The Power of Content Marketing in Establishing Your Thought Leadership Platform

In this day and age, there are a multitude of digital marketing options available to small business owners and authors. Content marketing is an excellent option and the amazing news is that besides the yearly cost for your website, it’s free. Even better – you can repurpose your own content to save time and energy in a variety of ways – creating videos, reels, social posts and a newsletter. 

Not only is content marketing time efficient, but you also start to build your platform online, creating SEO value and thought leadership to point potential customers and media outlets towards. 

Intrigued? Read on for 4 reasons why content marketing can be so powerful in building your online platform.

• Get found in Google searches.

Ideally, we want potential customers to go to Google (it’s the most popular search engine, handling 8.5 billion searches per day), pop in what they are looking for, and have our business show up at the top of the list. By updating your blog on a regular basis, you automatically rank higher in a Google search. Updating your blog signals to Google that you have fresh relevant content, and they automatically rank that higher than your competitors with stale content.

In addition, by updating your blog with information on new trends, you’re also more likely to show up in a search as people jump on the trend and want more information.

One warning though, don’t use AI. You can use it for research for your content to align on key words, but be sure to humanize the content or Google will sniff you out. The result? Your content will rank lower.

• Building a Library of Expertise.

In my business, I mostly rely on word of mouth, social media, and Google for new leads. One thing that we stay faithful to is updating our blog with real human generated content at least a couple of times a month. We do it for the reasons in example #1, we do it to provide a free way for people trying to figure out what publicity is and how it works, and we do it to showcase our knowledge to potential customers. 

If I’m going to hire a painter, I want to know that they know what they are doing. They know how to create clean, crisp edges, they know how to avoid splattering paint all over the ground, and they know how to finish a painting job in a timely and efficient manner. Sure, customer reviews are helpful – but if the company had a blog offering details on these painting tips, I’d trust they were an expert.

It’s the same in any business – including PR. I want to showcase to potential clients that I know what I’m talking about. After over 20 years working in publicity, I’ve had a lot of experience pitching clients and helping them to build their online reach. I want to share the knowledge I have and showcase that to legitimize my business. 

In addition, if I was going to be interviewed by a podcaster or a TV journalist, I have that content to point to – so that they can confirm I’m an expert. Having a library of online content is a fantastic way to create a foundation for a PR campaign. 

• Save Time and Energy on Social Posts.

I’m not a digital native, and I’m not a person who super enjoys deciding what to share on social media to promote my business. I know all kinds of posts get engagement including ones where I would video myself lip syncing to trending audio and sharing something relevant to PR (by the way I’m not hating, I love watching these, but I’m not sure they’re my jam), and all kinds of other tactics.

But for me, it’s way easier and less stressful to take a blog post I’ve written or a member of my team has written and break it up into digestible bits that I can post on social media or create reels with. It’s all content, no fluff, and it saves time and tons of mental energy.

One of our top tips for clients is to have established social media channels – and you’d be amazed by how many people don’t love doing this. This is a great shortcut that will pay dividends over time.

• Repurpose Content in a Newsletter.

If you’re interested in creating a weekly newsletter or Substack, but you’re not sure how you’ll come up with all that content, look no further than the content you’ve created for your blog. 

You can again (as mentioned above in social media), grab digestible pieces of content from your blog (and link back to your blog – SEO bonus) and share in a newsletter to your followers. If you can provide valuable content, you will build your newsletter audience over time, an audience that you’re continually nurturing, and fans that will think of you first for PR needs.

As you can see, content marketing is a powerful tool – and a time saver that should be in every small business owner or author’s toolbox. Not sure where to start? We’d love to chat about how to start building your online presence through content and publicity.

Interested in getting started on your thought leadership journey? Schedule a free discovery call with us today!