Become the Go-To Resource

05.09.2017 |

Episode #9 of the course How to quickly build your online authority by Vinay Koshy

 

Your audience is the best source of customers. With that in mind, you need to always be a credible resource of information and advice in your niche.

 

Become a Filter and Earn the Trust

The best way to approach this is to think like a journalist. In other words, help your audience by filtering out all the irrelevant minutia and give them the details that will make the most difference to them.

To earn their trust, give them the best information possible and avoid deals that would serve your interests more than that of your audience. In doing so, you’ll be regarded as a trustworthy authority in your industry.

 

Focus on Platforms That Yield the Best Results for Your Content

For example, if you are in the B2B space, you might want to focus your energy on LinkedIn, Twitter, and your blog. You can use your blog as a platform to drive traffic by showcasing your knowledge and personality via engaging stories that demonstrate your unique understanding of the challenges your audience faces.

But don’t just leave it at that. Offer your audience anecdotes that can be quickly implemented.

Here is an example of how you could use platforms and resources to achieve this.

1. Use your Twitter account to build and nurture your audience by searching for and following profiles that match your targeted personas. Think of yourself as a publisher and curate content around themes your audience will appreciate. This can include tweets that link back to content on your site.

2. Use LinkedIn to firmly establish yourself as an industry expert based around the professional content you display on your profile. LinkedIn also allows you to post content, so it could be appreciated by those who use LinkedIn.

3. While you use LinkedIn, you can also post on other platforms like Medium to leverage a “write once, post many places” content strategy. There is nothing wrong with this as long as the other locations you post to contain a canonical link back to the original source.

4. For most industries, building authority from owned media alone is no longer feasible. Starting with earned media is a better recipe for building your authority.

5. Consider putting together a short guide full of facts and best practices in your industry. This can be offered when people sign up for it via your landing page.

6. Pitch various publications to write for them. As you secure these opportunities, you can prudently link back to your landing page. In other words, to build your audience, tap into other people’s audiences and give them a reason to become a member of yours. You can do this writing original content with CTAs where it is natural to do so.

Tomorrow, we will talk about the one thing you must continue to do to build and grow your online authority: Track the performance.

We’re almost done!

Vinay

 

Recommended book

Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content by Ann Handley

 

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