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Emily Nash

By: Emily Nash on February 8th, 2017

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Thought Leadership: It's Not A Sprint

Inbound Marketing | Brand Marketing | association marketing

mailto:demo@example.com?Subject=HighRoad Solutions - interesting article

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In any inbound marketing strategy, thought leadership plays a major role. Thought leadership is incredibly important to differentiate yourself in the market, to attract traffic back to your website, and to offer value in the form of content in the marketplace. You probably already follow, watch, or read many thought leaders in the form of celebrities, talk show hosts, design magazines, etc. So, you are more than familiar with what a thought leader is and the kind of influence they have on culture.

Becoming a thought leader and an influencer in your industry primarily centers around content and answering the most commonly asked questions in your industry. In addition to creating content, it’s about engaging in the community and sharing what other thought leaders have to say and following other influential people in the industry. It’s not just a one way street.

Many businesses build out their blog to be the hub of content creation and thought leadership. By creating value through content that solves problems, offers innovative ideas, and shows how to replicate success you can build trust with your target audience. It can seem like a lot of effort in the beginning to get started, but over time the library of blogs, articles, and thought pieces will grow into something that can be shared, repurposed, and distributed across social media channels again and again.

In addition to a blog expanding with new and fresh content each week, it requires Google to reindex your website on a regular basis, gives you better search engine results, and helps you to be found more easily. Thought leadership also leverages an otherwise missed opportunity. It leverages the hard earned knowledge you have learned over the years about your specific industry by displaying it in easy to understand articles to your audience. It then gets distributed across various social channels attracting new visitors and possible customers to your website.

Next, implement the inbound strategy that incorporates thought leadership. You will want to uncover what topics you have authority on and how you can be a source for that topic. Choose a manageable publishing schedule that could be anywhere from once a week to once a day. Published articles can live on your website, but you can also look into guest blogging too.  When you guest blog it equates to credible links back to your website which boosts search authority and results. It’s about establishing yourself as the best source, with helpful answers to the most asked questions from your audience. It is helpful to brainstorm these questions or topics up front to keep up with a vigorous and consistent publishing schedule. The last piece is to engage with your audience, respond to questions that generate from your blog, and ones that surface on social media.

Once you are driving the conversation in your industry, you will start to see your influence grow. This can take the shape of increased audience size, more engagement and questions from followers, and increased web traffic. It’s a marathon not a sprint, but once you see results from creating real value for your audience, you will want to implement the thought leadership strategy into your overall inbound marketing plan.  To learn more about the benefits of thought leadership, watch our webinar which is always available On-Demand. 

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About Emily Nash

With a unique background in start-ups-to-studios, and consulting-to-corporate settings, Emily specializes in solving for unknowns, pioneering new services, and collaborating with marketers and strategists. In her community, she served on the board of American Institute for Graphic Arts as their Communications Director to help promote networking and mentorship opportunities for area designers and creatives. She’s also a co-producer for Rethink Association, a podcast for associations.