April 2023 - Striven

Month: April 2023

Identity Verification: Why is it Vital for Growing Businesses

Posted on by Juliette Anderson

Global data breaches have skyrocketed over the past couple of years. This also led to the rise of account takeovers and ident

As a result, businesses need to find a reliable way to confirm if someone is who they say they are. Doing this quickly and easily without any road bumps is vital to your business’s success.

The Advantages of an Online Identity Verification Solution

The process that’s designed to confirm an individual’s identity by checking using specific credentials is identity verification. It’s one of the most important steps when doing business with another party. 

Online identity verification is crucial to the risk management of your company. If you still don’t have a streamlined identity verification system in place, here are the reasons why identity verification is vital for your growing business:

Why Is Identity Verification Important?

Reduces Risk For Your Business

Integrating an online identity verification on your website or mobile app will help prevent fraud. It will also protect consumers’ identity, verifying their identity before they can buy products and services online.

 An automated id verification solution helps prevent data theft and reduce the risk of cyberattacks which is one of the threats many organizations face. By verifying your customers’ identities, you’re sure who they are. Having a verification will also prevent fraud and other cyber crimes.

Maintain Your Reputation

Reputation is critical to businesses of all shapes and sizes. In an era of data breaches, customers want to know their data is safe.

If you run identity verification checks, this shows your customers that you want to build trust in an increasingly exposed online world. Trust is the foundation of any relationship, especially in a digital landscape that’s grown increasingly fickle. 

Failing to establish trust damages your business’ reputation and eventually hurts your revenue. On the flip side of everything, enhancing your reputation and giving your customers the assurance they’re looking for in what they need to use or continue using your service will work wonders in your overall bottom line.

Prevents Identity Theft

Identity theft is an ever-growing concern as more and more people rely on online services for more sensitive tasks like banking, data storage, and shopping. 

Your revenue will also suffer when you lose your customers because of identity theft. If you have the means to protect your business from these situations, your operations can be protected, depending on how severe the damage is. That’s why you need to know what to do to reduce the risks of this situation happening. 

Having robust cyber security measures in place with solid identity verification, such as facial recognition log-ins, two-stage authentication, and adequate security protection on sensitive data, is vital. 

Prohibits Unauthorized Access to Data

Verifying the user’s identity will ensure only authorized individuals can access your data. 

That’s why this is vital for businesses that deal with sensitive customer data like financial and personal information. 

Enhances Customer Experience

In this highly digital age, customer experience is everything. People are likely to continue with your service if it’s safe and they feel satisfied. They’re also expected to spread the word about the solutions you offer. 

That’s why excellent identity verification is critical to making your customers happy. By verifying users, you can ensure they’re saying who they are and not using someone else’s information. This can decrease frustration from your customers and boosts their overall satisfaction.

Compliance Adherence

It’s also crucial to comply with regulations. In different industries, some laws and regulations will require businesses to verify the identity of their users. Depending on your location, these regulations are imposed by different bodies. 

Here are examples of the major AML regulatory bodies around the world: 

There might be times when a country has more than one regulator that covers various aspects of fraud or may specialize in a specific industry. 

Nevertheless, each country is mandated to prevent fraud and ensure that the businesses within their jurisdiction will adhere to the laws that the government sets out.

Enhances Your Customer’s Trust

Identity verification enhances the trust between a business and its customers. 

Having these verification precautions in place, you can protect your company’s data and show customers that you’re taking security seriously while safeguarding their personal information. This helps you improve customer relationships and overall trust in your business. 

Avoid Hefty Chargebacks

Credit card fraud takes up a large portion of the total identity fraud cases yearly. When businesses allow their customers to use credit cards for online purchases, committing fraud is easier because most of these transactions fall under the “card not present” category. 

Thus, people use credit cards fraudulently that aren’t theirs to buy goods online, and once the actual owner finds out, they will cancel the transaction. A business must identify and trace the original fraudster to avoid being liable to pay back the money. 

