If you are just fanatical about digital marketing, you have probably already flicked through dozens of distinctive, roll-up-your-sleeves advice from your prototypical SEO “mover and shaker” marketer.
Picture this: it’s Friday, the editorial calendar drifts you to promulgate a new blog entry coming Monday, and here you are, hoping for expecting the unexpected, desperately trying on an itch to write a perfect post on a similar theme hundreds of other bloggers have already attempted earlier on.
Does this sound familiar? You are not alone. Every business owner wants to scatter their idea to the world.
Act like a leader before you reach the end of the road
Let’s get back to the timeworn lore you habituated for years.
You’ve apprehended right that putting your thoughts out there is the key to pulling traffic, touching potential clients, and winning recognition from industry insiders—but what kinds of thoughts?
- How can you find topics that are worth investigating and drafting?
- How can you formulate them to look apart from the crowd?
- And, how to approach SEO content writing that makes your blog a cut above the rest and invariably captures high search engine rankings.
Let me ask you a pretty straightforward question –
- Where do you go to find content marketing learning?
Every other blog out there or Content Marketing Institute, CopyBlogger, HubSpot, and a few alike. - What is your go-to source for home renovation suggestions?
You won’t rely that much on a brand-new home renovator blog as much as you trust Lowes, Bobvila, and The Spruce. Right?
How do brands like Content Marketing Institute, HubSpot, or The Spruce stabilise a remarkable reputation, audience trust, and profitability within today’s social media landscape?
A definite answer: They are not the follower but the leader.
They don’t read others’ content, rewrite, and publish it.
The other blogs that follow them – curate their ideas and put their words around them; don’t lure people. On the other hand, leaders provide a unique and fresh perspective on the same subject. Now, it’s your turn to get your foot in the path.
Let’s break down the steps that lead to the conception of thought leadership into content strategy.
Step 1: Understand What, When and How?
Stop thinking to get quoted on Entrepreneur or Forbes for now. Don’t imagine any social numbers either. And, it may sound unexpected, stop thinking about building links. At the moment, please don’t presume any numbers for a post you haven’t inaugurated working on.
It’s time to finalize topics.
Data-driven content strategy always harks back to how things were a couple of years back.
- What’s a trend about your industry you completely disagreed with? What’s the reason?
- What are the common myths that need to be debunked?
- What’s one thing outsiders get wrong about your industry?
Within our current social media landscape and the zenith of competition, the critical factor to attain brand loyalty is simple: you must prove you are the best at what you do.
You can’t ignore statistics and analytics. So too is intuition. Being able to assess what your audience needs – and when and how they want it, is a key factor in content marketing success.
The flow of information flooding online portals raises the standards for your methods of communication. Your content and context must be better than that of your competitors.
Step 2: Think of audience wants
Social media consumers (B2B and B2C alike) demand a steady flow of reliable information. They expect to grow personally, professionally, monetarily – even emotionally and spiritually from the information you provide. Product and service descriptions no longer cut it.
Your audience wants stories, lessons learned, compelling data. They want to be moved and entertained. They want to be convinced, through your intellect, emotion, and wit that you are an expert, the expert, who will bring them exactly what they need.
Find out what your specific target group craves, where and how they want it – and be their provider.
Step 3: Adapt the way people consume content
There are three elements that make up the cornerstone for how to communicate in social media:
- Be informative (whilst entertaining).
- Be genuine.
- Be consistent.
The rest is up to your individuality, analysis and intuition.
Step 4: Your opinion matters, and embrace statistics to back up words.
Mixing thought leadership into content strategy shouldn’t have room for a wishy-washy notion. You don’t take a stand. You don’t show a new perspective. This approach can barely encroach upon the competitors’ cartel.
But putting a data-driven conception and opinion is exactly what you should be attempting. With the conceptualization you’ve already clinched, start crafting well-researched opinions about the area of your expertise.
If you’re executing an intrepid and pioneering claim, there may not yet be any research. In such cases, illustrate through some examples. Who else approached this and why did it perform? Of course, this is not journalistic writing but more of opinions and editorial pieces: people will perceive that there’s some subjectivity at their glance.
For instance, a lot of SEO organizations have already carried out researches around a debatable point; a burning question:
What’s the ideal length of a blog post?
But every time, some other enterprise scales it up using sizable data and diversity, this well-crafted, fascinating report cuts through the clutter and gets them into the game.
Step 5: Have a bash at E.A.T signals
Inspiring trust through social media interaction requires the steady production of content. What you say, post, stumble, share, and tweet, must be consistent.
It must also resonate with your audience and establish your knowledge in a niche that directly relates to your business. Providing regular expertise is key.
Post pictures. Create infographics. Develop a video channel. But remember the power of the written word to establish your expertise.
Step 6: Write consistently
The advantage is that your content will be extremely focused and that you’ll end up becoming a reference in that subject. You can become the expert and establish your authority in that sector!
No matter what strategy you choose; once you decide how specific your content is, you need to be consistent, so that your audience knows what they might expect from you.
Self-publication is the ribbon in this six-step package. Serving as your own publisher allows you to communicate expertise – regularly, and on your own time. It indicates you understand what your audience needs in the framework of their various social media channels, and that you are there to provide it. Ultimately, self-publication serves as a gift to your audience, as you become a valued (and entertaining) source of information.
(This gift, inherently, extends to you as you benefit from their trust.)
A maverick business knows how to draw attention.
Businesses authoring content to prove their authority or elicit an emotional response in their audience is not new.
Yet, delivering a fresh perspective on the same topic that can be turned into a viral asset should be your plan in the way of success in content marketing.
Remember, over 92 percent of global traffic originates from Google but nearly 90 percent of blog posts get no organic traffic from Google.
Mediocre content has hurt you in the past. G is getting better and better over time. Its algorithmic filters are in the best shape than ever to ensure search results are highly relevant and qualitative, especially for YLYM queries.
Does it sound a bit overwhelming? Maybe but a consistent practice will surely develop a thought leadership mindset.
Author Bio:
Shyam is the founder of a search consulting business and has over 7 years of industry experience in branding and search engine marketing. With background experience in IT engineering, he also customizes eCommerce stores and optimizes sales funnel for better ROI generation.
