How to Position Yourself as a Thought Leader in Your Niche

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Like any industry or sector, entrepreneurship has its buzzwords. Did you guess that ‘thought-leader’ is one of them?
It’s one of those things many aspire to become, but a lot of us aren’t entirely sure exactly what it means, or why it’s so important.

What is a thought leader?

Thought leaders are:

informed opinion leaders and go-to people in their field of expertise
trusted sources which move & inspire people with innovative ideas
those who turn ideas into reality
those who know and show how to replicate their success

Over time, thought leader a dedicated group of friends, fans, and followers to help them replicate and scale their ideas into sustainable change not just in one company but in an industry, niche or across an entire ecosystem.

You can become a thought leader by:

giving seminal speeches
writing insightful white papers and ebooks
pod casting
blogging your brains out

But In today’s digital dogfight, it’s no longer enough to simply blog. Your blogs must be “content-rich.”

So what’s a blogger to do? Here are several simple things to set you on your way to becoming a thought leader and master of the digital universe.

There are a number of effective ways to position yourself as a thought leader in your niche without spending a fortune on marketing.

grow your internet business even in a saturated market

1 Know your niche inside out

The first step is to know your niche inside and out. What do your customers want and need most? What are their pain points, that is, their most important problems that they need to solve?

Customers are looking for solutions that actually work and offer good value for money. They are constantly asking the question, “What’s in it for me?” With so many websites and businesses online, you need to answer that question from the moment they show up at your website or discover one of your products online.

2 Publish a blog under your name

Once you know what your niche needs, offer it to them. You can do this in a number of ways.
If you are trying to build a blog to be a thought leader, you are your brand. If your personal name isn’t taken yet (like xavierlannes.com), then register it now. Actually, register your name even if you don’t plan to use it. You may never know if you might want it in the future to discover that the website www.johnsmith.com is already owned by someone else.

Make sure your website has information on every product and service you offer. Include a Marketplace that links to every product.

Make sure your site looks professional, with an easy to use a layout that is mobile-friendly. Your niche-related content must be worth taking the time to read. Just because it is free does not mean it should be junk. In fact, publishing impressive niche content regularly is a great way to position yourself as a thought leader.

3 Your site is a lead generation tool
Use your website as a lead generation tool in order to build your email marketing list. In this way, you can communicate with your list on regular basis, presenting your niche customers with information, products, and service that will prove you know what you are talking about.

4 Create a newsletter

Your Newsletter should be at the heart of your operations.
Sign up for an autoresponder like MailChimp.
For those who think autoresponders (email marketing) is so 2017, here’s what will happen if you start blogging without a newsletter: you will write your heart out, you will spend countless hours composing the best prose you have ever written in your life, you will eagerly press “Publish,” and… Nothing.

No one will come.
Unless your SEO is so powerful that you are on the #1 sport of Google search…

Remember, staying in direct regular contact with true fans is your ultimate goal considering all the work you are about to do.

5 Write an awesome Author Bio

If you want to make the most of your articles or posts on Medium, LinkedIn, Quora, and other people’s blogs, the trick is to write a great author bio.

If you are unsure how to write a bio, check my article https://myadgency.com/ebooks/how-to-write-a-biography-for-social-media/. You’ll also find an eBook with lots of information and free templates that you can use. After you read this eBook, you’ll know in a minute how to make your bio even better.

6 Promote yourself

The products you promote can be yours, or affiliate products you are selling for a commission. They might also be Joint Venture (JV) products you are promoting to your list in exchange for your partner promoting your items to theirs.

In order to get people to sign up for a mailing list these days, you need to go beyond the free newsletter and offer to a compelling special report that your leads can download. This report should be packed with information (and links to buy products) related to your niche. Aim for a broad topic most people interested in your niche will be eager to read, and even to pass on to others via email or social networks.

Working with JVs gives you other opportunities to show yourself as a thought leader. These include writing reviews of every product you sell as an affiliate or a partner. JVs might also invite you to participate in an online webinar or interview you as an expert in your niche. You might even get some guest blogging opportunities in which you write articles for some of the top blogs in your niche to show what you know.

5 write an eBook
One of the best ways to give yourself instant expertise is to write a book and publish it on Amazon. It doesn’t have to be an encyclopedia of everything you know about your niche. Many bestselling books are usually ones with How To somewhere in the title, offering real solutions to your readers.

Publish it as an e-book through the Kindle Digital Platform first. If there is enough demand, publish it in paperback as well. Get a great cover designed for $5 on fiverr.com.

Conclusion

Becoming a thought leader in your niche is easy if you give your prospects what they want and need, and show you are in the know about all the top products and services available, not just your own.