Use Writing to Build Your Brand as an Expert
By: Alice Greschkow
Tags: Writing, Consulting, Marketing, Personal Branding, Branding

How to Use Writing to Build Your Brand as an Expert

Photo by Campaign Creators on Unsplash

Writing is not only for writers. It’s a powerful vehicle you can use to build a personal brand as an expert. Even if writing doesn’t make you a lot of money — it’s a reliable way to attract paid gigs as a consultant or speaker. I’ve been writing for more than a year and even though it has made little direct income, great opportunities emerged from it.

Don’t go for the masses — go for your niche

On platforms like Medium, you can make a lot of money if you write about popular topics surrounding wisdom, self-improvement, and professional and personal advice. That makes you a good writer and you prove to the world that your craft can attract the masses.

If you want to distinguish yourself as a consultant or an expert, this is the wrong approach for you. You don’t want to reach anybody — you want to reach a specific target audience that is willing to pay you for gigs. Your weapon is your knowledge and the depth of expertise you’ve cultivated — not your writing skills per se.

Good writing skills are useful, but the reason you get booked is that you have original ideas and provide in-depth-analyses.

I’ve been writing for a year and a half on my niche topic — the transformation of work. It’s a relatively narrow niche and I talk a lot about how digital technologies have been changing the way we work and how corporate culture has been changing along the way.

Writing is my strongest PR tool. Considering that I’ve started from zero, I’m fairly satisfied with the outcomes so far. However, I decided to write consistently — for a year and a half, there is new content I publish every week. This forces me to constantly read and learn new insights and reach out to people who might find my topic interesting.

Write for free at the right places

With a topic surrounding work, I’ve decided to write at platforms where people are likely to be interested in my content. I’ve started a column at the newspaper of the German Social Democratic Party which is known to have a strong focus on workers’ rights.

Additionally, I’ve been focusing on my weekly newsletter on LinkedIn and have contributed to the German business network Xing. Additionally, I wrote a scientific article for the German Center of Liberal Modernity to add more credibility to my knowledge.

With Medium, I expanded my writing to English content and it has already paid — I scored a gig worth 370 Dollars within the first three months of writing.

Most of my writing has been for free or only added small revenues. However, it has been worth it, because people started to approach me for other writing gigs or consultancy work.

However, although I might not have a following of tens of thousands, consistency pays off, and slowly you grow your audience of true supporters who genuinely care about your content are not around for a brief piece to distract themselves.

Gigs and activities come once you become visible

When you write on a niche topic, you can activate a specific target group that is interested in your work. For me, this led to:

I got listed among the LinkedIn Top Voices 2020

Giving paid online seminars for business associations and companies

Recording a podcast with Vodafone Germany

Being approached by a British company as a paid background expert

Being approached by researchers and scientists who asked me to share my thoughts on their papers or books and write a review

More writing gigs for business newspapers

Participating in a live online debate with the German Minister of Labor

Debating with a German politician on Instagram Live

Recording a podcast with the General Secretary of the Social Democratic Party

Moderation of various panel discussions

Once you become visible, more and more people approach you to talk about your topic. You don’t even need a call-to-action for people to approach you. If you display your insights, people become curious if you might be useful to them.

Being useful can mean to consult them on their business activities, hold a seminar for employees and teams, or coach them in a specific area.

For people to approach you, you need to give a lot of advice for free and prove that you have original solutions to common problems. You must be useful for people to be willing to pay for you.

Constantly learn and use that for your content

With every gig you score, you learn something new — best practice cases, failures, new perspectives, and ideas. Be alert when you speak to people about your topic and listen to them. Identify their worries and needs — and topics they are curious about.

Use those impressions for your own content and test them on your audience. You will learn which topics are triggering your readers to comment and react. This gives you a good impression of what is in demand and what to write about.

Writing for free can become a tool for market research and learning. It’s a lot more than just content marketing if you want to grow your expertise and knowledge.

Read the comments of people who engage with you, don’t shy away from the conversation. Unless you’re talking about politics, religion, or identity, people are interested in a practical exchange and don’t easily become emotional.

In my case, the readers of my LinkedIn newsletter enjoy sharing their experiences from the workplaces they work in. Such insights are valuable for me to understand what really bugs people and what needs to be improved.

Engage with other people on the right social media platforms

For my type of topic, I do the bare minimum on Facebook and Twitter — you don’t need to be on every social media platform to promote your content.

Twitter has become a place of fire and fury, while Facebook and Instagram don’t necessarily attract the people who will hire you.

LinkedIn hasn’t reached a large number of members as other platforms, but it automatically filters its audience. As a business website, you find people who are into business.

Engage with those people, follow interesting thought leaders, and don’t only focus on the big shots. Comment on articles of other consultants and organizations that deliver content close to your topic.

Observe which stories become popular and develop your personal take on those insights. Don’t copy what other people do but cultivate your own voice through exchange and dialogue. Contribute to the debate with your own content.

Don’t obsess over stats — keep the focus on your own growth

I tend to be the person that refreshed stat pages after publishing an article to see how many views and interactions it has created. When writing on a niche topic, this can be frustrating, especially when you see how fellow writers make money by writing.

Again, writing isn’t the service you’re selling. Your product is your knowledge and your ability to consult others.

Therefore, it is more valuable to focus on your own progress — as slow as it may be.

Building a personal brand is a game for the long haul and not a method for quick money.

If you want to maintain your motivation — do yourself a favor and measure yourself to the person you were 6 or 12 months ago and keep track of how much you’ve learned along the way. Even if writing doesn’t make you a lot of money, it’s still worth it