In the finance world, this is known as a chargeback. Unfortunately, this can be costly for companies that accept credit card payments. By revising the identity verification protocols for card-not-present transactions, identity verification lets you avoid costly chargebacks. Using stricter verification methods also stops “friendly fraud” in its tracks.

What’s Next For Identity Verification?

Technologies that enhance identity verification are being developed every single day. There’s also a possibility of blockchain-enabled decentralized identity for everyone on the internet in the future. 

The motivation behind this is that it gives people more control over their personal information. Furthermore, businesses can take a backseat in managing identity documents and what has been a very hands-on verification process before.

Over To You

Data breaches scare many customers. To alleviate these fears and avoid incurring costly fines and any money laundering issues, as a business, you need to create a smooth identity verification process that’s not only customer friendly but also adheres to an organization’s guidelines. 

The Impact of AI on ERP Software

Posted on by Pohan Lin

Artificial intelligence has been changing the world around us in many ways. No, we aren’t quite living in the matrix, but we are interacting with Artificial Intelligence (AI) all the time. Many organizations are now turning to AI to improve sluggish Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). AI can provide the processing power to deal with the increasing complexity of modern business needs.

This article will explore the impact of AI on ERP software and how it is revolutionizing this decades-old system.

Current Trends and Future Needs

Before considering the implications of AI in ERP, let’s crunch some numbers about the current use of AI and how this will change in the coming years. According to a recent study, the enterprise AI market size in 2022 was estimated at $16.81 billion. By 2030, it’s predicted to grow to $102.9 billion as a CAGR of 47.16%.

According to a report by IBM, AI adoption by businesses as a whole is at around 35%, a rise of 4% from the previous year. Such evidence indicates the importance attached to this by companies all over the world. And why is this? 

One application of AI in ERP is increasing workplace efficiency and productivity to make companies more competitive. For instance, it is thought that 40% of the work of a sales representative could be done by AI, allowing these valued members of staff to focus on more complex tasks.

Such innovative technologies can put a company in a prime position for the future and in line with businesses that already have the right software engineer talent and are looking to use AI to help their ERP systems.

Businesses who currently use AI in any format, or are working towards having it.

What Is An ERP System?

Whilst the term itself dates back to the 1990s, companies have actually been using ERP management systems since the 1960s. It’s evolved greatly over time—and to many, AI is the next new innovation to improve efficiency.

An ERP system is the organized storage and use of information for the benefit of a company or organization. In layman’s terms, this allows enterprises to create a single database for all departments in an office or organization, uniting finance, accounting, supply, warehouse management, customer service, marketing, and more. 

It offers services like simplified data entry, business processes, automation, reporting, and forecasting, all integral to driving profit. Combining this with AI will fundamentally change how these operations are managed.

Image sourced from trustradius.com

Will More AI Actually Help?

Britannica defines AI as the “ability of a digital computer or computer-controlled robot to perform tasks commonly associated with humans.” AI services currently available to enterprises include chatbots, intelligent process automation, AI-enhanced financial planning, and automated data entry.

Using AI can benefit many departments and business processes, like accounting, analytics, data mining, sales automation, and warehouse management, by increasing productivity. It can also reduce human error when inputting data, cut operational costs, and enhance human capabilities by streamlining routine processes. Ultimately, this will reduce staff frustration and boredom while doing these menial tasks.

Challenges To Implementing AI

However, companies face certain obstacles to benefiting from these services fully. Firstly, it can be challenging for firms to effectively implement AI because they may lack the technical IT skills, expertise, or knowledge. So, it’s worth considering investing in relevant qualifications like a Databricks engineering certificate. 

Furthermore, companies can lack the investment capital to set it up, or data can just be too complex to make sense of.

Nevertheless, recent advances in AI technology, the increasing savings it can make, competitive pressures, and the need to satisfy supply issues and environmental concerns are encouraging companies to turn to AI.

Read on to find out the fantastic potential for your business.

