Top 5 Tips for Establishing Your Business as a Thought Leader

Be the source that your audience wants to come to for information. Establish your company as a thought leader in your industry. The best way to do this is to focus on providing value and engaging your target market.

In order to build trust and hold a distinctive position in your customers’ minds, educate your audience through your industry expertise. Listen to what they have to say, and answer their questions by providing relevant content.

Educational content can be shared on social media, through email marketing campaigns, or even posted on your website, which can ultimately help generate more traffic and leads.

Not sure where to begin? Read on for our top five tips.

1. Add a blog to your website

Regularly blogging can help establish your business as an industry leader.

Write blogs that are relevant to your target market. Instead of writing about what you sell, write about topics that will be of interest to your audience.

If you’re going to mention your products/services, tell a story and write about how they helped clients solve unique challenges, providing results only your brand can achieve.

If you need help coming up with content ideas, see what questions your audience asks in the sales process as well as the comments section of your blog, on social media, and via direct messages. Use this data as a guide in crafting future content.

Also, pay attention to what your competitors are blogging about. See what works for them, but maintain a clear differentiation in the marketplace.

2. Create educational videos

Using informative-heavy videos in your content marketing plan is an effective way to communicate with your target audience.

Use video content as an opportunity to teach your audience. Unboxing videos, tutorials, demos, or behind the scenes snippets are all great options.

We have found videos to be extremely effective for our business-to-business clients, increasing key performance indicators (KPIs) on social media including impressions, engagements, post clicks, and post link clicks.

3. Join the conversation

Identify industry trends through social listening, and determine which keywords emerge in your industry’s discourse. Recognizing important trends and topics will help you stay on top of your game.

You can even get involved in the conversation and interact with relevant social media posts by Liking or commenting on them, which can establish your brand as an expert and show your brand cares about industry news.

4. Jump on trending topics

In addition to interacting with relevant posts, be the first to jump on hot topics.

Remain up-to-date on industry trends and share interesting social media posts, news articles, and updates that are of interest to your audience.

Whenever you share something, add a blurb that comments on why you’re sharing it. Your audience will expect to see shared posts in context. Why are you sharing the content? Why will it provide value to your audience?

Pay attention to trending hashtags within your industry. For example, there may be hashtags associated with upcoming tradeshows or seminars that can drive traffic to your content about the events. Research each hashtag before you use it to ensure its relevancy and appropriateness.

5. Provide value in all communications

Avoid posting about every promotion your business has – sharing too much promotional content can drive away your followers. Focus on providing value.

A winning formula we recommend is 10% promotional content, 20-30% curated shared content, and 60-70% original content. A majority of your posts should be original content created by your brand, which can help you get more shares and website traffic.

If you don’t have time for content creation, consider outsourcing…

Need help with content creation? Give us a call at 631-842-4600.