Every Friday, we’ll deliver some of our thoughts on content marketing, curate some articles we found interesting (from the legal industry and otherwise), and tell you what we’ve been up to.

Do you consider yourself a thought leader in your industry? If not, you may be selling yourself short.

Chances are that you have the requisite expertise and experience to be seen as a thought leader—if only you could get your innovative ideas out into the world. You may wonder what “requisite” means in this context. Here’s a simple litmus test that we use:

Do you frequently have new insights about your industry?
Do you see connections that other people miss?
Do you feel confident sharing your hard-won experiences?
Do you frequently spearhead interesting conversations with colleagues and other leaders in your industry?
Are you advancing innovative ideas to improve your broader market?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, congratulations! You’ve got what it takes to be a thought leader. But just having great ideas isn’t enough—you’ve got to share them with the world. If you find yourself resisting the act of putting pen to paper (or finger to keyboard), it may be that you’re struggling with organizing your thoughts in a coherent, compelling fashion. It takes skill to develop your ideas and theories into written words in a way that engages your audience.

But do you need a professionally skilled writer and storyteller to do that? The answer depends primarily on three things: your goals, your schedule, and your current writing proficiency.

1. Goals

If you’ve already developed your marketing strategy with SMART goals, then you’re well-positioned to create content in line with those goals, resulting in a more fruitful marketing effort. If you haven’t, your attempt at thought leadership is likely going to sputter out as you draft piecemeal campaigns that don’t lead in a consistent direction.

2. Schedule

If you’re just starting to build your business or you’re actively trying to grow your business, you may or may not have the time to invest in high-quality content marketing. On the other hand, if you’re sitting around twiddling your thumbs, waiting for clients to call, then you definitely have enough time on your hands.

3. Writing Proficiency

If you have limited writing skills, you’re going to have a hard time inspiring confidence as a leader in your field. In short, no one is going to pick up what you’re putting down, because no one is going to wade through dense, disorganized, or error-filled prose to even figure out what you’re trying to say, much less share your message. Poorly written content can actually damage your reputation and brand.

So, what if you’ve concluded that you don’t have the time, energy, or skills to write your own thought leadership, but you’re still interested in generating and publishing that content? This is where a collaborative writing process comes into play.

You generally have three options when it comes to content creation:

DIY: Plan, draft, schedule, and distribute your content yourself.
Outsource: Let a skilled content marketing company do all of the strategic planning, drafting, and scheduling work for you; all you have to do is bless the content before it’s published.
Hybrid: Actively participate in content marketing without shouldering the full burden, divvying up the work however you like. For many of our clients, they collaborate with us on ideas, sending us links, briefs, or outlines describing how they envision the project, and we run with it from there.

Whatever strategy you prefer, we can help you reach your thought leadership goals. Let’s chat about how we can help your expertise and your experience shine through in your next content project.

What’s new this week in the legal industry?

Why lawyers need a disaster recovery plan (Ride the Lightning)
Why law firms should evaluate their procurement department’s maturity level (Big Law Business)
Obsolete machines may be a source of data breaches (ABA Journal)

Looking for some (more) tips to improve your content marketing?

5 simple steps to start a law firm blog (Scribe)
10 content marketing mistakes you might be making (Scribe)
Rebranding frenzy at law firms (The American Lawyer)

Need something to talk about over dinner and drinks?

So, what has Scribe been up to this week?

Writing about innovation in the law
Preparing press releases about upcoming eDiscovery events
Drafting web copy for a boutique law firm specializing in global financial transactions
Suffering from election ad overload (can we get an amen?)
Teaching high school students about hearsay exceptions
Learning and writing about social media investigations
Thinking about how to collect ediscovery data from Slack

Drop us a line and let us know what you’re up to—we’d love to see how we can help you reach your content marketing goals!

Friday scribbles: do you aspire to be seen as a thought leader?