Check out StoryLab’s top tips for thought leaders. These tips will help business leaders like you utilise your knowledge and experience and help channel your expertise into a fully formed article, video or blog. The goal is to establish the leader as an expert in their field whilst giving valuable knowledge to the reader.

When StoryLab first started out ten years ago thought leadership had become a bit of a buzzword and, as our clients know, we are not fans of buzzwords or jargon! But, as with most buzzwords, this is a concept that has been around a long time and it simply translates into you demonstrating your expertise in a chosen field to showcase your position as an authority to your peers and potential clients.

Thought leadership is an excellent tool to add to your PR or content marketing toolkit and forms part of our PR work with many clients. It is simply expert pieces written — or indeed vlogs — for either media outlets or for your own social media channels.

These pieces can be one of the best ways to establish your expertise and authority in your particular field. But before you start trying to get your words of wisdom carried in the local, national and international media, listen up to our top PR tips for thought leadership.

1. Don’t fake it. If you are not an expert in a particular field, don’t pretend. Journalists might not be experts in everything but they know if someone is passing themselves off as an expert.
2. Take a position. There is nothing worse than an opinion piece where the writer does not form an opinion. You need to clearly take a position on a particular topic and outline your reasons why you believe in your viewpoint. No one wants to read a piece that doesn’t give them a solution to the problem being discussed.
3. Make it topical. An opinion piece that is right up to date is always more likely to get pick up from the media. That means you have to be constantly ahead of the pack on breaking news in your sector and be ready to talk/write about it before the moment has passed.
4. Keep it fresh. Don’t write a piece and then keep hawking it out to every media contact you know. It will soon go stale. Write something that is topical but just walk away if you don’t get any takers and share on your own social media.
5. Don’t give up. Thought leaders are not established overnight. You need to build up your authority and credibility over time and a series of pieces.
6. Don’t sell. You are not writing thought leadership pieces in order to sell a product or plug the date of an upcoming conference. While some media outlets might do this for you, the point is not to drive immediate sales; it is to establish authority.
7. Keep learning. You might be an expert in your field today but you may not be tomorrow. Keep educating yourself, stay on top of trends and always be one step ahead of your competition.

If you need the services of a PR and content agency to help you establish your authority and expertise, get in touch with us on +353 (0) 1 6853029.