Creating a Sustainable Body of Authoritative Content
Organizations often have far more valuable knowledge than they realize. It resides with executives, subject matter experts, business units, sales teams, researchers, and others who understand the company, its customers, and its industry from different perspectives. The challenge is identifying what is worth sharing and then turning that knowledge into useful content.
That process can also uncover information trapped in organizational silos. Insights that are well known within one business unit may be unknown elsewhere in the company and potentially valuable to customers, prospects, and other external audiences. Bringing that knowledge to the surface can improve internal communication, build a stronger institutional knowledge base, and uncover opportunities for content that supports marketing, sales, thought leadership, and other business objectives.
The goal is not simply to produce more content. It is to create a sustainable body of authoritative content based on what an organization genuinely knows and turn that into a business asset.
Start With What Is Worth Saying
The objective is to create content because there is something worth communicating, not because there is a content calendar to fill.
Creating a sustainable body of content begins before anyone starts writing. The first question is not, “What should we publish?” It is, “What do we know, believe, or understand that can be genuinely useful to the people we want to reach?”
Getting to those answers means looking inside the organization. What expertise exists? What questions are customers asking? What issues are changing the market? What perspective, experience, or point of view can the organization contribute to the conversation that its audience has not already heard?
Once the strongest ideas are identified, they can be developed into a sustainable content program built around the areas where the organization has genuine expertise and a reason to be heard. That means establishing priorities and themes, identifying the executives and subject matter experts who can contribute, and defining the audiences the organization needs to reach.
I have used this approach in executive communications programs for Fujifilm, RSM McGladrey, and others throughout my career. I interview executives and subject matter experts, ask the questions that uncover what they know and think, and turn those conversations into content on their behalf.
What the Content Program Can Include
Every content program should be built around the organization’s objectives, expertise, audiences, and strongest ideas. I can create the content, work with internal teams or external public relations agencies, or provide strategic and editorial guidance.
The goal is to choose the content and formats that will best communicate the organization’s knowledge and ideas to the audiences it needs to reach. That can include:
01
Thought Leadership
Articles and other substantive content that enable executives and organizations to contribute useful ideas and perspectives to important conversations.
02
Executive Communications
Content developed with and for senior executives to communicate their expertise, experience, perspective, and point of view.
03
Articles and Bylined Content
Original pieces developed for corporate channels, industry publications, media outlets, and other external audiences, including clients and customers.
04
Research-Based Content
Reports, articles, surveys, and other communications that turn research, data, and organizational knowledge into useful material for external audiences.
05
Case Studies and Customer Stories
Content that demonstrates expertise, capabilities, and successful results through the actual experiences of clients and customers.
06
Corporate and Brand Content
Content that helps organizations communicate what they know, what they do, what they believe, and why it matters to the audiences they need to reach.
07
Social Content
Content that extends larger ideas and communications into appropriate social channels rather than treating social media as a separate stream of disconnected posts.
The Experience Behind the Content
Creating successful content requires more than knowing how to write. It requires knowing how to find the ideas worth developing, ask the questions that uncover useful information, understand what matters to an audience, and connect the content to what the organization is trying to accomplish.
I bring two perspectives to that work: the outside perspective of a journalist and the inside perspective of a senior public relations and communications executive. As a journalist, I learned to ask what is genuinely interesting, different, useful, and worth an audience’s attention. Through leadership roles at Edelman and Ruder Finn, including serving as the first Head of Edelman Editorial, I learned to connect those questions to an organization’s communications and business objectives.
Bringing those perspectives together helps bridge the gap between what an organization wants to communicate and what its audiences will actually find interesting, useful, and worth their attention.
Related Insight
Brand Authority Fades in AI — Here’s What Resilient Brands Do
When content is easier than ever to produce, publishing more of it does not necessarily build authority. Organizations need to identify and develop the knowledge, expertise, and perspectives that give audiences a reason to pay attention.
Let’s Talk
If you want to build a sustainable content program, strengthen an existing one, or add experienced strategic and editorial support to your internal team or public relations agency, let’s talk.