Easy Content Ideas for When You’re Not Feeling Creative

I’ve been navigating this strange “white space” after a whirlwind few weeks filled with nonstop busyness now that everything has slowed down. Instead of feeling relaxed, I was hit with a wave of anxiety and feeling like maybe I’m not doing enough. So, I’m working on letting myself just be, that means no big launches, no new projects, just enjoying where I’m at right now.

If you’re running on empty or stuck in a creative slump, remember that it’s okay to repurpose your content or simply take a break. The truth is, our audiences won’t vanish if we step back or reuse a great post from a few months ago. If you still want to show up, there are easy content hacks you can lean on like reaction videos or sharing relatable moments, they really work when your creativity is all tapped out. So here’s your permission to give yourself some grace this summer, trust that “enough” is truly enough, and know I’m right there with you. 

In this episode we’ll be covering:

• Navigating busy seasons and down time in life without the pressure of expectations. 
• Permission to pause for rest and resisting the temptation to work on new projects and ideas.
• How to maintain a social media presence while taking a summer break or vacation.
• Creative content ideas like sharing trending articles and familiar brands.
• What the BENS (Big, Easy, New, Safe) Method is and how to apply it to your posts.
• Hooks and formats for high-engagement reels, including borrowed familiarity and relatable moments

Featured content in this episode:

• Shannonmckinstrie: How to Yap without Rambling
• Zakbcreates: The new status symbol nobody talks about
• Heart.led.wellness: Using food as a buffer from life
• Thestomachdoc: If peas get their marketing right

Recommended episodes:

• Episode 57: Repurpose Your Content for More Impact with Less Effort
• Episode 94: You Want Your Content to Fit Your Life, Not Become Your Life
• Episode 97: We All Love Familiarity, Here’s How to Create that Familiar Feeling in Your Content 
• Episode 107: Where To Find Content Ideas So You’re Always Ready To Post
• Episode 110: Become More Memorable When You Stop Overthinking and Start Repeating

