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At one time or another we have all wanted to share our expertise, either with a co-worker, a potential customer or even a current client. The desire to share knowledge is hardwired into all of us. That’s why so many people make continuing education a key aspect of their careers.

An often-untapped source for marketing to potential clients and current customers is sharing information in a meaningful and useful way. Successfully using “content marketing” is an excellent way to share expertise and connect with others interested in the knowledge you offer.

What is Content Marketing?

Before we dig into that, let’s just be clear about one thing – using content, information or data to showcase you and your company is a time-tested idea.

Sure, we read about it being everywhere today, so it seems like a new-fangled idea (think direct mail, advertorials or op-eds). It’s not. What it is, though, is much more than just creating content to share. It requires a commitment and focus to building a body of information that helps your clients and prospects better understand your company and brand.

Ultimately, content marketing is all about creating content, often through a blog, article, press release, video or podcast, and sharing that across the various platforms available to business owners and executives seeking to expand their connections and client base.

Content, in this case, has to be meaningful. In other words, a 32-word post on Facebook or a 72-character tweet, probably does not fit the bill.

Choosing the Content and developing it

Before digging into content sharing, you have to decide what kind of content you want to share. Is it current research in your industry? Perhaps it’s information about what the latest trends are in your business. It could be information about what you do, connected to issues around it. For example, if you own a restaurant, you could clearly articulate your chef’s cooking “style,” while talking about the many different styles that one might find in a restaurant.

Bottomline, you want to have helpful information that showcases you and your company’s knowledge without simply trying to sell someone something. Let’s all agree, there’s often way too much of that going on in the social media world.

As a side note, while you are working to develop solid ideas to share, you can also connect and share information others have already developed, such as articles by leaders in your field. This is an acceptable way to use content to connect your company to your expertise in your industry.

Of course, the best content is your own, such as a blog like this or a LinkedIn article you’ve written. And it needs to shared using a regular cadence. You cannot write one blog and send out your annual attempt in an email. Monthly content is a popular timeline, but some do it successfully every week, sharing meaningful, yet simple, expertise and ideas.

What do you do with the Content?

That’s easy — and hard. The easy answer is share it, and keep on sharing it by repurposing it. The hard part comes in deciding methods you want to use. Learning new software or sharing platforms can be daunting.

One of the best ways to reach people is to work with a marketing company like Logos Communications to help you develop your content, and then use your customer or prospect lists and professional connections to make direct one-on-one contact with them.

This can often be achieved with an electronic newsletter personalized to your contacts. Yes, it’s true, there’s a lot of that e-newsletter stuff going on. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong. In fact, the scope and scale of content marketing tends to proof the worth of using a digital platform to deploy content.

So, write a blog, share it in an e-newsletter, post it on social media, or create a short video talking about your expertise. Your business can become a part of the content marketing revolution that clearly is not going away any time soon.

As they say, nothing is new under the sun, and yet your professional expertise may be a great way to reach new clients. You just have to get busy sharing it.