Introduction

 

Establishing oneself or a business brand as an authority in a specific industry or niche can be a powerful tool in attracting qualified leads and growing your business. Thought leadership is a concept that can help establish you as that authority in both B2C (Business to Customer) and B2B (Business to Business).

 

Firstly, let’s define what thought leadership is. There are obviously many definitions you can find online. However, I believe thought leadership is “the attempt by an individual or organization to affect or change public opinion and to advance a specific agenda through expert opinion or knowledge.”

 

Thought leadership is all about establishing yourself as a credible expert in your industry. You achieve it by sharing new, unique and in-depth educational, technical or other useful information that can benefit your prospects, clients, or any specific audience. By providing insightful knowledge, you can become a trusted adviser and thought leader.

 

Thought leadership shows authority on a particular topic, amplifies credibility, and builds trust among potential customers. Thought leaders have the unique ability to:

–  Create new of ways of thinking and applying their knowledge and experience.

–  Lead their tribes and audiences beyond the status quo.

–  Take on existing and new problems and develop solutions that become the new ways to live, work and play.

–  They disrupt the norm, kill irrelevant traditions and develop the future of their industries, and

–  Render established traditions and expertise that fall by the wayside irrelevant.

 

All of these benefits and super-powers come at a cost – Developing great content as a thought leader doesn’t come easy. This is especially so when the goal is to attract sophisticated qualified leads and to build a recognised brand in a competitive or saturated market. Being successful as a thought leader requires a lot of time, effort and dedication.

 

But it doesn’t have to be overwhelming or impossible. Especially in the age of Large Language Models like ChatGPT around. If you have the right framework, tools and strategies to guide you, developing great content can actually be quite enjoyable and rewarding as a thought leader.

 

In a previous article titled 7-Steps To Creating Content That Attracts, Engages and Converts Traffic Into Qualified Leads I cover the basics. In this article, I will provide you with a 5-step guide to creating great content that connects with your audience and establishes you as a thought leader. And without wasting any time, here they are:

Step 1: Know your audience and their needs.

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Identifying your target audience is a critical step in developing an effective thought leadership and content strategy. It’s important to identify who would benefit from engaging with your content, and to understand what they need to hear and see in order to become followers and loyal customers of your brand.

Take the time to understand the people that you want to interact with your content. This includes:

–  Their demographics such as geography, age range, gender, etc.

–  Their job titles and responsibilities,

–  Their psychographics such as goals and challenges in their careers, and therefore

–  The relevant topics they’d like more information on to progress in their professional and personal lives.

 

For example, do they need advice on how to reduce supply-chain inefficiencies? Do they require help to improve team performance and talent retention?

 

Once you have a thorough understanding of the people that make up the core group of your customer base – including those who make purchasing decisions – it will be much easier to identify relevant topics and to generate ideas for writing and producing content on those topics.

Step 2: Define Your Unique Insights and Perspectives

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Being a thought leader in your field means that you have unique insights and perspectives that can help your audience solve problems and achieve their goals. So, how do you develop this unique insight and perspective?

 

Here are activities that over a period of time can help you create your unique perspective of thought leadership and style:

–  Identify your audience’s pain points and needs.

–  Research the latest trends and industry news.

–  Select a niche subject matter.

–  Study your competition and their content to identify gaps and areas where you can add value.

–  Create a compelling story around your topic to engage your audience.

–  Formulate content pillars and subtopics from the subject matter.

–  Write your content with engaging and informative language for each of the pillars and subtopics.

–  Incorporate unique and uniform visuals like images, graphs, infographics, and video to enhance your content and recognition.

–  Use artificial intelligence writing tools to inspire and help you create your content development process.

–  Gather data and verifiable sources to support your content.

–  Deliver your content in a format that suits your audience’s preferences.

 

Pro Tips:

–  Be sure to keep up with new trends, tools, and research findings to continually provide fresh and exciting content that keeps your target audience coming back for more.

–  Don’t be afraid to try new things and experiment with different types of content to see what resonates most with your audience.

Step 3: Develop and Write your Thought Leadership Content

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Writing great content that resonates with your audience can be a daunting task. Below are key points to remember when planning to create content that effectively engages your audience.

 

  • Define the purpose and goal of your content.

It is essential to have a clear understanding of why you are creating the content and the outcome you want to achieve. Based on the pain points you know about your target audience, tailor your messaging to their needs to attract their attention.