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Transcript

Shannon McKinstrie [00:00:00]:
I am your host, Shannon McKinstrie. Welcome to Good Content, the podcast where I remove the never ending content creation, guesswork and overwhelm so that you can actually enjoy being on social media again and growing your business with what has always worked. Good Content. All right, so I just sent an email out to my email list talking about how, like, I just had a really rough, honestly, few weeks. I've been kind of pushing it down, but I, like, couldn't really figure out why I was so emotional. Cause I'm like, dude, I just had the most craziest, amazing four to five weeks of my career thus far, right? Like the pinnacle of it. Speaking at Social Media marketing World, everything's great, right? We brought on a co coach, my friend Sam, to help with the reels lab.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:00:51]:
Like, things are finally. I'm starting to have a little more free time to myself. I've joined, I've gone back to working out, taking care of myself, whatever. But, you know, Chloe's just graduated preschool. She's about to start kindergarten. All this stuff was happening. We went to Las Vegas. Just went to the beach this weekend with my cousins.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:01:06]:
And now I'm like, I just had to let it all out. It's like, it all came out. And it's from a woman named Teresa Stassney. She's the host of Becoming Obsessed. And she was basically put how I was feeling into words. And she goes, it's the white space after being so busy. So the white space on your calendar after all of a sudden you're like, whoa, what do I do now? Right? And as someone who you know, has eldest daughter syndrome as well as just, I'm a major people pleaser, empath, whatever you want to say it. Like, I just, I'm always worried if I'm doing enough.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:01:38]:
I'm always worried about letting people down. I'm constantly worried that people are mad at me. I'm one of those people. I'm just like, I could have met you once and you'll pop them in my head and be like, oh, gosh, did I say the right thing? Did I like, literally, even since Social Media Marketing World, every day I have obsessed over if it was good enough. It's what I do. It's tor-. It's. It's like, I am my own enemy.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:01:58]:
It was funny. I saw a reel the other day that said, who's your enemy? Like, in quotes. And then under, it was like, me, when I think I can never do anything as good as it could have been done. Or something like that, right? And I'm like, oh my gosh. I feel that it's this like perfectionism, whatever. And I'm not a perfectionist. We, like, we all know I'm type B. But when it comes especially to work and just like meeting people and even socializing, I just, I don't know.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:02:21]:
Right. Working on it in therapy. But I, I was like, yes, that's it. It's the white space after this full and we're about to be at the beach for a couple weeks. It's also like that content you see that says, oh, silly me, I almost forgot I have everything I prayed for and more. Like that's where I am. And I've been working on this again in therapy. Like, but you know, I've now learned people in this position and you might be able to relate.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:02:43]:
And if you do, I'm so sorry. It's not fun. It's like when you get to this level of like, wow, I did everything I had in my, in my mind and beyond that. And it's like, okay, well what's next? And it's like, can't you just enjoy being here? So that's kind of the theme of this podcast because come June, it's the only month my girls have off of school. Cause they are in year round school. We're actually gonna go to the beach for two whole weeks. Obviously I'm still doing Reels Lab, still co coaching in a mastermind, but like, other than that, I'm like, that's it, Shannon. Right? But like my inner self can't help but plan the next thing.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:03:16]:
And I am forcing myself in June to not try to launch anything new, to be okay with June. Just kind of Reels Lab as it is, podcasts as it is. Like, basically everything I'm doing now, but not changing anything. But in my mind I'm like, I need a new freebie. I need a new this I need. Right? I'm writing this book and it's not quite ready yet. I thought it was. I had my manuscript done and now I'm rereading it and I'm like, it's just, this is.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:03:39]:
I am my own worst enemy. So. And that's why I like think every reel I put out there, I'm like, it's gonna help someone, right? And I know you guys know that. You guys can tell because you're always so appreciative and I appreciate it. But I'm like, I really do try really hard and I just have to know that's who I am. But also like, it's okay, Shannon, not to launch anything new, not to be available for things that, you know, I get DMS all day. Shannon, when are you gonna open audits again? I'm like, trust me, I love doing audits more than anything. I just physically can't.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:04:06]:
And I hate it. I hate letting people down. So with that said, that's the season of life I'm about to go in for a whole month is just no new launches, not taking anything away, just vibing. We're just keeping things as they are because I now can work. I found a way to, you know, be present and all that stuff. But for many of you, you can't take a moment to slow down your business. Which also means how the heck are you supposed to get content up when you're trying to go to the beach, you're trying to go take a vacation, a holiday. That's not fair, right? It sucks.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:04:36]:
Like someone like me, who is loves content creation. I love documenting everything. It is my jam. And it's been my jam since I was a little girl. I was documenting on big, huge 20 pound cameras. But that's been my thing, right? I have episodes where I've talked about it. A lot of you, you know, again, are bopping all over town. You know, because maybe you're contractors or you're working at home and you don't shut the laptop till 9pm because you're in hustle mode and growth mode.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:05:03]:
That's why you're here on this podcast. And I want to tell you something. It's really hard to be creative when you're not feeling creative. I am a firm believer you can't force creativity. Yes, you can go on a walk and it will probably bring up some things. Yes, you can go on a retreat and it'll probably help, but if you're not feeling creative, you're not gonna be happy with anything you put out into the world. And yes, you're creative. I don't wanna hear it.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:05:23]:
All you need is the idea. And then you've got me. If you're in the Reels lab and I go, well, here's your. Here's. Here's how we make it creative and cute. Um, but that's what this podcast is for too. And I'm gonna share some hooks for you so you can have some quick wins. But I want to assure you, when I share those hooks every single week on instagram.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:05:37]:
