© Peter Linder 2015 – All rights reserved

Thought leaders are perhaps the single most sought after talent in the digital economy. Creating engaging content is and art, and the supporting skill set takes time to develop. You should start to blog now if this is one of your aspirations. You will need to figure out how to establish the right processes around your blogging to make you efficient.

Successful companies are becoming more and more dependent on communicating thought leadership in their areas of expertise. A lot of this content will be born as short stories and then ported to suitable formats. If you have thought leadership ambitions you might want to start writing blogs to train yourself in the art of creating engaging content. A big part of your success in this area will come down to your own motivation and the structure around your blogging.

My own journey started when I did research for my first professional blog and found a large number of books about how to write novels. The base recipe was common across all books and that is also true with blog writing. To create and publish great blogs, you need to build a structure around your blogging by considering the following topics:

1. What do I get out of blogging from a personal perspective? – help others understand/share my ideas/build my BRAND

2. Where do I get my best blog ideas from? – things I read/creative colleagues/external interactions

3. When is my most productive writing time? – Monday morning/mid-day/mid-week/Friday afternoons/weekends/on the road

4. How many posts will I write at a time? – one at a time/two that are unrelated to get the flow going/two that are related/a collection around a theme/the number I can do during a dedicated writing day

5. How often do I want to publish? – occasionally/monthly/bi-weekly/weekly/twice a week

6. How many will I have in my blog post pipe line? – zero/one/next week’s publishing deliverables/next month’s deliverables

7. What format will I use? – no pre-defined format/format copied from a respected blogger/invent a format suitable for the subjects I will cover

My Own Blog Process

I started my professional blogging journey to support a major initiative and the objective was to build my digital brand. I started to log blog ideas when I could contribute to particular topics. I write most blog posts while travelling, a few at a time. I have committed to publish one blog post per week and aim to always have a pipeline with posts ready one month out. I stick to one basic format with a few variations for each blog in order to speed up my writing process and to make my style personal.

For further insights about how to write and when and where to publish, here are some additional resources:

• Secrets of a killer blog-post [INFOGRAPHIC] – by The daily egg

• 11 ingredients every blog-post needs [INFOGRAPHIC] – bye Reviewz’n’tips

• Images are the ultimate secret of a killer blogpost [INFOGRAPHIC] by Social Media Today

• The best time to publish your blog for more views, comments and links [INFOGRAPHIC] – by Red Website Design

• Confessions by a full-time blogger [BLOG] – by Hubspot

• Internet marketing written style guide [BOOK] – by Hubspot

• Storytelling vs. Corporate speech [BLOG] by Lou Hoffman

• 2014 best blog software comparison [BLOG] – by Top Ten Reviews

This development area hopefully gives you a strong foundation for your blogging ambitions and paves the road to become a respected industry thought leader in the future

This blog-post was originally posted at the Social Media Club in Dallas in July 2014