Thought Leadership and the Benefits Of Corporate Blogging

Corporate blogging is a surefire way to promote your organization’s thought leadership. Blogging raises brand awareness, generates engagement, and drives leads over time.

But blogging is not for the faint-hearted. Company blogs are time-intensive and require discipline to maintain. Having a corporate blog is one thing, but blogging well is another.

Beyond driving awareness and organic traffic, here are seven not-so-obvious reasons why blogging regularly is good for your business’ thought leadership.

1. Staying Current

Blogs require research, and research involves staying aware of what’s going on in your industry. Maintaining a company blog keeps you and your business informed of what's new in your world. 

It also provides a platform for your company to share back its own knowledge and insights. It’s thought leadership content in action. Give to get, right?

2. Sharing Company SME 

Blogging on a consistent basis helps unearth subject matter expertise within your organization.

The more internal experts involved with your blog, the stronger the learning opportunity will be. Be surprised at what you discover in your company’s blog.

What’s more, insights from your blog can easily be clipped and re-used in other company communications. Thought leadership doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It takes a village to blog well.

3. Making Connections

The process of blogging requires you to make connections outside of your company that you otherwise wouldn't.

You reach out to an industry expert for comment on a story. You contact an organization you're referencing for permission to use its photography. You interact with new people on social media as you promote your piece once it goes live.

We tend to think of writing as a lonely pursuit. The reality is less straightforward. Blogging can be great for networking and for extending your company’s influence. Words, after all, are designed to connect.

4. Stating the Case

Blogging requires you to argue the business case for whatever point you're making.

But be prepared to be surprised: the act of arguing something out may lead you to a conclusion more nuanced than where you started.

This is a good thing. Companies that adapt best to the future are those which incorporate a range of points of view. Think of your blog as a company lab for pressure testing ideas. Thought leadership content at its best is a process of exploration.

5. Simplifying the Theme

To blog well, you need to distill your industry topic into a language that relates to your audience. That means simplifying your explanation. Convoluted explanations on complex topics tend not to gain traction.

This may seem self-evident, but achieving simplicity of expression is perhaps one of the most challenging of things for a business eager to convey its thought leadership. It can take a company years to get its talking points fully chiseled. 

Maintaining a blog brings the struggle for clear expression to the company front line. Work hard at it and you’ll make progress.

6. Sparking Conversation

The act of publishing invites conversation, challenge, and dissent. Be prepared to justify your opinions, while staying open-minded to other points of view.  

Exposure can be the greatest marketing engine of all. The more you’re talked about, the more you’re recognized. And the more you’re recognized, the greater your brand equity.

This breeds trust, and an appetite in the marketplace to connect with your products and services. Thought leadership content, packaged in a corporate blog, sells.

7. Developing Momentum

Once your organization is in the habit of consistent blogging, the practice of creating thought leadership will develop a momentum of its own. Regular blogging is a great way to get your business into a content creation groove.

The Power of Words

So those are seven ways that blogging will benefit your business.

And then there’s this: an understanding that at the heart of blogging is the art of writing—conveying information, telling stories, and sharing thoughts through words.

By keeping a blog and insisting on tight editorial standards, your business is sending a signal that it values writing. And strong writing fosters sharp messaging, which in turn helps your company stand out from the pack and take your business case confidently into the marketplace.

Because, handled skillfully, the pen can be mightier than the sword.