In my role on the customer success team at TrackMaven, I specialize in helping marketing teams in the healthcare industry improve their digital strategies. In this industry in particular, thought leadership is top-of-mind for marketing executives. But establishing a brand as a “thought leader” in a competitive space proves challenging — especially for smaller organizations. So how can a lean team of one or two marketers compete for the role of thought leader against larger organizations with more manpower and more resources?
To answer that question, let’s first take a step back and consider just what a thought leader is, then dive into three tactical ways to approach thought leadership.
What is thought leadership?
Forbes defines a thought leader as “an individual or firm that is recognized as an authority in a specialized field and whose expertise is sought and often rewarded.” In other words, a thought leader is a brand that readers go to as their most trusted source of information. This can include being the go-to health blog, the best Twitter account for helpful healthcare information, or the most popular website for anyone having a slightly neurotic freak-out (i.e. WebMD Symptom Checker).
As marketing teams consider their role as a thought leader, start with some basic questions: Is your content being shared? On which channels does your audience engage with your brand? Are you sharing the right kind of information with your readers?
Armed with the answers to these questions, marketers teams can implement a thought leadership strategy that’s impactful without using too much of your team’s resources. And for TrackMaven customers, getting these answers is easy. Here are three steps to adapt and inform your brand strategy to be the most trusted source of information:
1. Benchmark performance and identify top content
Even when not operating on a tight budget we must always benchmark our performance. Whether you are a major healthcare network or a small local hospital, it is critical to understand how your content is performing and which brands to look to for content inspiration.
By reporting on the average total shares per post, TrackMaven provides insight into how often your blog content is being shared across social media channels and how that compares to competitors.
Once you have that information — find one to two brands that are leading in your competitor landscape. These brands should inform your short-term goals. Tip: Remember to save your report so you can easily check and see how you are tracking toward your goal.
Next, measure on which channels your content is shared the most as well as on which channels those one to two competitors is shared the most. Are they the same? Are there two channels that you do well on? Is there a channel that your competitors don’t do especially well on?
From here, you should know:
- Which brands are doing well with sharing blog content.
- What your short-term goal is for your own blog content.
- Which channels are most successful for sharing blog content.
With this information, you can go to the “content feed” and use the filters to identify topics and tactics that are performing well. Lastly, integrate that information into your own content development.
Now that you have an understanding of how you are performing, there still may be obstacles on the path to becoming a thought leader. The most frequent obstacles include not having the budget to distribute the content as well as other brands, and not having enough content to remain competitive.
2. Distribute content effectively
While not having enough content is often the more glaring issue that smaller organizations face, the easier issue to resolve is how content is distributed. If readers don’t know you have information to share they may not think of you as their trusted source for information.
To resolve this, use the search function on the content feed to start identifying how competitors are distributing their blog content. First, use keywords either to identify specific blog title, or even try using the keyword “blog.” By filtering for social channels, like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, you will be able to see how content was shared by each brand.
Once filtered, you can easily see where are other brands distributing their blog posts and what a successful distribution post looks like.
In the example above, Cleveland Clinic has successfully used Facebook to share one of their best-performing blogs. Use this method when developing your own blog strategy with planned distribution posts to make sure your audience knows you are a good source for helpful information.
3. Leverage third party content
After reviewing top blog content and implementing best-in-class distribution tactics, sometimes the largest obstacles still are overall resources. With a limited budget and a limited team, how can a small organization develop enough content to be considered a thought leader?
One way to get around this obstacle is to be creative and share helpful information with your readers, whether or not it is your own content.
You might immediately think, “Wait, that is not directing readers back to our blog?” or, “Why would we want to direct readers to other sources?” But sharing third party content can be a highly effective strategy for developing a thought leader presence without going outside of budget. Not only would you share your own research (when available), but you would also share meaningful information on trending topics — things your customers are eager to learn about.
While this may sound like a lot of work, it is something TrackMaven can help do quite easily. Specifically, “influencer brand” and “news tracking” are two ways to quickly discover high-performing third party content or news that is meaningful to your audience.
By adding in news coverage — meaning, digital earned media tracking — or by tracking influencer brands — meaning, brands that address your target audience for a similar or related topic — brands can quickly filter to find which top performing articles, posts or blog content that are already performing well with your audience. See an example below where a quick earned media search helps to find new content to share:
From there, it is easy to add to your content calendar, and you’ll be sharing a greater volume of relevant, helpful information, and establishing yourself as a thought leader without breaking the bank.