8 Ways AI Enhances ERP

The bottom line is that it makes your business smarter, more cost-effective, and thus more competitive. Here’s how:

1. Better Quality Data Handling

One major issue today is coping with the growing volume of data being collected and making intelligent and accurate insights into it, like reducing complex business systems. This is possibly the most important factor in how AI can help improve ERP, making companies active rather than reactive.

AI offers integrated analytics that can collect enormous amounts of data. It can then produce more detailed reports than traditional ERP systems, allowing more accurate predictions and ensuring that business solutions are correct. Other features include maximizing process efficiency by analyzing processes and workflows to save time significantly and increase productivity. Any data collected this way is accessible and tailored to business needs to increase ROI.

Furthermore, AI can provide algorithms that permit companies to notice trends that might have otherwise gone undetected by mining data and searching for complex patterns. Such activities make it operate in a similarly fluid way as the human brain. Such data analysis assists with planning, problem-solving, strategy, and organization.

2. Automate Repetitive Tasks

Boosting automation has always been a way for companies to increase productivity, saving time and thus increasing competitiveness. For instance, manual data entry used to take up a huge amount of time and money and was also subject to human error. Automated data collection is not only more accurate but improves operational effectiveness on these essential, menial tasks.

For example, your HR department can save time on repetitive data entry and can even use automation in the recruiting process. This frees them up to concentrate on things like employee training programs or compensation and rewards for exemplary staff.  

While this does present issues regarding reducing the amount of work people can do, these kinds of jobs are usually considered boring and prevent your talent from engaging in more fruitful activities that they enjoy. That’s why, according to IBM, 30% of companies say they are already saving time thanks to AI.

3. Advanced Forecasting Models

AI’s ability to constantly collect data is the most effective and accurate way to make predictions. For example, it can make supply chain and warehouse management run more smoothly by keeping real-time figures, enabling warehouse managers to better prepare for spikes in demand or potential disruption. This is especially important in the light of the Covid pandemic and changing geopolitical situations.

One common criticism of traditional ERPs is that they are too slow to adapt to change, yet changes to the supply system happen daily, presenting a huge challenge to businesses. AI constantly predicts and measures past, present and future data to enable more measured responses to current conditions. 

The increase in the amount of data analyzed ensures that predictions are accurate, closing the gap between them and the reality of the future, be this accounting, customer trends, or research and development.

Image sourced from Gartner

4. Better Problem Solving

By analyzing data, AI can detect workflow issues before they occur. For instance, manufacturing systems can be monitored closely to develop a better understanding of when maintenance is required, reducing the potential for a break in production.

This can be further enhanced by self-learning algorithms, based on past data, that predict incidents before they occur, for instance, within hardware or even software. Some software solutions contain a database framework that can be integral to core ERP processes. This is why high-tech industries often use AI to prevent expensive errors and faults from occurring. 

This creates more agile companies, especially as staff can focus on complex problems rather than maintenance unless it’s necessary.

5. Better Accounting

AI is capable of spotting common issues like irregular or suspicious payments or data entry mistakes. It can also aid in more complex tasks like creating financial documents or preparing for auditing.

Furthermore, when assessing financial risks, AI can help run diagnostics and other reports, allowing finance departments to produce more accurate forecasts. The graph below shows how finance teams are planning to invest in emerging technologies, such as AI and cloud-based ERP, to streamline their operations. 

Image sourced from Gartner

AI can achieve this by analyzing data it has mined about a company, such as past financial performance, current backlog, purchase rates, and market opportunities. A potential setback is its inability to control commodity prices, macroeconomics, and supply chain surprises.

6. Better Marketing

AI in ERP helps departments explore new business opportunities that they might not have noticed. By analyzing more client information, businesses can deploy a more bespoke marketing campaign that reaches the right people. The optimization of business data can lead to a significant rise in profit margins.

7. Enhances User Experience

By connecting AI with ERP, customer behaviors and demographics can be more closely monitored. AI assistance can analyze customer feedback in real time, increasing trust and profits as well as improving the all-important customer experience. Additionally, AI can quickly identify bugs, mistakes, or gaps in your user experience to help provide the best service. According to the IBM report, companies have witnessed a 48% increase in user experience satisfaction thanks to AI.

