Thought leadership is what positions your brand as an expert in your industry. It is creating content that positions yourself as knowledgeable and keeping potential customers or clients coming back to you for more insight and information in your industry. People look at you as a respected voice, and in turn, it helps build your brand. With that said, here are some tips to follow for building thought leadership into your marketing plan:
1. Answer questions your audience wants to know
Distinguish which questions your buyer personas are searching for and create content to answer them. This takes time and research, but is very valuable to becoming a thought leader for your industry. Many people turn to Google when they have questions, so having pieces of content that answer questions that your audience has will be beneficial to your traffic, but also to becoming a thought leader.
2. Find Interesting Story Angles
In order to be a thought leader, you have to be able to find interesting story angles and be up to speed with what is going on in your industry. You have to think of the unanswered questions surrounding stories and news in your field of work and research and work to answer them. By doing this, you begin to position yourself as a thought leader.
3. Be Able To Tell a Story
In order to be a thought leader, you have to be able to tell a story. Whether you are answering questions in a blog post or on social media, your storytelling abilities have to be excellent. If you can’t pique your audience’s interest with your content, your chances of being a thought leader begin to diminish.
4. Use Social Media
Social media is an excellent place to position your brand as a thought leader. Engage in conversations regarding industry news, share your thoughts and ideas surrounding your industry, and share your blog posts that answer timely questions. Mediums like Twitter and LinkedIn are excellent places to reach your buyer personas and start positioning yourself as a thought leader.
5. Be Credible
While it is good to give your thoughts and answers on happenings in your industry, you have to make sure that you are remaining credible. One of the quickest ways to prohibit your brand from becoming a thought leader is by producing content that isn’t credible. Once you lose the trust of your audience, it is hard to gain that back.
6. Be Unique
Thought leaders are not brands that just copy information and stories and rebroadcast them. They are brands that create their own thoughts and storylines. They express their uniqueness and personality through their writing style. Figure out why people are coming to you for information, and continue to capitalize on that.
Being a thought leader in your industry is not something that happens overnight. As it was mentioned above, it is a combination of several mediums and character traits of your brand. As you continue building thought leadership into your marketing plan, use these six tips to make sure your stay on the fast track to becoming a thought leader.
Do you have more tips to add to building thought leadership into your marketing plan?
