content in 2016 - Express Writers

10 Key Ways To Stand Out From The Crowd & Be A Thought Leader

December 31, 2020December 7, 2015 by Sarah Shade

To be a “thought leader” is one of the most sought-after titles a marketer can hope for. Thought leaders are influential individuals who play a huge role in informing the public, leading the direction of the industry, presenting new information and breaking barriers. Theirs is the content that is loved; shared; read; and sought-after. You can’t just go to school to be a thought leader, though. It requires the careful cultivation of a set of particular skills, strengths and networks. It’s not enough to simply be intelligent, hard working or interested: you also need to be passionate, unique and unafraid of pushing the boundaries of possibility. What is a True Online Thought Leader? Thought leaders are many things but, to put it simply, they’re the people to whom everyone else goes for new ideas and key questions. They are informed individuals who offer valuable opinions and inspiration for the people who learn from them and they serve the amazingly important purpose of turning intangible ideas into solid realities. Thought leaders make things happen and, more often than not, they undertake the task of transforming industries and instigating great change across varieties of platforms. Thought leaders in the content marketing world include Brian Clark, the CEO of CopyBlogger; Brian Halligan, the Co-Founder of HubSpot and Joe Pulizzi, the Founder of Content Marketing Institute. How to Be a Thought Leader: 10 Solid Tips Becoming a thought leader is a little bit like becoming a unicorn: it takes a lot of effort and just a little bit of magic. Fortunately, you’re totally capable of both of those things. In the world of content marketing, the process of becoming a thought leader boils down to having unique ideas, expounding upon them in a unique way and offering people real, tangible value. Follow these 10 tips to become a thought leader in your industry. 1) Be Authentic Although it’s part of a thought leader’s job description to create high-level content that answers tough questions and provides real value for readers, it’s also important to know yourself and know your audience. This is especially difficult when you take into account the external pressure that is exerted on though leaders all the time. While it can be tough to avoid becoming distracted by things like the analytics attached to your blog, it’s important to remember that those things don’t provide a real window the to the big picture. Additionally, they make it hard to remember that there are actually people behind all those swoopy lines and numbers. Because of this, the first step to becoming a thought leader is to be authentic, both to yourself and your audience. You came to this business because some aspect of it was interesting to you. Therefore, there is very little that is more important than continuing to chase that interest. By writing what you know and are passionate about, your content will already have an edge over a great deal of content available on the Internet. Additionally, doing this will allow you to draw a series of followers who genuinely care about your topic. How We’re Being Authentic (On Social) One way we’re working on our authenticity is bringing a new level of transparency in our social media. In August 2015 we opened an Instagram account. We’ve started to feature a weekly #virtualworkforceculture post about our remote writers, with a picture of their faces, in their location: and our CEO has been traveling weekly to local businesses for a #localbusiness feature. among other things. Here’s a glimpse: Featured #virtualworkforceculture of the week – our full time creative #writer, Oana G, based in Milano, Italy: “As you can see, I’m fighting a lost battle with clutter. To be honest, I like to surround myself with eclectic, odd, one-of-a-kind things that offer me the highest dosage of inspiration and energy. I love to connect objects with places and experiences, and I adore my job, because it allows me to get creative in my own environment.” #workfromhome #homeoffice #copywriter #copywriting #writing #marketing #SEO #contentmarketing #blogging #SMM #content #inboundmarketing #growthhacking #marketing #webtraffic #success #sales #expresswriters #photooftheday #loveit #selfie #instadaily #picoftheday #igers #instacool A photo posted by Express Writers (@expwriters) on Nov 5, 2015 at 6:49pm PST This is the start to a very transparent social account that shows just what we’re up to in the office, and ties together faces in our work-at-home based team. 2) Seek to be a Hub of Information Nobody wants another loudmouth marketer who takes over a huge portion of the Internet by hawking products or hard-selling readers. For this reason, one of the most important steps in becoming a thought leader is to dedicate yourself to being a hub of information rather than a blaring siren. Business and personal blogs should act as platforms for reader engagement and should seek, primarily, to offer value to customers. Additionally, these platforms should offer a place for people to gather and engage in conversation via blog comments, tweets and re-tweets or social media shares. By doing that, you serve the most important purpose of a thought leader: inspiring ideas and facilitating cohesion. 3) Inspire Action One of the most important purposes your content can serve is to inspire action within your readers. Your content should be so irresistible that people want to share it on social media, read the book you mentioned, try their hand at something new or travel to the exotic locale outlined in your most recent post. The goal can vary but the outcome should be the same: in order to be a thought leader, your content needs to move people to action. 4) Cultivate Your “Breakthrough Idea” One of the traits of thought leaders everywhere is that they’re associated with a breakthrough idea. Depending upon your niche, your breakthrough idea could be an area of expertise or a particular approach to an old topic. Whatever your breakthrough idea is, it should inform the rest of your content. For example, if you’re going to run a blog … Read more

