Social media has opened incredible avenues for anyone to write and publish. Let’s face it: we all are publishers. You’d see millions of people joining social networks and sharing their proud piece of work on the internet. Which, in a way, is not that overloading for others to read. Oxymoron? Not really. We have all heard about separating the wheat from the chaff, and that holds true even for your writing online.

 

There are people who have zero tolerance for gobbledygook or something irrelevant. They have some appetite for good content on the Web and ensure that they wear their blinkers on when they see/ read something, which doesn’t ring true with their filtering standards. They only look for a staple called wheat; rest everything else (no matter how much contextually ‘wow’ for others, doesn’t come under their scanner. It’s chaff, simple). The yardstick for reviewing content, although, depends upon many parameters, differing from a person to person.

 

Well, these people also happen to think like publishers. And so could you.

 

Your brand’s online presence hinges on how well you articulate your words with the right accent of emotion, rationale and a captivating narrative.

 

Thinking like a publishing company will help you connect with your readers in a no-nonsense way. Also, publishing companies can be really picky when they like a piece – and they would go on a reading stampede to ensure that when they are inundated with so many articles or pitches, they work like neat surgeons in keeping the substance and letting go of content that doesn’t resonate with them.

 

This approach can work for you in building an intelligent brand equity in your business realm. Once your brand starts gaining momentum via producing content for your readers, there will be more [writing, business, speaking] invitations – and you’d, then, have to think like a publisher to accept the most relevant and promising invitations while letting go of the ones that do not connect with your brand’s purpose and overall vision.

 

You have a voice to shine online across your intellectual properties by being neat about your writing and how you approach your influencers and your ecosystem in general. By neat, I mean crisp yet articulate, prudish yet personally opinionated, and fluid in subtly connecting with your readers.

 

Michael Brito, in his book, Your Brand: The Next Media Company also highlights the importance of honing your brand to think and to be like a successful media company. He has captured the meaning of content as a brand marketer brilliantly. And so, you can start developing your own media company like a mini-inc or a mini-Forbes via curating and creating excellent content on the Web, with your own set of guidelines and benchmarks when launching any form of content- be it blogs, articles, op-eds, case studies, Whitepapers, e-books, a paperback book, and lately, even a podcast.

 

As with building your personal brand, following the strategies of a publishing company, your content becomes more focused, enhanced with the right tonality and voice, and brings out more reasons for your readers to stay engaged with you for the long-haul.

 

Think and write like a publisher; have an outsized impact – in the form of more business, more writing and speaking invitations, co-branding opportunities, cofounding a business, co-authoring a book and much more.

 

Over to you. Do you think like a publisher?