Nobody is short of ideas. They are short of evidence.
The blank page is not an inspiration problem. It is that you are guessing what will land while the answer is sitting in public on three accounts you already follow.
You open a blank doc, scroll two competitors for forty minutes, write something about consistency, and post it. It gets eleven likes. You cannot tell whether the idea was wrong or the hook was, so you learn nothing and do it again on Wednesday.
Thirty posts tallied by shape in twenty minutes. Two shapes are doing everything, one is dead, and there is a gap nobody in the niche is covering. You write to the gap using the shape that works.
Twenty minutes, three accounts.
You are not looking for topics. You are looking for shapes and gaps.
Take the last thirty posts from three accounts that sell what you sell. Not the biggest accounts in the space. The ones at the size you want to be next, because their audience is the one you are competing for.
Sort every post into one of the five engines below. Anything that fits none of them goes in a sixth pile called other.
One shape will have volume and no engagement. That is the shape everyone copies because everyone else is doing it. Do not do that one.
List the questions their comments ask that their posts do not answer. That list is your next fourteen pieces, already validated by people who are not you.
The five hook engines.
Every hook is built on one of these. Topics expire, these do not. The numbers are real posts, so you can hold them against your own.
# THE FIVE ENGINES # Pick the engine before the topic. Always. 01 COUNT ACCUSATION best on record: 1850 reach, 51 saves "You pay for [BIG N] and use [SMALL N]. I run it on [YOUR N], one job each." Hands them a number about their own spending they have never checked. The accusation lands on the system, never on the viewer. 02 YOU ALREADY HAVE IT 1169 reach "Your last [N] [things you own] already told you [answer]. You just didn't read them." Same move as 01, aimed at data instead of spend. No purchase required. 03 THE GATE 971 reach "Never let [thing] [do job] until you give it [artefact]." A prohibition with a named artefact at the end. A gate with nothing behind it is just an opinion. 04 RANKED WITH A PAYLOAD 1036 reach, 4 saves <- warning A ranking that ends in something savable. A ranking with NO payload got that reach and four saves. If there is nothing to attach, pick a different engine. 05 THE SPECIFIC MOMENT "She [action] at [exact time]. You [response] at [exact time]." Two timestamps and a consequence between them. Vague times kill it. The specificity is doing all of the work.
# TALLY SHEET # One line per post. Thirty lines. Twenty minutes. ACCOUNT ENGINE (01-05 or OTHER) ENGAGEMENT THE GAP IT LEAVES ------- ----------------------- ---------- ----------------- [handle] [01] [n] [what it did not answer] # READ IT LIKE THIS # Highest engagement column -> the shape to write in # Highest volume, low engagement -> the shape everyone copies, avoid # Large OTHER pile -> an unnamed shape, worth testing # The gap column -> your next fourteen pieces
Engine 04 is on the list with its own warning because reach without saves is the failure this work invites. A ranking is easy to watch and easy to forget, so it needs something attached that survives the scroll.
Before you use it.
Is this not just copying?
You are copying the shape, not the content. The gap you write into is the part they are not covering, so the piece could not exist on their account. If you find yourself copying the topic as well, you skipped step four.
How often should I run it?
Once a month is plenty. The shapes move slowly. Running it weekly makes you reactive to noise.
What if my niche is tiny?
Then widen to the adjacent one. A fitness coach can read business-automation accounts and vice versa, because the shapes transfer even when the topics do not.
This is not for me if...
You post twice a month. The teardown finds you fourteen pieces and you will resent the list. Fix the cadence first, then come back and it becomes useful instead of accusing.
Where did the numbers come from?
Real posts on this account, logged after they ran. They are there so you can hold your own results against them rather than take my word for it.
Get the AI & GHL Academy.
The engines and the tally sheet are yours either way. The Academy has the batch process that turns a tally into a scheduled fortnight.
Want the content system that runs off it?
One session fills two weeks. The tally feeds the queue, and the queue feeds the edit, and you stop opening a blank page on a Sunday.
Apply now