The Key to Memorable Content in 2016: How to Tell Your Best Story

December 31, 2020December 3, 2015 by Adam Oakley

“What do you mean?” he said. “Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?” J.R.R.Tolkien, The Hobbit, Gandalf speaking What is “timeless” in our mind, as humans? What stays unforgotten, down through history? The Bible. J.R.R.Tolkien. C.S. Lewis. Leo Tolstoy. William Shakespeare. Emily Bronte. These are familiar names that are correlated with stories. Some of the greatest stories, of all time, ever written. And you know what? Nearly 90% of us (I bet those of you reading this post) know those names. That’s pretty incredible – they’ve stuck that well through years and years of history. Let’s turn from the world of unforgettable authored storytelling and look at a few marketing stories. Some aren’t boring, luckily. If you were to sit down right now and turn on the television, what would you see? Far too many commercials. And all these commercials have one thing in common: a story. Regardless of whether they’re advertising a drug or a new car, commercials are one of the most easily identifiable instances of storytelling in marketing today. The best commercial is the best-told, most-shared story. Take, for example, the Budweiser Super Bowl commercial of 2015: At first glance, you wouldn’t think that a Clydesdale and a yellow Labrador puppy have much of anything to do with beer, but this commercial did storytelling so well that it went viral with emotional connections (some shed tears). So what is it about these brands and, more specifically, how are they getting their consumers to relate, love and appreciate their story—and immediately gain that connection? All with the use of a great story? And will this grow a lot in 2016? Let’s find out. Storytelling & Content in 2016: Why The Brain Loves Stories It goes without saying that storytelling in marketing wouldn’t be nearly as effective as it is if our brains weren’t ravenous for stories. It’s been estimated that we spend roughly 1/3 of our lives daydreaming, which means we’re constantly searching for an entertaining tale. What’s more, we consume upwards of 100,000 digital words on a daily basis, mostly in the form of advertisements and web copy, and the majority of us (about 92%) want to be able to internalize those words as a story. For an example of this, consider Budweiser again. What sounds more appealing to you, personally: a list of ingredients including water, barley malt, rice, and yeast or a “best friends” tale of a little dog and a big horse who found friendship on the Budweiser farm? The answer is obvious. Budweiser opted for story over facts because the human brain loves stories much more than it loves lists of boring details. In fact, it’s been proven that storytelling in advertising actually activates interactive portions of the brain. For example, if a person reads a list of facts, only the language center of the brain is activated. If a person hears a story, though, the language portion of the brain lights up alongside other portions of the brain that are connected to personal experience. In other words, experiencing a story makes us feel a personal connection. This is why storytelling in advertising is so incredibly effective: when a brand can tell a story that triggers an emotional connection in the consumer (like Budweiser did when I cried at their advertisement), that story has a higher likelihood of being remembered. This is due in large part to the fact that the brain releases dopamine during intense storytelling experiences, and this, in turn, leads to sales and conversions down the road. Storytelling also engages the phenomena of “mirroring” in the human brain, which means that people listening to a really great story will share emotions with other viewers, but also with the person telling the story. To put this another way: if you can tell a story that fully underlines how life-changing, unique, important, and special your product, good, or service is, consumers are likely to agree with you. 5 Tips for Finding The Pot of Gold (Your Story) With Content In 2016 If you’re unfamiliar with brand storytelling or you’re simply interested in getting better at it, there are five key things that you can do to outshine your competitors and ensure that your stories are ones that customers want to engage with. These will hold strong in 2016: 1) Get real Would the Budweiser ad have been as moving if it featured, say, an intergalactic alien duo? Probably not. The reason for this is that regardless of where you are at this exact moment in your life, you can probably relate to the cuteness of a puppy, the bond between friends, and the love of pets better than you can relate to life in outer space. In other words, the Budweiser ad works because it is authentic. Over the past several years, authenticity in content marketing has risen to near-epic levels of importance. This is at least partially due to the fact that there are more than 80 million millennials living in the U.S. today and 43% of them rank authenticity as more important than content in everything from news to blogs. With that in mind, it’s clear that the hokey advertising blasts of the 1950s-60s are dead and that a new wave of advertising has entered the picture. Not only does this advertising have to tell a story, but it has to be an authentic story. For an example aside from the Budweiser ad, consider Rand Fishkin. Founder of Moz and SEO guru extraordinaire, Fishkin has built an Internet empire and is widely regarded as one of the key influencers in the industry. But it wasn’t always that way. In fact, Fishkin almost went bankrupt in the early years of his career and he talks about it openly in a 2011 blog post titled “Just Keep Going.” Now, why would a successful guy … Read more