 

  • Research keywords and topics.

Keyword research helps you understand what your audience is searching for and to structure your content in a way that maximizes search engine visibility.

 

  • Develop a content calendar.

A content calendar helps you plan and organize your content creation effectively. This ensures that your content is completed and published at the right time and reaches the right audience in a planned sequence.

 

  • Write and optimize your content.

Writing great content takes time and effort. It’s essential to ensure that your content is well written, easy to read, and optimized for your audience first, and then for search engines.

 

  • Analyse results and refine your strategy.

Finally, publish it to a smaller select audience and analyse how it performs. Get feedback to help you identify areas for improvement and refine your strategy to ensure continuous growth.

 

Pro Tips:

–  While creating great content may seem like a daunting task, artificial intelligence writing and other content curation tools like Chat GPT, WordHero, Jasper and Blogely can inspire and help you tremendously.

–  Always remember to humanize your content so it connects better with your audience and is not considered majority AI-written content.

Step 4: Review and Edit Your Content

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Creating great content is a continuous process, and with time, practice, and perseverance, you can develop your thought leadership style and perspective. However, before you publish your content, you need to review and edit it carefully to ensure it meets the standards of quality, accuracy, and relevance that your audience expects from you.

 

Reviewing and editing your content are two different but equally important stages of the revision process that can help you polish your writing and improve your message.

 

Reviewing your content means taking a second look at your ideas and checking if they are clear, accurate, interesting, and convincing. You need to make sure that your claims are:

–  supported by evidence,

–  complete and consistent, and that

–  your information is relevant to your purpose and audience.

 

Reviewing your content also involves checking the overall structure of your writing, such as the introduction, the conclusion, the transitions, the headings, and the paragraphs. You also need to ensure your content has a logical flow, a clear focus, and a coherent organization.

 

Look at how you expressed your ideas and check if your language is appropriate, precise, and effective. You need to fix any problems in grammar, punctuation, spelling, word choice, sentence structure, and writing style.

 

Also check the formatting of your writing, such as the font size, spacing, alignment, margins, citations, and references. Ensure your content follows the guidelines of the publication or platform where you intend to share it.

 

Here are some best practices that you can follow when reviewing and editing your content:

 

  • Get some distance from your content.

It is hard to review or edit a piece of writing that you have just finished because it is still too familiar to you. Put it aside for a few hours or days until you can look at it objectively.

 

  • Ask someone you trust for feedback.

A fresh pair of eyes can help you spot errors or weaknesses that you might have missed. Choose someone who is knowledgeable about your topic or familiar with your audience and ask them for constructive criticism.

 

  • Use online tools and resources.

There are many websites and applications that can help you review or edit your content automatically or manually. For example, you can use Grammarly and ProWriting Aid to check your grammar, potential plagiarism and spelling, Hemingway to check your readability and style, or Copyscape to check your originality.

 

  • Read your content aloud.

This can help you catch awkward phrasing, missing words, or unclear sentences. You can also record yourself reading your content and listen to it later to see how it sounds.

 

  • Review and edit multiple times.

Do not expect to catch all the errors or improve all the aspects of your content in one go. You may need to revise and edit several times before you are satisfied with the result.

 

By following these best practices, you can ensure that your content is polished, mature, and effective. Keep at it until you achieve your desired outcome.

Step 5: Publish and Promote Your Content

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Once you have created the content, identified the relevant publishing channels and people needed to support an impactful thought leadership strategy, it’s time to put it into motion. Here, you must ensure your strategy actually gets you in front of your target audience. For this, you will need a plan for promoting and distributing your thought leadership content and initiatives going forward.

 

To gain traction, setup regular channels for distributing and promoting your content. This might include email marketing campaigns, blogging platforms, podcasts and social media. It also helps tremendously to partner with websites and individuals who have influence and a following in your industry.

 

Wherever you decide to promote your content, be sure it reaches its target audience effectively so that those consuming it can easily recognize the thought leadership messaging behind it, and to take the desired action.

In Closing

Remember:

–  Quality content takes time, effort, and creativity. Use these 5-steps to streamline your content creation process and produce content that effectively communicates your message and engages your audience.

–  Consistency is key. Commit to a regular publishing schedule. Read this article for steps on creating your content plan: 7-Steps To Creating Content That Attracts, Engages and Converts Traffic (agamebusiness.com)

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