Website Magazine recently published “Practical Tips for Developing Authoritative Content,” to help individuals become recognized as trusted sources within their specific industries. Their five tips focused on:
Spotlighting unique, informed perspectives
Leading with attention-grabbing headlines
Publishing only polished, well-written content
Packaging content with efficient, web-friendly design
Accepting constructive criticism to improve content
As a firm that believes in and works tirelessly to create thought leadership programs for clients, we love these tips but would add a few more to the list:
Provide use cases and real life examples; it’s always better to show how (or how well) something works rather than simply stating that it does.
Avoid statements that include “I think …” Instead, cite research, customer comments and case studies whenever possible; this adds credibility to content.
Speaking of research, citing company data and reports affords an opportunity to talk about why a company is qualified to speak to various trends; you dominate the industry, you have a lot of powerful customers using your product, you manage a huge amount of spend within a particular industry, etc.). Make the case for why your insights matter.
Keeping each of these tips in mind will help professionals in any industry grow their profiles and become recognized as thought leaders. Doing so will hopefully increase the media inquiries, speaking opportunities and sales leads that result.