A to Z Challenge: A is for… Articles

We often talk about thought leadership as a strategy for improving your visibility and raising your profile. This is why we have made Thought Leadership the overarching theme for our first A to Z Challenge.

Thought Leadership ties together the different strategies that we talk about including writing, speaking, networking, PR and Marketing. Thought-Leadership is about utilising your expertise and deep specialism and knowledge to answer questions, covering trends in your business/sector and being part of the conversation.

Simply put: it is being an Authority.

During the challenge, we will be looking at different ways that you can demonstrate thought-leadership and raise your profile.

One way to take the lead in thought-leadership is to write articles.

If you are wanting to establish yourself as a thought-leader. It is good idea to create a library of content including a selection of articles that you can refer to or publicise as part of your visibility strategy.

Where should you publish your articles?

There are a number of potential places that you can write articles including:

• your company’s website
• trade/industry press
• trade associations
• contacts clients and referrers websites
• local press
• your own (niche) blog or LinkedIn Profile.

Each of these serve a purpose and target a particular audience so you should be using all of these options to suit your current needs and your target audience.

What to write?

When writing articles you can write about anything. However, you will want to make sure that what you are writing is suitable for your target audience and also taking into account where it is being published. However, you might like to write about things like:

• write about the latest developments in your field (niche) that are relevant to your target audience.
• write general articles to cover what you often find yourself talking to your clients and contacts about. What issues are they facing? What are they asking you for advice on? What do they want to know about?
• write about what is happening in the news (that is relevant to what you do).
• write about popular culture.
• write about personal challenges you are facing.

Once you have written a selection of articles – publish and publicise them and use them to demonstrate your expertise. However, don’t forget to continue to build your library of content and resources.