Take a minute to think of some of the most well-known business influencers and thought leaders. What’s one thing they have in common?
They’re all sharing their expertise with the masses. (Think Sheryl Sandberg and the “Lean In” movement.) Of course, they’re doing it to build their personal brand, which ultimately has a positive effect on their business, but it’s a form of PR that comes across as more genuine than only blasting media contacts with news of their company’s success.
The goal of thought leadership is to engage, educate, and advise with the hope you can help others become more effective leaders or more successful business owners. Do it enough and people will continue to seek out what you write because they see value in learning from you.
If your PR team isn’t already seeking out opportunities for your executives to be thought leaders, such as contributing bylined articles to industry publications, they should be.
Here are a few examples of thought leadership pieces we’ve secured for clients over the last several months.
QSRmagazine.com — The Future of Restaurant Advertising: Let Tech Do the Work
Keeping in mind that Eulerity wanted to attract more restaurant clients, we secured a bylined article with top industry publication QSR to position the brand’s leadership as experts in the future of restaurant advertising.
Franchising.com – Strategically Approaching How to Add Other Brands
An award-winning investment bank focused on the franchising industry, C Squared Advisors is already well known in its space, but enlisted Fish to find opportunities to continue to promote its successful transactions and share its expertise. To that end, we helped C Squared partner Carty Davis become an ongoing contributor with Franchise Update Media.
Franchising World – In It Together: Five Lessons from Being in Business with Family
Many businesses are founded by families or hire family members — and not all of them are successful. Fish encourage Massage Heights co-founder and president Shane Evans to share her advice for building a successful business with your family (happy 15th birthday, Heights!), which ran as a bylined article in the International Franchise Association’s monthly magazine, Franchising World — and positioned the brand as a strong franchise opportunity for entrepreneurs.
Here are a few things to keep in mind when writing bylined articles:
- Provide value to readers. People read things because they want to be entertained or want to learn something. Focus on sharing tips and best practices, so readers can take away at least one actionable piece of advice to implement in their life or business.
- Don’t make it all about you. Make sure the piece isn’t too self-promotional. As great as your story is, you should be doing more than just talking about yourself and your success. Share great things other brands are doing, too.
- “PR the PR.” Once an article runs, think about all the ways you can promote it: on your and the brand’s social media pages (consider putting ad dollars behind it to boost visibility), in your company’s e-newsletters, by emailing to prospects, and leveraging it to get more thought leadership opportunities.
