Why should you have a thought leadership presence?

Reputation and trust can be the two most important tools in your kitty if you’re a B2B or a B2C company. The best way to do this is obviously to offer products and services that earn these two qualities. 

Another way to do it is through thought leadership.

Marketing and public relations are hardly what they used to be. The traditional methods will only do so much. This is the gap that thought leadership tuned towards branding is designed to fill.

Creating a thought leadership presence in your chosen field establishes you as a leader, someone who sets trends rather than following them. And that’s where you want to be when you aim to place yourself at the top of the ladder.

Other than the obvious advantage of being a leader, there are other reasons as well, smaller ones, but just as important, for why thought leadership must be an essential part of your content marketing strategy.

Gain trust with customers.

Winning trust from your customers is oftentimes not that easy. When you have a thought leadership presence, what you’re actually doing is giving value to your clients. You’re giving them food for thought, you’re increasing awareness on your subject matter, and you’re appearing as the voice of reason among prevalent noise.

Once you establish yourself as the brand that knows what it’s talking about, you earn customer trust.

And then comes the traffic, and then the leads, and then your potential customers.

Establish a relationship with your customers.

Your content has the potential to provide invaluable insights to a confused customer who’s trying hard to make a choice. Now that’s a power you wouldn’t want to let go.

Once you establish trust with your customers, you have already gained a competitive advantage in establishing a relationship with them. When you become the go-to source in your sector for them, you have already created a reputation for yourself.

Be the leading authority.

As a thought leader, you provide answers to some of the most difficult questions in your industry. What makes you the leading authority in your chosen field is the amount of unique insights and perspectives you are able to provide.

Your content must be designed to inform and educate the audience and must guide them in their thought process. The unique value that you add in helping a client solve a problem or meet a requirement is what ultimately makes you the leading authority in your chosen field.

Become the reference point.

Becoming the leading authority is one thing, but becoming the reference point is another.

Imagine being the brand that your audience uses as a standard of comparison for a particular topic or industry. It gives you a huge advantage over your competitors and brings in sure success.

How does thought leadership fit in with your content marketing strategy?

Your thought leadership antics will essentially help you and your brand. If you are writing on behalf of your organization, your content surely shines the spotlight on it as well. 

This is a digital world. You need to create shareable, likable, and insightful content regardless of the social platform you use to stand out among the rest.

A few points to note:

• You don’t need to stick to one platform. Choose as many platforms for content sharing as you like as long as you have a strategy of what you want to achieve.
• Be genuine and unique in your content. Provide your own thoughts and ideas rather than resharing existing third-party content.
• Have a clear frequency in mind for each platform. This will give you uniformity to your posting.
• You can choose the content that works best for you. There is nothing wrong in posting a short 100-word anecdote rather than a long-form research paper as long as it works for you.
• When you post thought leadership content, remember that you become the brand. You’re marketing yourself. 

And last but not the least, always remember that establishing yourself as a thought leader is not an overnight process. It takes time and it takes effort. It is a slow and drawn out process whose result can be quite sweet. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

After all, slow and steady does win the race. 

Econz specializes in content marketing and thought leadership campaigns are one of its most important strategies. If you find this topic interesting and would like to know more, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.