8. Improved Customer Service

Any successful customer service team requires data. Not just any data. Good data. Better than simply sending customers to FAQs, they can engage with chatbots that are more geared up to answer individual requests with up to 79% accuracy. This gives customers the agency they desire to get things resolved.

Not only are your agents freed up from automated tasks, they have easy access to data to help them deal with potential buyers effectively.

The Takeaway

AI can have a hugely positive impact on many areas of a business, including managing data, forecasts, company departments, and increasing automation. Such improvements improve the user experience and customer service, improving loyalty to a company and driving sales. This all boils down to a company that is more competitive and productive in a fast-paced market. While a lack of training and money may be an initial barrier, implementing AI in ERP can enhance any enterprise.

How to Protect Your Business’s Assets on a Cloud Network

Posted on by Eleanor Hecks

Cloud networks are the wave of the future. The ability to access your business assets anywhere is attractive to many companies—especially those with a remote team. However, protecting digital assets requires sophisticated knowledge and foresight. 

The cloud services market is a $266.4 billion industry and growing yearly. As with anything online, though, cybercriminals will try to find ways to access personal information or take systems down. Protecting your business’s assets is a vital step in ensuring your customer and business data stays safe. 

Cloud security is often a concern of small-business owners. Some may even shy away from cloud computing due to fears of exposing trade secrets or customer lists. That said, you can take steps to protect your business’s assets while reaping the benefits.

1. Choose the Right Provider

Your first step should involve choosing your cloud provider wisely. What steps do they take to ensure secure digital assets? Top cloud-based hosting companies have the best security software imaginable. Because they represent numerous clients, they can invest more in world-class protection.

Ask how they back up information. What happens if a hack does occur? Find out how frequently they update their security systems and what they do to identify and quarantine potential threats.

2. Match Specialties

Some cloud providers specialize in working with particular industries. A company that already has clients in your sector better understands your specific security needs. Cloud migration can take endless hours of moving databases to a new setup. It helps to know which system you want and why. 

Find a provider willing to move information over for you in a secure environment so you start the process with less risk.

3. Secure Your Wi-Fi

blue wi-fi strength indicator for cloud security

It doesn’t matter who your provider is if the devices used to access data are compromised. Make sure company Wi-Fi is secure so that non-authorized people can’t log in and watch what your employees are doing. Instead, set up a guest Wi-Fi if you want to provide convenient Wi-Fi connectivity to on-premises visitors.

The Covid-19 pandemic showed us that remote work environments are effective. Your IT department should pay particular attention to security concerns for employees working off-premises. If remote staff needs to access information from the main office, set up a secure VPN network that’s resistant to cyber-attacks.

4. Require Regular Password Resets

Require your workers to reset their passwords for logging into the office network every 45 days or so. Set complexity rules around the types they can create, don’t allow repeated passwords, and ask them to protect their current login information. Multi-factor authentication, where users receive a secondary verification code on a trusted mobile phone, is a must.

Although not as common as some other attack vectors, there have been occasions when someone works at a coffee shop and a nearby table notes their login and steals it to access a company website.

Identity Theft Resource Center infographic depicting Q1 2023 data compromise statistics.

5. Security

Just because news of corporate data compromise no longer dominates the headlines, breaches are still happening. Most in-house IT staff are well-versed in a number of disciplines, but effective data security practices are a moving target.

Consider hiring a 3rd-party cybersecurity expert. The level of creativity and malice of today’s data theft actors is astonishing and they only need to succeed one time. To avoid catastrophe, your security needs to be right every time.

Today’s outsourced cybersecurity firms offer surprisingly inexpensive services to help businesses stop attacks before they occur. 

6. Train Employees

One of the top things you can do is train your employees in cybersecurity. Explain spoofing and phishing and how they can avoid it. Set policies to never request password information in an email. 

Spend time refreshing your staff about how to keep data secure every so often. They should be very careful when working in public locations.

Should you need to terminate an employee, make sure their account credentials are disabled immediately. Otherwise, you open your brand up to vengeance attacks. 

