Building thought leadership doesn’t happen overnight; it takes a considerable amount of time to navigate your personal brand building journey to arrive at a moment where you feel: ‘Yes, now I am ‘something’ in my field’.

 

As entrepreneurs, creating a strong online presence, we need a fuel – and that is great content. To borrow Mark Schaefer’s point, content is fuel, and social media is the [growth] engine.

 

So how do we cope with creating more and more catchy and compelling content to build thought leadership when you have so many other succumbing entrepreneurial pressures to deal with?

 

After all, aren’t you responsible for how your brand looks in front of your customers?

 

Okay, we all know this, but how do we stay competitive – and not crumble when there are so many other business owners wanting their audience’s attention.

 

While content creation looks tough (churning out new content needs all your focus and deliberation), there are some ways how you can still develop that thought leadership that you have envisioned for yourself.

 

So what’s the solution that you can instantly put to use?

 

Social media content curation.

 

What is it anyway?

 

Social media content curation is discovering, compiling and organizing content from the Web and sharing it with your audience. This instantly fills up your content calendar with curated topics around your industry or your social realm, and beefs up your presence on social media.

 

Turns out, when you serve your audience with the value that they need, or could need (as per your knowledgeable assumption), even if the content is not originally yours, you create an image of a thought leader in the minds of your audience.

 

There are many ways to curate content and schedule posts on your social media handles; like, Buffer, Hootsuite, Coschedule, etc.

 

While discovering content may definitely take your time, but to become a value creator, you have to read posts that can engage with your audience.

 

Of course, the point to note here is not blindly looking content in your industry and start sharing; you have to connect with a piece of content in a way that even your ídeal reader’ would like and benefit from.

 

 

How? Add your own version of perspective about a piece a content: that way your audience will start taking a scoop of not the just the curated piece of content, but also how to add your take to give a renewed perspective.

 

The result:

 

  • Your search rankings shoot up; people can now find you and contact you, easily!
  • You have an increased social media follower base
  • People start reading your mind; because you start reading theirs via content curation
  • You are considered proactive – and an emerging thought leader
  • With increased followers, your business of ‘you’ goes to the next level of profits and marketing results
  • People find you unique with respect to your content sharing habit
  • You are admired as a voracious reader –you slowly become one, for sure.
  • You consume more content than your fellow thinkers in your industry – and you stand out from the pack!
  • You become a content evangelist for your industry – sharing relevant content, all the time!

 

Here’s your turn: How is your content curation coming along? Is it helping you in building your thought leadership in your industry?