Unlock Business Potential with Expert Thought Leadership Content: A Step-by-Step Guide

thought leadership content industry insights
Thought Leadership Content

You Are Sitting On A Goldmine

Your business leaders and SMEs are power-packed speakers, and excellent orators who hold unparalleled insights. Their vision sets the pace for the industry. Yet, your LinkedIn pages, blogs, SlideShare feeds, YouTube channels, and Soundcloud albums look abandoned and deserted. Even leveraging the PR and sponsorship opportunities in newspapers and magazines go a begging.

All this boils down to paucity of quality content. This gap exists because there is lack of resources, primarily time. Your experts do not have the time to put their thoughts on paper, while the corporate communication, marketing, and social media teams have their hands full with other pressing engagements.

Hence, there is an immediate need to outsource thought leadership content creation.

Our Experts Are Busy

They most genuinely are, and writing content is not among their top priorities. Only a handful of CEOs are able to take time to put pen to paper. Yet, the content channels are hungry, and your internal teams need to hear from their leader.

Even your customers, stakeholders, and partners need to know their opinion about the latest developments. The next generation of internal leaders and managers are looking up to their experts to extrapolate their vision, and set the sail for them to follow and gather speed.

God Is In The Detail

Thought Leadership Content

The thing about thought leadership content is that it’s not just about the thought, but also about the leadership.

A thought leader is the one who can look at the big picture, while also being able to devise solutions for specific problems. Their opinion, vision, and comments cannot be derived from secondary sources. This is why they need to be interviewed and their insights and point-of-view needs to be documented. Only then can it be transformed into publishable content.

Writers need to engage your thought leaders, physically or virtually, to absorb these details. Sometimes even a 15-minute power-packed session may be enough, while in some cases, the writer might need to follow up with the expert for a few days to get all the information and perspective.

Through dialogues, experts can be urged to suggest an outline or the flow of ideas. Alternatively, they can, as per their own convenience, pour their thoughts into voice notes. These insights are worth their weight in gold. They help writers develop a deeper understanding of the subject, note the finer details, identify points that need to be stressed, learn about their inspirations, and contextualize their anecdotes.

Research, Refer, And Acknowledge

Thought leadership content is not a means to promote your brand, product, or service. It puts the industry and the consumers, front and center. That is why it generally carries lot of external numbers and references to studies, reports, trends, and opinions. Utmost care must be taken to provide due attributions and acknowledgements for the data, quotes, images, and visual content used in these articles.

Writers willing to create highly appealing thought leadership content would do well to have subscriptions to scholarly articles, research reports, closed-group studies, slide decks, charts, and infographics.

Steps To Develop Thought Leadership Content

Domain Tracking

Domain specialist writers are expected to be aware about the key trends and developments in their industry. Following the latest news and opinions allows the writer to put things in perspective, suggest talking points, highlight trends, and have a meaningful conversation/ interview with the expert. Subscribing to industry-specific (or even keyword specific) curated news, journals, and magazines helps.

Developing Topics

A writer can then build on these latest developments and put them in perspective for the products and services that the business offers. This can lead to a series of themes, talking points, opinions, and point of views. For example, a news piece about rising global warming can be leveraged by a company operating in the sustainable energy space.

Identifying Internal Experts

Once a list of topics and themes have been finalized by the content creation and business team, it is time to zero-in on the internal experts who can offer the best insight and inputs for the piece. The article can eventually be attributed to this expert. This lends authority and adds credibility to the content and improves its chances of being shared.

Engaging Clients

Some content pieces warrant comments, testimonials, and opinions from the end-customers. These inputs can be collected through questionnaires, interviews, and conversations. Subordinates, partners, and even vendors can be interviewed to add varied perspectives.

Scripting

Keeping the intended publishing platform in mind, the content is scripted. If the writer has an outline from the expert, it makes this process easier. This stage also involves further data mining, collation, interpretation, and referencing.

Reviewing, Revising, Publishing

Once the content is created, it is reviewed, both by the internal subject matter expert, and the editors. Revisions and suggestions are incorporated, proofread, and published.

Conclusion

LexiConn brings the maturity, resources, and exposure to interview your leaders and engage them in meaningful conversations. Our experience across content platforms allows us to scout for and elicit specific information and insights that could interest your target audience.

We work closely with digital marketing and content teams to develop highly effective thought leadership content. From tracking the domain to publishing, and from content repurposing, to content distribution, we manage the entire process.

Visit us www.lexiconn.in or drop us a line at content@lexiconn.in.

LexiConn also offers a free 30-minute content consultation session to help you with your content strategy.

Let's discuss how we can collaborate to unlock growth opportunities for your organization.

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