Make it a New Year’s Resolution.

2. Public Domain Day: January 1

In the United States, January 1 marks when creative works such as music, films, and books can enter the public domain. This means that the works’ U.S. copyright protections have expired.

First published in 1926, the book “Winnie the Pooh” will enter the public domain in the United States in 2022. This illustration by artist E. H. Shepard comes from the 1926 version.

Creative works enter the public domain in America after one of three timeframes:

• 70 years after the death of the author,
• 120 or 95 years after creation or publication of a work with multiple authors,
• 95 years after publication for works created from 1923 to 1977.

All of these groups were given an extension in U.S. copyright protection in 1998 with the Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA). The bill was nicknamed the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act” since the famous character was first seen in 1928 and, therefore, Mickey’s copyright was extended by 20 years with this legislation.

Another interesting fact about the CTEA is that Representative Sonny Bono sponsored the bill. Bono was an entertainer before he was a politician and is the first member of the U.S. Congress with a number one pop single.

Public Domain Day gives businesses a few opportunities for content creation. The most obvious is with booksellers, music-related companies, and art merchants, but many companies will find ways to connect with great works of the past.

For example, a seller of used books could publish a series of reviews. Each would feature a book entering the public domain in 2022. The series might start with Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises.” Next up could be A. A. Milne’s “Winnie the Pooh.”

3. Walk Your Dog Month

Get out and walk your dog in January as part of Walk Your Dog Month. Photo: The Creative Exchange.

January is National Walk Your Dog Month in a few Northern Hemisphere nations. This event encourages folks to get outside despite the weather.

Content marketers at pet supply or pet food companies could have the best results with this topic, but Walk Your Dog Month might also appeal to outdoor lifestyle brands.

The idea could also be well suited for a listicle. Here are some example titles.

• “21 Reasons to Celebrate Walk Your Dog Month,”
• “15 Ingenious Ways to Walk Your Dog,”
• “9 Health Benefits Associated with Dog Walking,”
• “10 Mood-boosting Benefits of Walking Your Dog,”
• “8 Ways Dogs Are Good for Your Health.”

4. King Tut Discovered: January 3

On January 3, 1924, archeologist and Egyptologist Howard Carter and his team found a large stone containing a solid gold coffin and the mummified Pharaoh Tutankhamen.

Tutankhamun’s golden mask is one of the most recognizable Egyptian artifacts. Photo: Roland Unger.

Cater had been working in Egypt since at least 1907 and had discovered Tutankhamen’s tomb in November 1922. But it took two more years to find the remains of King Tut himself.

King Tut was not a well-known pharaoh in Carter’s era. But because of the wealth of the tomb and several Western museum tours, Tutankhamen is now, perhaps, among the most recognizable Egyptian pharaohs.

The anniversary of King Tut’s discovery (recovery) is a content opportunity for many businesses, including any apparel, furniture, or home decor retailer with Egyptian or Eastern-themed products.

5. Tweetstorm a Listicle

The term “tweetstorm” can have a negative connotation, but in this context, it describes a long-form Twitter post extended as a thread.

Start with a catchy post. Then fill out the topic by replying to your own post.

The tweetstorm format is a good way to promote a listicle. Imagine you have a 10-item list. Write a “title tweet” that pitches the concept. Then reply five times where each is one of the items from the listicle. Then post a link to the full article.

Here is an example from the “Phil from 4 Day Week” Twitter feed.

The title tweet reads, “I started publishing SEO blog posts at the start of the year. Now ~200 people visit my site organically each day.”

I started publishing SEO blog posts at the start of the year

Now ~200 people visit my site organically each day 😊 🧵 pic.twitter.com/MjkTAsuUh9

— Phil from 4 day week 👋 (@philostar) October 26, 2021

Phil follows this up with eight replies to make the thread. The first five are listicle points:

1. Identify topics to write about,
2. Write an outline,
3. Outsource the writing,
4. Refactor,
5. Wait patiently.

Phil also links to an article on his site.

One of the replies in the tweetstorm thread should link to the listicle you want to promote.

For your January 2022 content marketing, find several of your company’s top listicles and promote them with a tweetstorm thread.