Every Monday, I share a week's worth of hooks. Use that this summer. Like, look, just go, okay, here comes my content plan for the week and just use it and run with it. Other thing I want to give you permission to do is repurpose whether it's June, July or all of August. Because even this morning at the my Pilates class, there's a couple in there and they're like, we're gone for the next month. Like, I know a lot of people are in that mode right now. Now you can do what a lot of people do. They just disappear from Instagram for a month.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:06:02]:
If you're going to do that, just put in your Instagram bio on vacay till X date, have a pinned post about it, pin it, be like, we'll be back. In the meantime, comment this for that. Get them in the email list. It is okay. Your people are not going to leave. And if they do, bye, bye, see you later. You'll probably gain followers. I mean, you will.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:06:19]:
If you've been creating content, your content from two months ago is still getting engagement. Right? If the algorithm's pushing it out. Which is why you listen here. Because the content ideas I give you get pushed out for months and months at a time. So I promise you, I didn't post it all over the weekend and I was feeling really anxious about it. Or was it last weekend? Either way, I think it was last weekend. I was so like, it's fine. It's just my own brain.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:06:41]:
And no one noticed, no one was mad at me. I don't think. So. That's why you have to lean on things like manychat. I'm a firm believer that manychat will change your entire life because I hope you do the content. Manychat helps you get people in your DMs and wanting your stuff. I've had clients who it's completely changed their lives. One of my clients just bought a house. She took her kids on a vacation she never thought she could all within six months, 12,000. I've told her story a bunch 12, 000 followers to 85000 followers and made her entire salary of 2025 in the first three months of 2026.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:07:14]:
And she's still going. All because we made some tweaks to her content and she posts. I want to say she might post every day. I think she only posts five times a week though. Not only. Right. And then she puts like three to four stories every day. Little bit behind the scenes.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:07:25]:
What she's doing, she puts the link to her products and then she's off for the day. And she's got kids. We've all got A lot going on and now Summer. So with that said, I'm blabbing, but you got two options. One, just take a break. Cause you need it and it's totally okay if you do put a post up. Say, see you guys soon. Second, if you want to show up, repurpose, go back to all the content you did three, six months ago, find the ones that did best or ones that didn't do well.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:07:49]:
And you're like, you know what, I could probably make this better. Let me see what hooks Shannon might have or other creators on the Internet. With that said, I'm going to give you some really easy ideas. Whenever I'm in a rut and I find this to actually work really well for me. One of those things where like, if I'm not feeling creative, this kind of gets the juices flowing and it gets my brain working again. I borrow from familiarity. For you. That might mean giving us your five new favorite finds at Aldi.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:08:16]:
It might mean the playlist that you're addicted to right now as xyz, the new Canva, fonts that look like Summer whatever it is right in your niche. Or borrow familiarity from other brands. Right. But another way to do this for someone like me, this is what I do. I did it recently and it did really well. I did a reaction video to Gary Vee. These reaction videos and these green screen videos are the best freaking content to help you get content out there. First of all, if you're reacting, half of the video is just you acting like you're watching the video.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:08:51]:
Right. There's a lot of ways to do this. Again, you can green screen it. I have my Gary Vee one from a few weeks back on my page if you want. What I do is I literally screen recorded, right? You can screen record if you're on Apple iPhone. You literally in the top right corner of your phone, drag your finger to the bottom left. Yeah. And then it like opens your Control center, I guess they call it, and you'll see a little screen record there.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:09:12]:
And you can literally just screen record if it's not there. You can go in your settings and put it on your. Is it called Control Center? I'm sorry, guys. I only know Instagram and TikTok and LinkedIn. Everything else. Don't ask me about any thing in life. So that is what I'm going to be leaning on a lot because I know I'm still going to want to show up and create content every single day I'm on vacation. It's just I can't do It, I can't not post one.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:09:34]:
It's my creative outlet every single day. Or, you know, I always take at least a day or two off during the week, the weekend. But two, I just want to show up for y'all and I love what I do. And I, you know, I don't spend more than an hour on my content every day. And that's why I'm so passionate about helping you guys, because I just put a reel up today in five minutes. And literally the whole point was like, you can do this in five minutes, too. So just remember, lean on my page for help. But one of the best things you all can do this summer, this month, this week, find something in your world, whether it's a reel that you can give advice based off.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:10:06]:
I'm telling you guys, they go. They're crazy. They do so well. Because not only are you able to borrow the familiarity from the celebrity talking, maybe it's Mel Robbins and you want to push back or agree with what she said. Or maybe it's a Harvard study that just came out and you can green screen the article and break down what it says about your world, your industry. Maybe it's about right. If you cover sports, you can screenshot and green screen tons of tutorials online. Just go to YouTube.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:10:31]:
Or you can do a reaction video like I did, where I just simply recorded the video, used it as an overlay in edits, put it in the corner, and I had already recorded a video of me pretending. Well, I was watching it on my phone and I had my husband's phone recording me, and that's how I did it. So husband's phone was recording me, and then I'm actually watching it on a phone so that I'm reacting in real time, quote, unquote. And then I put the video screen recording in the corner. I hope that makes sense. Again, go to YouTube. I'll make sure to actually do some of these tutorials for you guys for the summer. That would be really fun.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:11:01]:
I know I have a green screen one, but I'm telling you right now, one of the best things you can do when you are out of creative juices, you're like, the kids are home, everyone's asking me for a snack. You just got a new dog. Hello, me. You're just like, I'm like, I. I can't borrow familiarity. Borrow something they already recognize. I promise you, your views will skyrocket because people already recognize the brand. Whether it's you walking through Whole Foods, whatever it is you at the car dealership, we're going to stop because we recognize it.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:11:28]:
Or it's you breaking down an article from whatever it is. Or like me with Gary Vee. Also, like I said, what's a great way is just look online, Google something that people are talking about that's a hot topic. Or you know what else is kind of fun? This is actually one of my favorite things to watch on, especially on TikTok. When interior designers, fashion bloggers, like, they'll talk about the history of something. They'll be like, did you know pockets were only in men's shorts? Because like, I am addicted. You tell me the history of a piece of clothing, the history of a town were locked in and you can green screen all this. So literally all you're doing.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:12:01]:
Okay, I know what you guys know what that all means if you don't, like I said, just go on YouTube, go on to search green screen. It's so simple. But that's one of my go tos when I'm filling, jaded, stressed over, it reach is down. I'm frustrated. Oh, I suck. Everything sucks. Because you can tell from my content as of late in the past month, I'm tired. I've leaned a lot on lazy content.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:12:22]:
And that's okay. That is okay. May got me good. But guess what? I still grew. Actually, let's see, I posted less than normal and I was just not, I don't know, I'm just. To be honest, I just wasn't really happy with the content I put out the past month or so. But now I'm, I'm back. I'm getting back in the groove.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:12:38]:
But let's see if I grew. All right, I grew over 4,000 followers. So actually for me, that's not a lot. But guess what? I still grew 4,000 followers. Like, and that's okay. I survived. May, we're rhyming now. So I just want to let you know that's kind of.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:12:52]:
And that's why I did the Gary Vee video a couple weeks ago, because I was like, I literally have nothing to say. And I was like, I'm bored with my own content right now. So I go through it too. I was just literally in survival mode and we all came out surviving. And you can do it too. So there's your options, obviously. Lean on the content I share, lean on the ideas I give you guys in the podcast. But definitely start practicing those green screens and let me give you.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:13:14]:
And that's what I was going to do is going to give you a couple of hooks. So if you're doing it like I did with Gary Vee. Or it's like a video of a podcast, a video of an interview. Let it play and you're just in the corner agreeing, nodding, or thumbs downing. You can do that as a green screen or you can do like me, where I did a reaction video where I was kind of more so there. And then right when it went into it, I just said my piece. I think I talked for about 15 seconds. Because you've already grabbed them, the celebrity, the person they know, the brand has done the hard work for you then.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:13:44]:
But make sure. Right. Don't go rambling. I know it's hard not to do that, but I did a whole post about how to yap without rambling. So I'll put that. Make sure it's in the show notes. And then the other one to do, like, if you're doing a green screen and talking about an article, I would start out with the B E N S method, which is big, easy, new, safe. So something like there's a brand new.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:14:04]:
Right. You could just make it like Harvard just came out with a new study that confirmed what we've all been suspecting. No, it's not this. No, it's something like that. Let me play one kind of similar real quick so you can hear it. Here we go. New status symbol for dads in their 20s and 30s isn't the big house. It isn't the number in the bank account, and it isn't the title on their LinkedIn account.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:14:20]:
It's the ability to play with their kids at 11am in the middle of summer. So when you watch this, it's in the show notes. It's a green screen and he's in the corner and he's using images and he goes, the new set. I'm telling you, if you use the word new, the new blah, blah, blah. This new blah, blah, blah just came out. We're in because we don't want to miss out. Other way to do this, right? So there's one hook for you. The new this or a new this just came out.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:14:44]:
Other way to do this is describe the moment they can relate to. Ready? You know that moment when you get to the end of your meal and suddenly you feel like you just want to keep going, like you want to go back to the pantry and get more bites, more snacks, or you just want to finish the whole thing? All right. Again, it'll be in the show notes. But if you go, you know that moment when you get to the store and you're not sure. Da da da. And then it could be a voiceover or it could be a talk to camera like hers. What I love about this reel is she's casually at her kitchen counter eating a sandwich in the middle of the day. This is the yapping video.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:15:12]:
Perfect, perfectly done. So that's in the show notes. That's another way to do it. And then here's another one I wanted to show you. It's a doctor reacting to her video and then it goes to him talking about. So I just wanna make sure you guys have examples so you know what I'm talking about. So his says it's a video of a girl on Instagram and it's of her video. But he's green screen in the bottom left corner.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:15:29]:
And it's funny cuz even though people may not know her, so it's not like really borrowed familiarity, they're familiar with the food she's eating. The video is really well done. So it says if peas get their marketing right, they will be the next cottage cheese. High protein, high fiber, delicious and inexpensive. And then the doctor reacts. This is the type of content you borrow other people's. You make sure to shout them out, of course, in the caption. And there you go.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:15:52]:
I just find it's one of those hacks to kind of get you out of the creative funk. The jaded, the, the just. I suck at this. You got this. So start out. Casually conversationally react to something. I know you got this. Keep listening.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:16:05]:
We're gonna have a great summer. I love you, friend.