7. Keep Backups

Even if the cloud hosting company you use keeps regular backups, and most do, make sure you keep them as well. In the case of a severe cyberattack, your entire system, website, and online presence may go down.

The best way to get back online fast and avoid revenue loss is with a recent backup. However, it might take days to restore everything if you don’t. Develop a business continuity and disaster recovery plan before a catastrophe happens. In a worst-case scenario, you risk losing some data forever.

8. Keep Sensitive Data Offline

If your company has some truly sensitive data because you work with patients or the government, consider keeping some things off the internet. No matter how much software you install or how robust your security is, there’s always a chance of hacking.

If something is extremely sensitive, you can code it and use that for your online entries or just take that information to your private servers. However, they must also be kept secure.

9. Encrypt at the File Level

Even if your cloud provider uses encryption, add another layer of protection by encrypting before you upload your files. You’ll need something your remote workers can access, but it’s crucial to take that one added step to prevent sensitive data leaks.

Use database sharding to break up sections and store them in different locations to further protect documents. They may breach your network, but they aren’t likely to find the full information they need to steal private information. They’ll only have bits and pieces.

Business Cloud Security

The rate of cyberattacks has grown in the past year. More people are online, and businesses have to be remote-work-friendly. Cybercriminals are taking advantage of this, but you can stop them in their tracks—and protect business assets on the cloud—by following a few of the tips mentioned above.

Think about the different ways you might open yourself up to an attack and take steps to stop it before it happens. Your cloud provider can help by putting protections in place, and you can ramp up security on your end, too.

Why Thought Leadership Is Important for Your Growing Business

Posted on by Gary Viray

In today’s digital day and age, clout is currency—the more you have it, you’ll get more people to trust and do business with you. Industry leadership is the paramount reason why thought leadership is important for businesses, new and old.

Hence, integrating it into your digital marketing strategies is critical to ensure that you acquiring and retaining customers. Through expertly executed thought leadership practices, your growth isn’t limited to search engine optimization. Ultimately, it strengthens your brand presence and asserts your business value in an authoritative, authentic, and trustworthy way.

And, in a digital landscape that has grown tired of half-baked tips, this trust becomes the fuel for accelerating and generating sustainable growth.

Benefits Of Being A Thought Leader

To paint you a better picture of why thought leadership is important, here are some benefits you can look forward to as a growing business owner:

1. Allows you to share your expertise in your field

As a thought leader, you’re given the chance to show how knowledgeable you are in your industry. Then, when you apply your knowledge into must-have solutions for your audience, it becomes a buy-in for customers and encourages them to come back to you for more.

That’s added reach for and better-quality business, all for the effort of a few expert thoughts. So be sure to find every possible opportunity to give value to your audience such as writing guest blogs, guest-speaking at events, and more.

2. It creates an avenue to present your unique way of thinking

Thought leadership is a process of sharing new ideas. Hence, growing business owners like yourself who have a new take on providing relevant solutions can surpass even larger corporations.

There’s no one company that offers the best-fit solutions for each customer. And if you’re coming into the playing field offering something different, then the best way to ring it in is through thought leadership.

People are always looking for new solutions to old problems in their niche. When you show that you can deliver these, you become authoritative, carving a new path that’s easily recognizable in your industry.

3. Puts a spotlight on your business and unique brand value

By creating thought leadership content, you brand your business as an authority, telling audiences “My brand is exactly what you need.” 

As a result, more people will start valuing your work and, eventually, what your business is selling. If you continue doing so, you’ll soon find yourself not just the owner of a growing business, but a successful and influential one, too.

4. Allows you to foster connections with industry peers

Collaboration is a key facet of marketing that opens doors for all constituents. For thought leadership, in particular, it is necessary to build relationships with industry peers. 

Because the digital public relations process requires reaching out and, in turn, being open to outreach efforts you are able to build and nurture connections in your field. This fosters trust through the act of creating beneficial guest content for one another and, incidentally, each other’s audiences.

