An editorial focus and calendar that reinforces it may be the single most important thing you can do if you want to blog for thought leadership. In his ground breaking book ‘Brand Stand’, Craig Badings writes…
The more research you do on the topic [on which you choose to focus] the more you will understand the space you want to enter. Ask yourself: Who is already playing in that space? What they are saying? Are they achieving cut through? Does our company have substantially more to say or something unique to offer in that space or not? Your deciding question should be ‘Can we own that space?’ If you cannot own a space my advice would be do not go there.
Badings, Craig (2009-07-08). BRAND STAND (Kindle Locations 790-794). BookPal. Kindle Edition.
If you have decided you can ‘own the space’, here is an overly simplified formula for achieving alignment in your content marketing strategy and getting ownership:
- Brainstorm around your unique offerings in the space. Ask yourself “what are the problems my clients expect me to solve and how do I solve them in a unique way?”
- Use Google’s keyword tools to research keywords around those unique offerings
- Track trusted sites and keyword searches in Google Reader; read primarily those things that deepen your expertise in your unique offerings without losing the context of the whole space
- Only curate or create content on your blog related to that unique offering
- Leverage social media, etc. to amplify your content
- Connect effectively with the readers you draw in
If you do those things in that order, you will have alignment around solving your customer problems and you will be found when people are looking for your solution[s]. In order to effectively cover my space, for example, which is content management and marketing for thought leadership, I track the topics content management, content marketing and ‘thought leadership’ marketing as well as the following tools:
- Blogging
- Google+
- and supporting tools like Google Reader, Shareaholic, Storify, etc.
Thursday, for example, is Twitter day. Every Thursday I reflect on Twitter as part of a balanced content management and marketing for thought leadership strategy and ‘storify’ a summary of the best articles from the previous week. This tactical approach ‘forces’ me to not only review the best content from the previous week in Google Reader and Twitter, but be sure to cover it in my blog.
Questions? Feedback? Comment below or use the connect form. In the meantime, here’s a summary of the best of what I found in content marketing, LinkedIn and Twitter this past week…
http://storify.com/e1evation/content-marketing-linkedin-and-twitter-for-2-17-20
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Todd Lohenry 
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