How to Become an Authority in Your Field and What Content Marketing Has to Do with It?

Establishing your business as an authority in its industry is not an easy task. Chances are there are lots of other companies fighting over the spotlight and pushing different ways to ensure their name is recognized. Even if that is the case, it is still worth trying to become a company to go to for quality content.

Content has a lot to do with becoming an authority in any field. Before people or other companies start to see you as a thought leader, it is necessary to deliver high-quality material in different forms, be it through your company’s blog or by engaging in group discussions in social media such as LinkedIn. But why should you try to be an authority and what are the advantages? Read on as we enlighten those questions.

What are the benefits of being an authority in your field of work?

First, let’s talk about the benefits of being an authority in the market. Once your company has established itself as a source of impactful and useful information, other businesses are going to pay attention to your content. The information you are sharing becomes more relevant, adding weight to your words, and that leads to people sharing your content around, which brings us to the very first advantage: brand awareness.

As your brand becomes known, your content starts to shape the market and influence consumers in a meaningful way. Take Coca-Cola’s blog as an example, any kind of content the company shares regarding the soft drinks industry will be taken seriously by its competitors and consumers. Of course, Coca-Cola is one of the biggest companies worldwide, but your business doesn’t need to reach that level of recognition to start impacting how people in your field think and act.

This kind of brand recognition will directly impact your sales. Potential customers are not going to be afraid of purchasing your products and services anymore. Still, it is critical to keep providing excellent customer service even after achieving this milestone.

How to become an authority?

That is where Content Marketing comes in. Content Marketing is about creating, sharing and generating engagement by delivering well-thought material in your field. For example, if you’re the owner of a hotel in a touristic town, consider having a blog about tourism on your website, create and share articles related to famous locations and festivals, and even provide services related to it. Of course, often just sharing content isn’t enough, sometimes it may be necessary to directly partake in discussions and other public affairs related to your industry.

Also, how and where you employ your content is critical to your strategy’s success. If you’re unsure of which would be the best platform to showcase your content, try looking at what your competitors are doing. Experiment with social media if that’s interesting for your company or maybe consider participating in local fairs and events. It all depends on what your company offers. Do not be afraid to advertise and show your business, follow your competitors wherever they are and start developing your own network and pushing your brand awareness. Read more on what is content marketing and how to start it.

Read Also: How to Use LinkedIn for Content Diffusion

Execute Content Marketing correctly

Remember, the key to building your company as a thought leader is consistency. If you stop producing relevant content for a couple of weeks, its reach will drop significantly. Content Marketing is an everyday effort on finding new ways to reach and engage with your target audience through content that is current and relevant. Many companies are keeping their own blog, news feed or community. Take a look at GoPro’s Discover for example.

Also, you don’t always have to try to sell, we’re not necessarily talking about advertisement when focusing on Content Marketing. The idea here is to make use of accessible information and transform it into compelling topics and discussions. Add value to your offerings by delivering interesting researches and remember to make sure your customer service is on point to ensure your company does what it says. Sharing content on how to properly reach customers on an ecommerce while delivering a poor service will backfire and cause people to dislike your company instead. Your business Content Marketing strategy has to incorporate its values and goals.

JivoChat Affiliates: Check out our program and earn up to 30% in recurring comissions

How to measure my growth as an authority?

There are many indicators to track when it comes to measuring your company’s authority. Start by tracking where your website visitors are coming from: if they’re being led to your company through your shared content, organic searches or even being redirected to you by other companies talking about your brand. Make use of proper SEO on your content, take a look at Google’s RankBrain algorithm for example.

Aside from general visitor flow, track your social media and check how many people are talking about your brand, sharing or referring to its content and directly engaging with you either for business contracts or just to get to know more about your company. Take a look at the Content Marketing Institute’s research on how to effectively track your efforts.

Don’t Miss: How to Scale Your Sales AND Meet Your Customer's Expectations

Greet your visitors properly with Jivochat

When people start coming to your company’s page to ask about your business in general or even looking for contact info for possible partnerships and connections, don’t let them search for the "contact us" page. Instead, greet them with proactive invitations using the complete online chat solution that is Jivochat.

An online chat capable of integrating with different platforms will ensure you’re keeping track where your visitors are reaching your page from. Also, it’ll help you deliver high-quality customer service in any platform, including mobile. Jivochat is a great tool to help back your Content Marketing strategy up, install it right now on your website!