Make Thought Leadership Your 2017 Resolution

By Kelsey Meyer

How many New Year's resolutions have you kept for longer than a month? If you're like me, you can probably count that number on one hand — specifically, the hand that's grasping the donut I swore I wouldn't eat in 2016.

But resolutions can, and should, be kept, especially those you know will push your career and your company forward and help you hit all of those other lofty goals you set for the new year.

I'm talking about your resolution to finally showcase your company as an industry leader — the resolution that seemed too big and nebulous and just plain hard that you, like many marketers, have pushed it off year after year.

This is the year to take that goal and turn it into a reality. But building industry influence and thought leadership is a big undertaking, so where exactly do you start?

To Build Thought Leadership, Start Small

According to the American Psychological Association, one of the keys to keeping a resolution and making a change is to start small. That often means taking your overarching goal — in this case, thought leadership — and breaking it into smaller, measurable steps.

So that's what we've done.

Once you've selected your company's thought leader, it's time to get started. Here are a few simple steps you can take now to become a thought leader in your industry — and if you want to follow along in more depth, grab your copy of the full eight steps to thought leadership here.

1. Identify your audience.

Your plan to become known as an industry leader will never get off the ground if you're not even sure who you need to be known by. In other words, if you want your audience to consider you a trusted, reliable resource and industry leader, you need to know who that audience even is.

The first step is to identify your audience. Is it made up of potential customers? Existing customers? Investors? Partners? Internal influencers and employees? Identify who you want to speak to before you start trying to speak to them.

2. Develop your message.

Once you know who you need to be communicating with through content marketing, it's time to zero in on your message. Hint: Your message should never be "Hey, look at us! We're so awesome! Buy from us!" Thought leadership isn't about blatant self-promotion; it should focus on the ideas your audience finds valuable and wants more education about.

So what unique insight or knowledge do you and your colleagues have that other companies do not? What are your predictions for the future of the industry? What can you offer readers that they'd find especially valuable?

3. Learn what your audience is reading.

The only thing worse than not knowing who your audience is or what your message should be is actually knowing it all and shouting into a void. You've got to do some research on what publications your audience members are reading and where they consume content so you'll have a better idea of where to target your message.

4. Test topic ideas.

To successfully publish content to those publications, your topics and article have to be relevant to that publication's specific audience. I recommend testing topic ideas before deciding on what to move forward with so you save time and improve your chances of acceptance.

One way to do this is to post a question around your idea to an online forum for your industry, like a Reddit thread, Quora, a LinkedIn group, or Inbound.org, and see how it performs. If others are engaging with your idea, you've probably struck the right chord.

By breaking up your goal of building thought leadership into more manageable steps, you're well on your way to achieving it. These four steps are simple enough to take right away, and to learn how to execute the final four steps, download your complete guide here.

And take a sneak peek into what you'll learn in detail in the rest of the guide:

• The right way to reach out to publication editors
• How to actually create great content
• Tips to maximize your published content
• The keys to keeping the momentum going and living your thought leadership

 
Complete the form below to download your guide.