How Shared Knowledge Could Save Us All During a Pandemic
By Ayelet Noff
Times of crisis have immense potential for bringing people together. Through shared hardship, humans form the tightest of bonds. Now, more than ever, we must harden these bonds, and create new ones, by giving the people what they want. And if we’ve learned anything during this pandemic, the people want content.
As the quarantine stretches from weeks into months, our screens offer some sort of salvation. We’re viewing more content than ever, both to level up skills and to stave off boredom.
We look to experts in their fields to inform and to entertain, to provide the type of content that teaches, motivates, or moves entire industries forward. A well-times opinion piece, for example, can shift perceptions on an entire market segment. A viral hit can turn relative nobodies into overnight sensations. And experts, especially those willing and capable of writing this sort of content, should consider this an opportunity to give back while most of the world is essentially on pause.
Being glued to a screen offers the chance to give back. People are hungry for content, as huge subscription spikes at Netflix, Disney+, and Hulu have shown. We’re experiencing a captivated audience the likes of which we’ve never seen — at least not in the digital age — that allows experts in their field the opportunity to share their knowledge with the world at a time where people are hungrier for it than ever. For the first time, many of us get to use the internet as it was intended — as a tool to facilitate the global spread of information.
Personally, I can think of no better way to give back during a time of crisis than to share the knowledge that experts possess, or to facilitate in its spread, through thought leadership content.
Providing insight as a means of giving back is valuable on its own merit. In times like these, however, when people have little to do other than browse the web and consume content, it’s a critical way to pay it forward. It’s here, with the open spread of information, that we’re molding the next generation of visionary CEOs, tinkerers, and builders. We’re offering the launching point and encouragement needed to dive deeper into topics that impact the conversation and shape the future.
Readers become better informed about things that impact their lives on a daily basis and enthusiasts get the kinds of specialized knowledge they can’t get anywhere else. It takes little more than a timely and well-placed opinion, perspective, or analysis piece to achieve all of this and more.
For founders and CEOs, it’s also a means of raising their profile. It’s here that coders and academics become household names and rockstars in their online communities.
Possessing knowledge isn’t enough. You have to make others notice too. It’s here that we’re laying the groundwork for just that. Journalists start reaching out for commentary, producers blow up their phones for television and podcast appearances, and major events look to add them to speaker lineups. Is there a better way to succeed than by giving others the tools needed to succeed along with you?
Thought leadership pieces aren’t just valuable for founders and readers, however. These pieces increase visibility and brand awareness that impacts your bottom line. A single piece in a major publication brings with it numerous benefits, both tangible and intangible. In an SEO sense, the importance of these posts can’t be understated.
These are the articles that appear at or near the top of search results due to the authority of the sites they’re published on. This increases not only visibility — anyone searching will undoubtedly run into these posts — but our future SEO efforts as well. Each of the authoritative sites mentioning, or linking back to our site sends a clear trust signal to Google that influences its algorithms and leads to favorable rankings.
In truth, all of these are nice benefits, but none should make us lose sight of our primary goal: to give back. Giving back, in this case, isn’t without its rewards. The biggest of which, of course, is that of shared knowledge in a time where the world needs it most. It’s really a win-win.
About the Author
Ayelet Noff is the Founder and CEO of SlicedBrand, a top global PR agency headquartered in Berlin, led by an award-winning team. In the last 14 years she has successfully led the PR activities of over a thousand technology companies in various fields, including AI, blockchain, mobile, cybersecurity, fintech, and many more. She has worked with a wide range of clients from enterprises, as large as Microsoft, Google, Deutsche Telekom, to mid-sized companies such as Viber, Waze, and JFrog, and also early-stage stealth startups. She has represented more than 300 blockchain companies, including IOTA, Waves, Bancor, Status.IM, Celsius, and Winding Tree.
She has been named as one of the five female rock stars leading the crypto scene in 2018, named by Business Insider as one of the world's 50 best public relations people in the tech industry. She has been a regular contributor at publications such as VentureBeat, Forbes, The Next Web, TechCrunch, and Mashable, and was also the host of 'Startups Around the World' on the i24 News Channel. She has led the PR activities of over a thousand companies, and lectures on how to pitch the media in conferences around the world.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.