How are you going to get your thoughts heard?

Getting your ‘thoughts’ heard by your market is a crucial step to becoming a thought leader.  So plan to succeed this year by making a plan!  Start by setting up a content marketing calendar to share your thoughts more broadly.

In its simplest form, a content calendar will list the types of content that you will create, how many times you will create content, how frequently you will publish it and how you will share it.

For example, an international consulting firm that I work with aims to post on LinkedIn two – three times a week.  Their goal is to share company updates with their own staff, in Australia and in other countries, to address any silo mentality within the business.  They also sponsor links to profile their expertise to growing markets.

Another client, a law firm, aims to blog once a week.  They then share their thoughts via LinkedIn.

They both have different goals in sharing content and have chosen the channel based on their target market, and the frequency based on their ability to resource content creation.  Setting in place a regular regime has created discipline in their team to create content, as well as an expectation in their networks to receive content.

Here’s how to create your calendar:

Stage 1

  1. List the types of marketing content that you will create eg. Blog, interview, report, research finding, white paper, video, podcast
  2. Think about the time it takes to create this content
  3. Nominate what and how many you will create each week. You may have access to internal resources to write your content, you may outsource it or write it yourself.

Stage 2

  1. List the digital media channels that you have access to eg. Your website, Twitter, LinkedIn
  2. Think about your clients and target market. What digital channels do they use?
  3. Nominate which are going to be most effective for publishing and sharing your marketing content.

Stage 3

Create your content plan by nominating what you will create, how you will publish it and how you will share it.  Set it up as a timetable.  For example:

Weekly: Write a blog, publish it on your website and share it on LinkedIn.  Tweet about it three times.

Monthly: Record an interview with a client.  Release it as a podcast on your website. Tweet about it three times.

Quarterly: Undertake a client feedback and intention study. Analyse the results and publish insights on your website as a report.  Promote it on LinkedIn four times over a month.  Tweet about it weekly for three weeks.

Pretty soon, you will be a recognised publisher, sharing your ideas.  By putting some thought into your topics (click here to read a previous blog on how to do this), you’ll also build your reputation as a specialist in your area of interest – a thought leader!

To learn more, subscribe to our blog. You won’t be bombarded – we only publish with new ideas and thoughts, not on a daily basis.

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