Being an influencer means communicating. You can’t influence the decisions of others by being silent or hiding behind your computer. This means creating content that identifies you as an industry authority and expert. However, you can’t just write a book, publish a few blog posts, or give a presentation at a conference and then stop creating content.

Content development needs to be consistent and frequent.

Each piece of content you craft should deliver real value. In this way, every time you relay a message, you continue to build your perception as an important influence in your market.

Connect With Your Target Audience

What is the best way to make sure your message resonates with your prospects and marketplace? You need to deliver the right message to the right people. But how do you know what the “right” type of content is for your audience? Simple: ask them. Asking your audience what they would like to see is the most surefire way to give them what they want.

For example, people eager to learn Pilates or yoga would probably prefer video over text to teach them how to perform each pose properly. People with very little time to spare may prefer audiobooks and podcasts that allow them to digest your content audibly while they are performing other tasks. Other people prefer reading text as a learning medium. Make sure the type of content you are delivering is presented in the proper form for your audience, and preferably in more than one format for people with different learning styles.

Creating content that builds your influence also requires consistency. Your email should be formatted the same way each time. If you publish a weekly blog post, make sure it arrives on the same day, at the same time each week. If you build a following via webinars and physical seminars, don’t change to teleconferences and membership groups as a way of getting your content out.

When you are seen as a credible source of information, your influence builds automatically. To get started, deliver information that your audience already views as factual and reliable. Add your content to that industry-accepted information and you’ll piggyback on what is already respected, lending your message immediate acceptance.

Market with a Purpose

You absolutely must have a marketing plan to be influential, particularly when it comes to content. You can’t simply fire up your computer each day and then choose at random how you are going to build your sphere of influence. This has a lot to do with the consistency we just mentioned. Develop a purposeful marketing plan, online and off. Be organized and specific as to how you are delivering content to your niche, and stick to your marketing schedule.

Be Human

You are a distinctive individual, and you hold your own unique power. When you are not afraid to be who you are, that draws positive attention to you and your business. People respect others who are confident and comfortable with who they are. Be yourself, infusing all of your content with your own personality and attitude, and you will set yourself apart from your competitors.

Be Yourself While Entertaining and Inspiring

Entertaining your audience is important, but be careful here. A little entertainment here and there will keep your audience happy. However, if you are constantly acting like the class clown, your lack of seriousness can be perceived as a lack of substance.

Find a way to use your unique personality to inspire others. Your personal stories and life experiences, as they pertain to your market, are very powerful. All human history is recorded as stories. People gravitate towards, understand, and relate to inspiring stories, and this can help you build influence in any niche or market.

Dust Off Old Content

Creating content can be difficult. Sometimes you run out of ideas. If this is the case for you, look into your archives. Old emails, blog posts, information products, and videos can be re-purposed to build new content. A video can be turned into a blog post. A blog post can breathe new life as a video, an opt-in freebie, or podcast episode. The key here is in mixing up formats and looking at old content with a creative mindset.

Understanding the Different Phases of a Buying Cycle

When someone first joins your email list, they are probably not ready to buy your products or services yet. Your content should connect with that person according to their place in your buying cycle. This means your opt-in should not be sales-oriented. You should provide value and actionable information for free, in turn for an email address.

The content you deliver through your email auto-responder should continue to offer valuable market information. This moves your prospect deeper into the buying cycle, where their trust in you begins to strengthen as you solve problems and answer questions.

Alternately, customers who have already purchased from you expect an entirely different type of content. They respect what you have to say and are willing to buy products and services from you. The content you deliver to them must be of an advanced nature, and these people don’t mind if that content is sales-oriented.

Deliver content appropriate to where your audience is in their level of market knowledge, and in your sales cycle.

This means creating free and paid materials and products that make sense for a presentation or conference where you are speaking. If you are addressing attendees of a seminar on how to write your first book, the content you deliver needs to apply to authorship or book marketing.

