5 Ways To Create Content To Build Your Authority

The biggest mistake brands make is thinking that thought leadership is a type of content, the same way that how-to posts or ebooks or webinars are a type of content.

Authority or thought leadership isn’t a type of content—it’s an approach to content.

I said it before and I’ll say it again.

Many people create good content but only a few create good content consistently. This is already a big part of becoming the Go-To, the trusted authority in your space: showing up consistently as it takes a few touch points for people to not only know and like you but more importantly trust you! 

This is where a solid strategy comes in that not only takes the guess work out of content creation but also the struggle as to what to actually write.

Relying on motivation when it comes to content is as effective as relying on others to pick up how good you’re…. It’s not going to happen.

Especially when you’re newer to content creation and it doesn’t just flow yet or come east to you, any excuse and other activities are more important and urgent and content creation is pushed on the back burner.

So that this doesn't happen, I share with you 5 ways how you can create not only consistent content but content that gets traction and converts (which can show up in more ways than just financial conversion)

So here we go:

1. Calendar is king: planning ahead and with that, tapping into the different mindsets people are in and leverage on the recency of events, makes your content more relevant.

Think about it - around June (if you’re in Australia), it’s EOF time, so topics like tax returns, EOF planning, Dec and January is all about changes on the year that was and implications for the year to come as well as trends, and predictions for the year ahead.

You get the gist - I always say: recency trumps relevancy and this is what I mean with that.Plus- knowing when special holidays like world book day or international innovations day is coming up also gives you ideas for content around those prompts.

2. On the go content - this is one of the best performing types of content as it’s not only very recent but also one of the most personal types of content that connects you with an audience.

It basically means that you document what you’re up to rather than just sharing the ‘how to’s’ and the 5 tips and the 3 tools etc.

Whilst this type of content (what I call credibility content in my framework) is very relevant as it creates awareness around your area of expertise, everyone can share it and it doesn't make you memorable. However, when you share that you’ve attended an event or conference and post about 3 key learnings and tag the speakers or event organisers - this is a lot more valuable and also positions you as a life-long learner who’s committed to investing in your skills.

It also builds credibility when you have a speaking engagement coming up (and don’t think you have to speak at the WEF stage which by the way, is my life goal so if you know of anyone there, I’d appreciate an intro haha.

Jokes aside - it doesn’t need to be a massive stage or audience, it could be a podcast your friend or company just started and you have the opportunity to join, or speak at a local MeetUp event, even a visit at your high school for a lunch & learn session).

You want to share those behind the scenes as to how it came about that you got this opportunity, maybe how you prepare for it, you could also show the set up of the stand or microphone etc - trust me when I say that people loooooove this type of content as it’s very personal (when you show your office set up for example) without  you having to give away any real personal insights - if you know what I mean?

You don’t need to lay out all your dirty laundry and share the most vulnerable insights about you - simply taking a photo of your work space or doing a boomerang or Loom video on a tool you use or a presentation you work on let’s people get a glimpse on your backend and with that, creates a more emotional connection comapred to the standard ‘how to’ content. 

3. Curating content - this is the easiest way to create content and what I recommend to anyone who’s just starting. Curating content means that you become the DJ of other people’s content and share the best takeaways and insights with a short personal commentary. It could be for example a post about a recent podcast you listened to (don’t mind if you use this episode and tag me - I sure will share it and give you a shout out to my community which is just short of 40,000 on LinkedIn :)

One of the best examples for you to have a look at is David McLean who I will add his LinkedIn handle here as he only curates the best content from various sources and adds a short commentary to make it relevant to his audience.

This is key for curating content as simply sharing other people’s content without a sentence or context as to why you’re sharing it is not only punished by LinkedIn as it’s considered duplicated content but also seen as lazy by readers and you can see that those posts get a like or 2 (and that won’t get you anywhere near thought leadership and Trusted Authority status).

