How To Choose Thought Leadership Topics Using Data

Savvy telecom marketing leaders understand that their targets have important buying decisions to make, and that in addition to demonstrating your industry expertise, thought leadership can ease concerns about making incorrect, expensive choices. However, if you’re anything like us, sometimes it’s harder to come up with your topic than to write the blog itself!

Some quick ways to gain thought leadership inspiration include:

• reviewing trending headlines in industry publications
• looking at your competitors’ blogs to see what they’re covering (especially if you know you can do a better job) 
• client conversations about pain points and concerns
• refreshing yourself on your differentiators (Not sure what they are? It might be time to create a message architecture for your brand!) 

Tools like social media accounts, Google Analytics, and Google Webmaster Tools also make it easy to come up with new ideas for thought leadership topics. Better yet, all of their information is free!

How to Use LinkedIn, Twitter, & Facebook Data to Choose Thought Leadership Topics

Trending hashtags and current event links are great for topic inspiration. But why not take a look at how your direct social media followers have responded to your content, and use that to inform your strategy?

Social media engagement data will show you which topics resonate the most and provide insight on what to write on next. Here’s how to review post performance on each of the major social networks:

How to find LinkedIn post insights:

1. Navigate to your company page, then click on “Manage Page” to the right of your profile photo.
2. At the top of the page, below the Search bar, you’ll see “Analytics” with a dropdown indicator. Click on this, then “Updates.”
3. Scroll down to “Update Engagement.” This will show you your most recent posts, listed in reverse chronological order.
4. Review the posts, taking note of which posts got the most clicks, impressions, and social actions.
5. You can also export your data as an .XLS file, which makes it easier to sort by different columns.

How to find Twitter post insights:

1. From any page on Twitter, click on your profile picture in the upper right, to the left of the “Tweet” button, then click on “Analytics.”
2. At the top, you’ll see data for the most recent month, and if you scroll further down, you’ll see your post data sorted by previous months.
3. Click on “View all Tweet activity” for the month you want to review.
4. You can now review all posts for that month, or click on “Top Tweets” to see the best ones.

How to find Facebook post insights:

1. Navigate to your company page, then click on “Insights” at the top, below the search bar.
2. Scroll down to where it says “Your 5 Most Recent Posts,” then click on “See All Posts” to browse through the data in reverse-chronological order.
3. Review the posts, taking note of which posts got the most clicks, impressions, and social actions.

Once you’ve gone through these steps for all of your social media accounts, write down the topics covered in your most-engaged posts. Review your list and determine whether there are any new ways to discuss those topics by building off of what has already been well-received.

Note that when reviewing your data, we recommend prioritizing clicks above social actions because this shows how many people were intrigued enough by the topic to click through to your site and read the content. While likes are always positive, and can make your pages look active, what really matters is if they liked the thought leadership post enough to read it.

We recommend doing this exercise at least once a month. However, if you create a lot of social media posts, you may want to check biweekly or even weekly since social media moves so quickly.

How to Use Google Analytics Data to Choose Thought Leadership Topics

We can take advantage of Google Analytics to see how people browse your site, which posts are most popular, and where they leave your site. Let’s first look at your top posts overall:

1. Log into https://analytics.google.com/, then open your website’s profile.
2. On the left, click on “Behavior,” “Site Content,” then “All Pages.”
3. Set the date range you want to see in the upper right.
4. Take note of which posts show up in the top 10 through 50 pages, depending on how much content you have, and write down the associated topics.

Try these views to gain different insight points:

• In addition to sorting “All Pages,” by the number of overall pageviews, you can also sort by “average time on page” to determine which posts kept users on your site for the longest periods of time.
• Sort by “Bounce Rate” to see which pages most often served as both the first and last page in a user’s visit, meaning that they didn’t browse further after arriving on that page.
• Sort by “Exit Rate” to see which pages most often were the last page in a user’s visit, meaning that they closed out of your site but potentially viewed other pages prior to reading that page.

We recommend doing this exercise every month at minimum, especially if you plan your content strategy in month-long blocks. You’ll then begin to track patterns and notice which topics regularly drive traffic and pageviews on your site.

How to Use Google Webmaster Tools to Choose Thought Leadership Topics

Want to get more of your thought leadership pieces to show up in Google’s search results? We want that for you, too!

Let’s start by looking at what keywords drive clicks to your site:

1. Log into https://www.google.com/webmasters/, then open your website’s profile.
2. On the left, click on “Search Traffic,” then “Search Analytics.”
3. Set the date by clicking on “Last 28 Days” under “Date” (that’s the default setting), and changing it to the period of your choice.
4. Make sure “Clicks” is checked at the top. (It’s usually checked by default.)
5. Review the keywords listed from most-to-least clicks, and write down the topics that relate to your company.

You can also see which keywords are yielding search impressions, though not necessarily clicks:

1. On the top, next to “Clicks,” check “Impressions.”
2. In the table, click on “Impressions” on the far right to sort by this variable.
3. Review the keywords listed from most-to-least clicks, and write down the topics that relate to your company.

These insights will help you see which thought leadership topics Google associates with your website, and can help you boost your SEO strategy by giving Google more content on those topics. We also recommend doing this regularly; at least once a month at minimum.

All set? It’s time to blog long and prosper!

Above all, remember that any good thought leadership piece should stand out for its originality, consistency, quality, and authenticity. If you have questions coming up with new topics for your content strategy, the blog writing process, or more, don’t hesitate to ask! Contact us today to discover how Mojo Marketing can help you stand apart from your competition.