How to let Content Communicate Your Expertise

2018-03-02

Why do you even have online content?
Content creation is seen as vital for any business. If you want to get your message out you must harness the power of this platform.
But why is this necessary?
Perhaps you don’t realize how important your public image is. In today’s world many things are linked to their online presence:

• If a company doesn’t have a website its quality is doubted and trust is lost. It goes so far that an establishment’s existence can be doubted if it’s not found online.
• People use online sources to find information and reference facts. This includes facts about people such as business owners. What if your facts aren’t available? Will people lose trust in you?

You can see people are looking for value and quality. Can you offer this?
If you want to draw all possible value out of the content you have online, aim at being seen as an expert.

Why is Expertise Important?

You—or your business—can be seen as an expert in a certain field. Here’s why this is important.

It sets You Apart
People want to be part of—and connect with—the best and most unique things they can find. This can be a person or a business.
If you’re known as an expert you will draw the attention of people seeking these types of connections.

It Builds Trust
If you’re trying to build a client base trust is essential.
Sharing your expertise showcases:

• Your knowledge
• Your experience
• Your skills

People want the best service or products. Show them why they can trust you to match this need.

It Generates Loyalty
Current customers will only tell others about you if they know you’re trustworthy. Trust also develops random customers into loyal supporters.
When people see you’re an expert in your field it will make them more loyal. They want to associate with the best options in the market. This applies to:

• Customers
• Partners
• Suppliers

It Prompts Partnerships
People and businesses realize the power of association. The moment you’re recognized as an experts others will desire associating with you. Why? Because your expertise will then be associated with them.
These partnerships are beneficial to you because it could mean:

• Better exposure
• Better pricing from suppliers
• Drawing from others’ knowledge and skills

What’s your field of expertise? It can transform your impact. Are you ready to build this new image of yourself? It simply requires the correct content.

Tips to Get Known as THE Expert in Your Field

Your online content will be generated according to two timelines:

• General content that mostly stays the same with occasional updates.
• Content you post daily or weekly.

This requires dynamic planning so your online content is up to date at all times. Here’s what you need to do.

1. Use Social Media

Social media is no longer simply an online platform for social engagement. Because of its popularity it’s one of the best places for marketing and showcasing your expertise.
Why post your content elsewhere when this is where your audience spends most of its time?
And yes there are many ways social media is perfect for building your online image:

• Most platforms have comment features. Have conversations with followers to share your knowledge or skills.
• Share links to reviews. People want to hear what other consumers have to say. Their curiosity will lead them to information that sets you apart from others.
• Post links to Ebooks or blogs. Doing this regularly shows customers and other industry experts what you’re capable of. This is how you build respect online. If they’re impressed enough they’ll share the links too.

Social media is the way you attract people. Guide them to view other information that showcases your expertise.
Your challenge is to keep them engaged until you’ve share your message.

2. Offer Information

One way to keep people engaged is to offer information.
Don’t simply entertain users on social media platforms. People want more. They love learning new things. Become the source of information they want.
Keep in mind that people look for the easiest way to obtain answers. Offer information in ways people can digest easily:

• Lists of facts
• How to guides

Help them feel more like experts and they’ll want more information from you.

3. Impress Search Engines

It’s not only about people.
Your online content must impress search engine algorithms too. These algorithms pick up quality content:

• By measuring its grammatical value. You have to write high quality content.
• By measuring how long users view the content. This is why you have to pick topics they will enjoy and spend time on.
• By measuring if you create new content. When there aren’t any changes on a website the algorithm assumes the site is out of use. This is why updates are essential.

You can see the balancing act of impressing all factors involved. You can’t simply create and post anything at your whim. Content planning is essential.
What characteristics must you include?

4. Show You’re Relevant

Will your audience notice your content if they’re not interested in your topic? No.
Yes you can be an expert in your own eyes. But your audience will only admit this after some investigation. Do they even know of your existence to start discovering your expertise?

Relevancy to Engage
Grab people’s attention by posting content they want. It’s not about what you think is important. It’s about giving them what they view as important.
There’s no one forcing users to view, read or share content. Is your content so relevant to them that they automatically engage with it?

Relevancy to Build Your Image
People get bored very quickly. Don’t think they’ll keep following your content because they did it once.
Find out which topics are most important to your audience. Create content around this. Followers will come to know you can be trusted to offer answers, assistance or information on topics they deem important. Become their default source of information.
This is why your online content must always be of high quality. You can’t relax for a moment.