4. Commentary and counter arguments 

This follows a similar idea than the recency of content when it comes to themes and key dates - as a trusted authority, your role is to be the translator and that also means you need to be able to translate current trends and news into what it means for your target audience. It may be that you have a strong opinion around the topic due to a personal experience or it can also simply be a more objective interpretation of those trends.

For example - one of my counter arguments that I often bring up in my posts is that simply having formal qualifications doesn’t mean you’re successful.

Many people believe that having the degree, or the official tick that you're qualified for whatever you want to do is enough which couldn’t be further away from the truth in my books which comes from personal experience. I was often the most qualified person in the room and yet, I missed out on opportunities because I couldn’t articulate my value and struggled with concise and confident communication on my point of difference.

Another example which falls into this category is to give predictions based on observations or your own research what a trend means to the profession/ industry that you’re in:

For example - one of the things I’ve been talking about a lot is the impact of the trend that people having shorter attention spans and the rise of popularity of short form and moving content like Tik Tok vides or Instagram reels will impact the traditional advertising landscape and we’ll see more word bubbles rather than entire transcripts and more natural ads versus high production videos.

So do your research and write down any changes you’re seeing, start with your profession/ industry and then go wider and brainstorm general trends like a loss of trust in traditional media and institutions, etc

This is also an exercise we’re currently doing in the Trusted Authority program as we’re working on refining our distinct point of view which is the intersection between what we know and what our audience is interested in and tapping into trends and what is a talking point today and tomorrow properly thought leadership and trusted authority status.

Some other examples to get your thinking going could be

• Most meetings are a waste of time.

• Email clients are annoying and intrusive.

• Hustling doesn’t mean success.

5. Collaborate

Finally, this is also one of my favourite ways to create content as a) i can learn from incredible smart people myself about their area of expertise and b) I don’t have to prepare as much compared to a solo episode like this one or a blog etc.

Tapping into other people;c credibility and authority status also lifts your brand perception which is why we call collaborations ‘branding by association’. Celebrity branding, influencer marketing and sponsorship falls into the same category so you can use the principles also for content creation. It may be that you reach out to 10-20 recognised authorities in your industry/ profession and ask them to share their 3-5 trends/ predictions for the year to come (which would be very timely given we’re heading towards the end of the year and your audience is curious as to what’s next). This way, you don’t even need to have the answers - you simply curate the conversation and insights and use them to build your thought leadership status as you make it easy and convenient for your audience to learn from the best whilst getting exposure to new thought leaders in that space.

Mike Stelzner, the founder of the social media marketing world did exactly that - his background is blogging and not social media and yet, he’s THE authority on social media because he brought together the brightest minds first to the podcast and then to the conference - social media marketing world. So the question is - who do you know already that you can reach out to and who do you want to get to know and can use this project as ‘excuse’ to get in touch?

If you’re worried that those thought leaders don’t have time, think again. Executives and leaders in their field realise the importance of exposure and increasing their reach and i’d say 8 in 10 people will say yes when you ask the right way and focus on the benefit they get from it. I reached out to big names like Scott McKain and Mark Schaefer to feature them on this podcast - well, it was the Your Brand Your Future podcast but when you go back a few episodes (actually literally right to the early episodes), you will be able to listen to them. I will also add the links to the show notes to make it easier for you to find.

See what I’m doing here - I’m curating again and repurpose those interviews and insights. If you’re doing the outreach and then the interview right, you can even use this collaboration method as business development tool as you’re building a relationship and trust over a 30-60min interview. 

So I hope you see that it comes down to being intentional about content creation and tapping into multiple types to not only keep the format interesting and engaging for your audience but also to give you more options, inspirations and ways to build relationships and thought leadership.

If you think it’s possible for you to create thought leadership content using one of all of the 5 methods I covered today but you want a little more hand holding, then I have a special treat for you as I recently overhauled my content creation hub (for the intake of the trusted authority students). It’s a full blown and comprehensive Trello board with step-by-step instructions, a 3-part mini video course where I talk you through my content strategy as well as a ton of ready to copy and paste caption for you to use straight away. If that sounds too good to be true, check out the details over at content-creation.hub!