This collaborative process in thought leadership affords you opportunities to:

  • publish on various platforms
  • access a wider, newer audience
  • establish your brand as a pillar in the industry

But collaboration doesn’t just end in the creation of content. Once your peers recognize the value of your business and perspectives, it can potentially open the floodgates for higher-value and meaningful partnerships.

How To Build A Successful Thought Leadership Strategy

Now that you know the benefits of being a thought leader, these steps will help you become one today:

1. Set clear and realistic goals

Success is attained through small, consistent steps every day – not one giant leap forward. That’s why you have to create goals that impact your business, but are still doable with the available resources at hand.

In the case of thought leadership, you can pin down the following goals as a measure of success:

  • Reach. Is the amount of people you are able to talk to through your content – on websites, or others. Publishing these outside of your website and on the websites of peers and/or media helps you boost this metric not just in quantity but in quality, as well.
  • Traffic. Is fundamental to generating conversions and improving search rankings. Unlike reach, traffic is closer to an engagement metric as audiences click and find their way to your website.

Improving this through thought leadership is a trust signal to search engines and gives you more opportunities to capture leads.

  • Domain authority. Is a metric that signals the strength and authoritativeness of your websites. Measure through Moz’s MozBar, it’s a rough estimate of how trustworthy your website is.

This metric improves the more you contribute guest blogs to high-authority websites which, in turn, helps you rank better on search engines.

  • Engagement. Engagement tracking means you’re looking for people interacting with your content. If your audience continuously reacts, comments, or shares your content, then it means you delivered something useful for them.
  • Conversion. Finally, conversions mean if your audience does exactly what you want them to do. 

Conversions could mean a lot of things such as buying your product or service or downloading your e-book. Whatever the case, conversions show that all your efforts have convinced your audience to take a chance on your brand.

With these metrics tracked, you can better understand how well (or not) your thought leadership efforts are faring from different angles – something impossible to do when only viewing success as one whole picture.

2. Establish a powerful brand message

With your goals pinned down, it’s time to communicate and achieve them. To create a unique brand voice for your content, focus on creating content that speaks directly to the target audience’s needs and aspirations.

By doing so, you’ll learn how to ensure every piece of content you publish makes your audience feel heard. After all, your main goal is to give them solutions that can help them with their ongoing struggles.

Once you do this, watch as ordinary visitors transform into life-long fans of your content and brand.

3. Conduct thorough keyword research

Finding the keywords and publications your target audiences use allows you to make your business’ presence be known – increasing your chances of finding more avid supporters.

To conduct keyword research, be sure to follow these steps:

List down keywords related to your brand and business.

  1. Identify matching terms and related keywords you want to write content about.
  2. Establish which websites are linking to content produced around these keywords.
  3. Determine which websites are linking to content produced around these keywords.
  4. Develop topics based on the target website you want to pitch to, and the content gap identified for their audiences.

Now that you know how to do keyword research, you’re now ready to pitch your content.

4. Ready your pitches

Prepare suggested outlines and titles for the content you want to offer your targeted website publishers. By doing so, you’re effectively selling your content to the publisher, increasing the content’s chance of getting posted on the website.

Make sure your content is also valuable to your host publisher by following this step-by-step process:

  1. Offer something unique that the publisher’s many writers haven’t addressed in their content yet.
  2. Provide the editor with a list of topics you want to write about to make their selection process easier.  
  3. Be professional whenever you’re communicating to the publisher by being brief with your emails. However, ensure that these emails have all the essential details about your pitch.
  4. Have a clear CTA at the end of your message that encourages the editor to respond to your pitches.
  5. Email as many publishers as you can to increase your chances of getting a guest content spot – this is still a numbers game, after all.

By following these steps, you can create guest content that resonates that would surely catch the publisher’s eye.

5. Devise an outreach strategy

Good thought leaders devise outreach strategies that know how to effectively catch the attention of publishers and experts. 

Here’s how you do it:

  1. Ready an outreach list of the websites you want to get featured on.
  2. Reach out as an authority by expressing interest to contribute to the website as a leader in your organization.
  3. Develop a decision-making process for which pitches to pursue or drop (see the image below).