5. Prove You Stay Current

There are new inventions every day. How up to date are you with it all?

Current Events
People love knowing the latest facts on news or entertainment news. Can you help your audience stay on top of these facts?
Creating content based on current events has two benefits:

• You grab curious people’s attention.
• You prove you can stay up to date with developments. Experts must stay in touch with what happens in the world. If you don’t your apparent expertise will become outdated.

Current Inventions
Use a variety of mediums to share your content. Use current inventions for optimum impact:

• Graphics instead of text
• Videos for the added effect of audio
• Virtual reality videos for realistic online experiences

Once again you benefit for two reasons:

• People love these mediums so you’re bound to get more engagement from them. This can lead to trust and being seen as an expert.
• You prove you stay in touch with your surroundings and the modern world. People won’t lose faith in your expertise because you’re using outdated methods.

You’ll never be seen as an expert if you—or your products or information—become outdated. Make sure the way you communicate your content confirms your expertise is relevant for today’s society.

6. Build Your Profiles

When I think of an expert I immediately imagine someone’s profile. I want to know:

• Where do you come from?
• What training did you do?
• On what experience do you base your expertise?
• What other experts do you partner with?
• What do you look like?

This information builds—or breaks down—my trust in someone. You’re not an expert because you state you are. You’re an expert because you grew into one.
Online profiles must showcase this journey of growth.

LinkedIn
Though most platforms—even your website—can showcase your profile you must use LinkedIn too.
Industries, audiences and employers use LinkedIn as a quick reference guide to someone’s life.
And it’s the ideal place to show your expertise:

• You create the information so you decide what people see about you. This is different to social media platforms where you may be subjected to people’s subjective opinions and comments. Use LinkedIn to showcase an accurate image of yourself.
• You can impress people with your many accolades. Most resumes and profiles should be concise. But a LinkedIn profile can be as extensive as you want it. If someone views your LinkedIn profile it means they don’t want the quick version of your life. So give them as much information as possible.
• LinkedIn shows your connections. People trust your expertise when other experts associate with you. You can give proof of these associations on your profile.

Show people exactly who the person behind your online content is. When people see they can trust you they’ll trust your content—expertise—too.

Photographs
An important part of your profile content—on LinkedIn and elsewhere—is your photograph. Do your online pictures show who you really are?
Since people react faster to pictures you must evaluate each picture posted about you online:

• Does it show a setting others will look favourably upon?
• Does your attire represent your role as expert?
• Are other people in the picture beneficial to your goal of being seen as an expert?

Remove pictures you know can break down trust people have in you.
Images are so powerful you may want to invest in a professional photo session. These pictures will show your professionalism and commitment to your goals.

7. Simplify Complex Matters

Who do you turn to when you’re confused?
If someone can explain something complex to me I immediately grant them respect. Why?

• I realize the person knows enough to understand the concept himself.
• Putting complex matters in layman’s terms shows the person doesn’t simply repeat facts. Anyone can do that. Experts convert information and combine it with personal knowledge.

Use this approach to impress your audience even more. But you can’t sit down with each person you connect with online. Luckily online content creates perfect opportunities for this:

• A short video can communicate much more than long boring text. Add pictures to make concepts practical.
• Infographics communicate large amounts of information concisely.

People aren’t impressed because you know more than them. People will follow your expertise when you help them understand what you already grasped.

8. High Rankings Work

Some people are impressed by one thing only. Rankings.

SEO Rankings
People won’t get to know about your expertise if they don’t discover you. Search engines are one of the fastest ways people search for facts, information and news. Does your content feature high on these search lists?
Improve your online content’s SEO rankings by:

• Discovering and using keywords related to your industry.
• Ensuring you create grammatically correct content.
• Continually creating new content.

Now people will view your content so you can start impressing them.

Social Media Rankings
There’s a reason people’s websites mention their numbers of online followers. Social media users use these numbers to evaluate someone’s—or a business’—worth.
People use other people’s opinions to form their own. If there are other users who find value in you and your content they may find some too.
What do your rankings say about you?

Yes being an expert is an ongoing process. Even if you’re seen as an expert today someone can take your place tomorrow. The internet benefits you with exposure to many people you never would have met. But it does the same for many others who covet the role of expert too. That’s why your content’s quality must never drop. And content is not simply words. It involves each pixel you place online. Do your pixels tell the story of an expert yet?