Five reasons to build thought leadership

Thought leadership — done properly — has the power to do more than ‘just’ win you business. Here are our top five reasons to give it all you’ve got.

1. It makes you the voice that’s heard.
   When you provide consistent, high-quality content that’s relevant to your audience, they’ll recognise it and they’ll listen to what you have to say. At the most basic level, people want an easy life and, if you’re serving as a useful resource, why would they look any further?
   
2. It keeps you close to your audience.
   Being a thought leader involves giving value to your audience and this draws positive attention to what you’re doing. It’s a simple chain reaction: value gets attention, attention prompts response and — bingo! — you’ve got interaction, so you can find out what they really think.
   
3. It helps you start the right conversations.
   Good thought leadership is the ideal resource to support your interactions with potential customers. When you’ve got a point you want to support you can reach into your thought leadership portfolio and pull out something to back up what you’re saying.
   
4. It builds your reputation.
   Part of working to position yourself as a thought leader is putting in the effort to share all the positives about you with your audience. This means that any hiccups of negativity are less likely to hurt you.
   
5. It helps your SEO.
   Good thought leadership output fits very neatly into Google’s new algorithms that recognise quality content. Produce and share things useful to your audience and watch your rankings rise.