The same is true with virtual relationships. Social networks are less sales-oriented than some other Internet platforms. In this case, you want to provide friendly advice, recommendations, and product reviews. Make sure you have used the products or services in question and are sharing your real feelings and experiences. Providing your honest opinion when someone is considering making a purchase develops respect and trust.

Use the Right Language

Every marketplace has a unique language. There are keywords, phrases, and topics specific to each particular market. Make sure you are discussing those topics and using industry-specific language that others in your field are using. Embed those words and phrases into every piece of content you create.

Not only does this make any form of content consistent and credible, it also helps search engines find your content online. You can also use that industry language when you name your products and services. Simply by seeing the name of your offering, someone in your target market becomes instantly interested.

Concerning social networks, you shouldn’t just deliver content for consumption. Respond to other tweets, posts, and comments. Share industry insiders’ online content, but always make sure you add a comment or opinion, linking back to your company or products if at all possible.

Speaking the right language is important online, in social networks, and on your own website. It is also important off-line. In person, you don’t have the anonymity of the Internet to hide behind. You must be able to speak, and deliver content, in the language of your marketplace.

Important Content Development Considerations

Depending on your market and content format, you need to make specific considerations unique to your situation. In addition, in most markets, the 4 following characteristics need to be present if your content is going to advance the perception that you are an industry influencer worth noticing.

1. Consistent With Your Image

You have already developed a level of expertise and know-how. You may be just starting to carve out a niche as an influential market mover and shaker. You might be one of the “bigwigs” in your market, or find yourself somewhere in between those 2 levels of industry authority and expertise.

The key is that your content must coincide with how you are perceived by your market. If you are just establishing yourself as a credible source of information, don’t start out by trying to create a definitive guide that answers any and all problems in your field. You will be received as a newbie that doesn’t know what you are talking about.

If you are seen as a veteran authority, make sure the content you deliver reflects that. You always need to provide value, but your content should also match the level of knowledge you have, based on how you are perceived by the marketplace.

2. Well-Timed

Timing is everything in so many aspects of life. Knowing when to deliver what type of information is crucial to building your image as an influencer. This goes back to understanding your sales cycle. It also applies to non-sales situations as well.

Delivering information when your prospect or customer needs it is important for a number of reasons. Primarily, it shows that you understand your market. Your followers see that you know what is and is not relevant in the marketplace, and when it is important. Well-timed content delivery can single-handedly vault you to the top of your market as an industry influencer.

3. Delivered In the Right Place

You probably won’t sell too many bathing suits in the middle of the desert. But selling umbrellas and iced water in that same situation would be effortless. A fisherman always goes where the fish are. You need to do the same. Constantly and consistently deliver content where your target market lives and breathes.

4. Presented Confidently

Have faith in yourself. You know what you are talking about. You have spent a lot of time and effort getting to know your marketplace. So when you present content of any kind, do it with confidence.

Content and Social Media

There are a few things you need to remember concerning content delivery on social networking platforms. If you are running a B2B business, you definitely need a quality profile on LinkedIn. If your business is connected in any way to the entertainment industry, your profile and activity on Twitter is important.

Google and the other search engines rank your social media profiles. They study keywords and phrases used in your profiles to decide how high among their search results you are ranked for those particular search terms. That is why it is so important to “flesh out” your social media profiles.

Mention your industry accolades, certificates, awards, schooling, and any other achievement which relates to your industry. Don’t use just 100 words for a profile if a particular social network allows 1,000 words. This is a simple, free way to expand your industry influence and should not be overlooked.

The second-largest search engine online is YouTube. This social network, like Facebook, Google+, and others, is a huge search engine. People search for their interests inside of those social networks. So make sure your social media profiles, posts, updates, and tweets are full of industry-specific keywords and phrases.

(Note: At the time of publishing this course, the major search engines did not improve your rankings due to social media backlinks. This means that content quality is more important than quantity when engaging on social media.)

Knowledge is powerless without action. Get started improving your position as an industry influencer with the exercises below.