6. Create the content

To be a true thought leader, you must master various content creation skills like writing, doing research, public speaking, and more. You’ll develop these skills when you follow this flowchart:

When you consistently follow this flowchart, you’re slowly building your skillset towards that of an effective thought leader – so keep on practicing! 

7. Choose your platforms

The great thing about the internet is that there are endless possibilities to share your brand’s message. Whether it’s a blog through your own site, TikTok or YouTube videos, or through tweets, your message can reach so many people today.

To help you get the best results, here are some ideas you could use for different social media platforms:

  • Twitter. A great way to be a thought leader on this platform is by leveraging Twitter Spaces or creating concise threads detailing a specific topic. These efforts would result in more eyes on your Twitter page since you’re giving so much content.
  • YouTube/video-capable social media platforms. For YouTube or any other platforms with video, such as Facebook, you may opt to create long or short-form webinars. This works because these platforms’ users learn while watching. 
  • Instagram. Instagram, on the other hand, encourages you to create must-know industry infographics so that your target audience are always on the loop on the latest trends.
  • TikTok. A great way to get eyes on TikTok as a thought leader is by getting the highlights from your best-performing videos and uploading them on the platform. Doing so allows you to whet TikTok user’s appetite for your content as you give them something short and sweet. 

8. Measure and monitor your content performance

With your strong brand message now shared throughout different online platforms, it’s time to see if any of your plans worked. 

Here are some must-have tools to do this:

  • Referral traffic. Using Google Analytics, you can view how effective your guest blogs are at acquiring audiences by looking at referral traffic. High referral traffic from sites you knowingly submitted articles is a good sign that your content has resonated with your collaborator’s audience.
  • Backlinks. This specific metric can be viewed through Ahrefs’ Backlink Audit feature. It allows you to perform an analysis of the links that lead back to your website. Don’t just look at the number of links you acquire, but look at the quality, too.

Low-quality links (usually under 30 in domain rating) can pull down your domain authority and website health versus higher quality ones (domain rating of 30 and above).

Monitoring these metrics accordingly will help you better understand what works and what doesn’t for your thought leadership efforts.

Thought Leadership in Action

Now that you know the facts, it’s time you knew what effective thought leadership looked like in action:

  • Propelrr. We at Propelrr dabble in writing guest blogs to help us become an authoritative digital marketing company. In this article, we talk about how impactful doing survey experiments to achieve a brand’s bottom line. 

Additionally, we’ve done guest blogging for big media like Rappler, did guesting in podcasts like ‘A Better Normal’ by PumaPodcast, and other blog publications of related businesses. These efforts resulted in higher referral traffic to our site.

  • Jay Shetty. Jay Shetty is a life coach who shares many of his teachings through his YouTube channel, podcast, live guest speaking, and several books he authored. 

As a result, his YouTube channel has 4.67 million subscribers, his podcast, On Purpose, has 937,000 listeners, and his book, Think Like a Monk, is a constant bestseller. 

  • Deloitte. Professional services firm, Deloitte, shares its tech expertise and more on a free podcast called On Cloud. 

Because of the podcast’s accessibility, it’s one of the most highly rated tech podcasts out there, receiving a 4.7 out of 5 reviews on Apple Podcasts, and currently, has a 216-episode count.

Key Takeaways

To be a true thought leader, you must develop a voice that can never be drowned by others in today’s saturated digital landscape. With it, you’d become an authoritative presence among thousands in your industry. 

To do so, remember the lessons:

  • Be unique. Read, watch, or listen to as much business-related content as possible so you can offer unique insights to your audience.
  • Try different approaches. Take part in different activities like podcasting and guest blogging to build authority and reputation among multiple channels.
  • Keep on improving yourself. Improve your knowledge and skills to give your audience relevant solutions to their current problems. 

Finding the will to overcome the many challenges of being a thought leader is no easy feat. When you do, however, you’d be rewarded with the attention of your growing audience base.