Thought-leadership articles are one of the most popular pieces of content for organizations and readers. They are informative, insightful, and, best of all, not self-serving.
As I detailed in the earlier post “4 Tips to Produce Great Thought-Leadership Content,” it can be challenging to create thought-leadership articles, yet there are some tips and tricks to get it done.
But what if you don’t even have access to a thought leader? Can you still create a thought-leadership article? Sure, you can.
Here are some shortcuts and ways to tap into thought-leadership content for your blog or content marketing program, even if you can’t get in touch with the thought leader.
“Steal” From Other Articles. If there’s a topic you want to cover in particular and can’t get a thought leader for an article, it’s time to get creative with curation. Of course, they have their own published articles and are quoted in other articles on related topics and views. Take those and use them to your advantage. Write your own article; pepper in quotes with attribution and a link to the original publication.
An upcoming blog post will illustrate this tactic deeply. You can also check out this article where I was tasked with getting two internal thought leaders’ articles reused in a separate article for the company’s brand publication. For this one, I was able to quote both the CEO and a thought leader without ever having to speak with them.
More Than Just One Speech. So you may need a little help from your PR friends on this one. But if an executive or a thought-leader at your company delivered a speech, it’s guaranteed that there’s a video, an actual speech transcript, or PowerPoints floating around.
If you can get access to these, it can be pretty easy to pull off a byline draft based on those materials. Of course, you’ll ultimately need to get her sign-off for it. But if the content has already gone through the arduous creation-and-review process for a speaking opportunity, it’s safe to assume that it’s going to fly through reviews.
And, if you can’t get it through a review, you can use the same curation tactic above. Excerpt key quotes and attribute to the speech at the conference or link to a YouTube video.
Just remember to be creative and think of all the (legal) ways you can tap into thought-leadership articles—all without the thought leader!