How to Write a Thought Leadership Article

Whether you’re a photographer, CEO or fitness instructor, developing a personal brand is key to growing both a business and your career. Personal brands help create trust, as people are more likely to trust a human over a business, allow you to showcase your story, in your own way, to the world, and position you as a thought leader in your respective industry. One of the best ways to build your personal brand these days is through thought leadership articles, which are essentially value-driven articles that you write using your vast expertise in your niche. Now, if you’ve never written an article before, the concept may seem daunting. But, by following a few simple steps, I will show you how to write thought leadership articles starting today.

The great thing about thought leadership articles is that you really can start today. You may think that you need a personal website with a blog to start writing thought leadership articles, but you really don’t. If you, like most working professionals, have a LinkedIn profile, you can start posting articles right on your profile. This is a great place to start posting thought leadership articles, as you can start positioning yourself as an industry leader to your existing network, and open the possibility of having your articles read by other professionals who use LinkedIn.

Even if LinkedIn isn’t your thing, you can create “mini thought leadership articles” on platforms like Threads, Instagram and Facebook. While these platforms aren’t really meant for long form content, you can use the principle below to write shorter captions that still position yourself as a leader in your industry.

Ready to get writing? Here’s how to write a thought leadership article:

Determine Your Expertise

Everyone is an expert in something. Before writing your first thought leadership article, take some time to identify the areas you excel in within your industry and previous roles. Chances are you have developed a key set of skills that you’ve utilized throughout your career to help make you successful. Determine the skill that you are most passionate about and feel like you could write about the most, and start there. As thought leadership articles aren’t a one-and-done deal, it’s important to focus on a skill or niche that you could write about over and over again, creating new content while not getting bored in the process.

Part of learning how to write a thought leadership article is understanding that these articles aren’t meant to act like a resume highlighting your career achievements. They’re actually meant to invoke conversations within your industry and help solve your clients’ problems. That’s why identifying your core skill is so important. You need to be able to write articles that deliver value, making you the go-to person in your industry for advice and information regarding your particular skill or niche.

Identify Customer Pain Points

Again, establishing yourself as a thought leader doesn’t involve gloating about career accomplishments; it’s more so about showcasing your expertise through content that provides others with a lot of value. This can be accomplished by identifying your customers’ pain points within your niche, and showcasing how they can solve their problems using the skillset you are writing about.

Think about it. When you’re searching for something on the internet, chances are it’s because you have a problem that needs to be solved. By searching online, you are actively searching for a solution. Once you find a person that writes an article with the solution you’re after, you’ll likely return to that person’s site in the future when you have another similar issue. That’s how thought leadership works.

It may seem counterintuitive to give away free information when you’re trying to develop a personal brand and, ultimately, make money, but the more value you can provide your potential clients, the more they will start to trust you and see you as the go-to person for solving a specific problem. Overtime as you develop more and more followers around your thought leadership articles, you may even start to acquire customers willing to pay for your expertise through consulting services, courses or books.

Develop a Simple Article Framework

The idea of actually starting an article can seem challenging, but, with a simple framework, thought leadership article writing can be quite simple.

As alluded to above, you should start your thought leadership article by identifying the pain point your customers are experiencing. Next, you can highlight a few ways that they can overcome their problem, providing valuable solutions based on your work experience. Finally, bring everything together with a short and direct conclusion.

This framework can easily be produced by simply writing an opening paragraph, creating a list of solutions and then closing out with a concluding paragraph.

If you want to take the article up a notch, you can still follow the same simple framework, but tell a story instead. Start by discussing a problem that you had at one point in your career. By starting with a personal challenge, you instantly create a hook that draws the reader into the rest of your article, as they will want to learn how you overcame it. Throughout the next part of your article, you would showcase how you tried to overcome the challenge, highlighting any potential failures along the way to help build trust and transparency with the reader. Finally, you would finish the story by displaying how you finally overcame the challenge.

As you can see, the story framework works basically the same way as the simple article framework. However, the story version creates a much more personal narrative, creating trust and more engagement. The good news is that you don’t have to choose one framework. Try both and see what works, or simply go back and forth between the styles as you write more articles.

Edit, Edit, Edit

One of the most important things for not just thought leadership articles, but also any form of writing, is the editing process. Why? Because no one really notices how great an editing job is when an article is perfectly edited, but they sure do notice when an article has mistakes. And, when trying to position yourself as a thought leader through your writing, you’re going to want to make sure you come across as professional as possible.

So, when you’re done drafting your thought leadership article, edit it. And then take a break for an hour or even a day, and then come back to it and edit it again. If you can, have someone else read through the article as well. As writers, we sometimes subconsciously fill in the missing pieces of our writing because we know what’s supposed to be there. Having someone else read through your article can help you identify missing components, allowing you to add them in before your article goes live.

Publish Your Article, and then Repeat

As mentioned above, there are multiple places you can publish your thought leadership articles, including your personal website, company website, LinkedIn Profile and social media accounts. Once your article is live, engage with any comments that people leave, providing thoughtful and in-depth responses. If available, take a look at the analytics from your articles over time so that you can start to get a better understanding of what articles resonate with your audience and write more about those particular topics.

And, of course, continue writing more thought leadership articles! The key is to be consistent, while focusing on high quality articles over quantity. Before you know it, you will be recognized as one of the key thought leaders in your industry.

Conclusion

Building a personal brand is essential in today’s market, but developing thought leadership articles can be time consuming and challenging. To make the process easy, first identify your key areas of expertise and determine if you can continually write articles around those subjects. Next, identify customer pain points and write articles solving those problems. When the article is complete, proofread the copy multiple times and, if you can, have someone else read your article too. Finally, share your thought leadership article with the world and continue on your writing journey.

Toronto Thought Leadership Article Writing

Writing your own thought leadership articles can be highly rewarding and enjoyable. Some working professionals, however, simply don’t have enough time to write articles consistently. If you’re looking to start posting thought leadership articles and would like a hand, reach out. I’d be happy to help you craft articles that showcase your expertise, while maintaining a clear voice that matches your personal brand.