There are usually about a handful of thought leaders in each industry. These thought leaders may be different in terms of product or service, but they all have something in common: they are referenced quite a bit.
Though these thought leaders may be large companies doing unique things, there’s no reason why you can’t follow their lead. After all, creating a distinctive personal brand is just one of the ways you can stand out from the competition. One of the ways your brand can be seen as outstanding is to be referenced, or linked back to, often.
If you are just in the beginning stages, don’t worry. Follow these steps to get started:
Provide quality content. Why do we continue to go back to these thought leaders? Besides their positive image and experiences, they provide their audience with quality content. Follow their lead and gain momentum by producing matter that has a bite to it. Think of it this way: would you retweet an article or video if you didn’t think your audience would approve? Of course not. So, whenever you are writing that blog post or fixing up a whitepaper, ask yourself if someone else would find it useful. If not, get back to work.
Comment, comment, comment. If you’re not doing so already, find industry blogs that you actually like and follow their daily updates. Then, comment on blog posts that you find interesting. Why? Well, for starters, if you find a post interesting, you should say so. Further, when you comment on someone’s blog, there’s usually an option to leave a website URL. If you continuously comment on a particular blog, chances are you will create a relationship with the author, raising your chances of getting found and getting linked.
Help others. It’s not always about you. Sometimes, it’s more important to help others first before you can receive gratification. Link to other blogs and articles via Twitter and Facebook, which are fantastic promotional tools. In particular, you should be focusing on those industry blogs because authors will then have a reason to assist you in the future. Remember, most people are willing to help others in their field. In this case, they will have another reason to do so because you have already done them a favor.
How else can someone get linked?
Adrian Maynard is Vizibility’s director of marketing. He has more than 20 years of experience in marketing, many of those years in the technology industry. Find Adrian in Google at vizibility.com/adrian.
