In today’s content-saturated landscape, thought leadership bylines remains a powerful tool for building credibility and influence. For example, 88% of decision-makers believe high-quality thought leadership content improves their perception of an organization, yet 71% say less than half of what they read actually provides valuable insights, according to statistics cited by The New York Times.
This gap underscores the importance of crafting compelling, meaningful bylines that stand out. To increase your chances of publication and audience engagement, consider these three essential tips.
Go easy on the self-promotion: The quickest way to lose credibility in a thought leadership piece is to turn it into a sales pitch. While it’s tempting to highlight your company’s solutions, most publications require bylines to be vendor-neutral. Readers seek valuable industry insights, not an extended advertisement. Instead of pushing products or services, share a fresh perspective, unique data, or a forward-thinking analysis of an industry trend. If your content provides genuine value, readers will naturally associate that expertise with your brand, enhancing its reputation without overt self-promotion.
Focus on an industry problem: Readers engage with content that resonates with their professional challenges. A strong byline should tackle a pressing industry issue and offer actionable insights, not just general observations. Rather than reiterating well-known problems, take a deeper dive: Offer a counterintuitive take, present real-world case studies, or challenge conventional wisdom. For example, instead of writing about how digital transformation is crucial in healthcare, explore why certain digital initiatives fail and what organizations can do differently. Thought leadership isn’t about stating the obvious; it’s about advancing the conversation in a meaningful way.
Respect your readers’ time: In an era where executives and professionals are inundated with content, brevity is key. Editors and readers prefer bylines that get straight to the point, typically around 800 words. If your article stretches beyond that, tighten your argument by removing fluff and redundant points. Strong, concise writing improves engagement and increases the likelihood of publication. Aim for clarity over complexity, and ensure every paragraph serves a purpose.
Final thoughts A well-crafted byline can elevate your thought leadership profile, but only if it aligns with industry standards and reader expectations. By prioritizing valuable insights over self-promotion, addressing real industry challenges, and keeping your content concise, you enhance your chances of making a lasting impact. As the data suggests, high-quality thought leadership matters, so take the time to refine your byline and provide content that truly informs and engages your audience.
Probably the greatest single piece of advice I’ve ever heard about content creation didn’t come from a college class/professional course, or a boss/mentor, or any other supposed expert source. Instead, it came from the movie “Planes, Trains and Automobiles.” Here it is:
Yes, it’s said in anger and frustration as part of a much longer rant. The whole piece is brutally painful as well as brutally funny.
But within the comedy is a true pearl of wisdom: Try having a point.
Death of a story
We see this all the time. Someone at an organization recognizes that they need to produce content to demonstrate the organization’s expertise so they can gain a competitive advantage.
The organization’s subject matter experts (SMEs), who are very knowledgeable and have strong views on the topics in their wheelhouses, share their ideas and experience with the marketing team and PR agency. They have the makings of a great story that will capture attention and position the organization as a leader in the market.
The content is produced, and it captures the passion and expertise of the SMEs. Then the review rounds start, and by the time the organization is done scrubbing the content what was once a fat, juicy steak has been sanitized until it is reduced to a piece of limp broccoli that will be of interest to exactly no one including an editor.
Sometimes it takes the form of genericizing the content until it sounds like something a high school senior would turn in for a composition class after the grades have already been posted. It’s serviceable, grammatically correct and decently organized, but it no longer conveys the fire that the SME felt for the topic.
Basically, any sense of personality has been removed. That’s bad enough.
Worse are the reviews that take an interesting, informative piece and convert it into a blatant marketing piece for the organization. That might work on the organization’s website, but it won’t fly if you’re trying to get it past an editor for earned (read: non-paid) media.
Of course, even if you could make it past that gatekeeper, there’s really nothing in it for the reader. If they wanted to read marketing-speak they would have gone to your website.
Healthcare’s special challenge
Healthcare organizations have a special challenge because our industry loves us some jargon. It seems like healthcare as a whole never met a technical term or three-letter acronym (TLA) it didn’t like.
It’s almost as if the goal is to make the content as difficult to read as possible, like it requires some sort of book cipher to read it. Which of course goes against the most basic rules of successful selling, where you want to convey information in the easiest-to-understand language to reach the broadest audience possible.
Making content effective
The most effective content is the content that has a point to make and makes it convincingly. It doesn’t just convey information. It grabs the reader or viewer by the lapels and says, “Sit down and listen, because I’m going to tell you something you need to know.”
It then does just that: focuses on what the reader/viewer needs to hear rather than only on what the produce of the content wants to say. But it does it in a way, as Steve Martin’s character says, that is much more interesting for the listener.
In many cases, that means telling a story that has a beginning, middle and end. As humans we are wired to understand information presented in story form. It’s part of our survival mechanism.
The Vanishing Hitchhiker approach
Take urban legends. The point of an urban legend isn’t to get you to believe in the legend itself (although social media may have changed that intention). The point is to warn you that something bad could happen if you’re not careful about certain behaviors, like teenagers parking in a remote area to do the things teenagers do.
But even when we’re not warning about the dangers of parking near insane asylums when a resident with a hook for a hand escapes, stories help give us context we can use to process information and ultimately take an action. For marketing that means becoming interested in our product or service.
That doesn’t mean every piece of content must tell a story. But unless it’s a data or spec sheet, it needs to be interesting enough to capture and keep our attention, especially when so much else is competing for it these days.
The point is…
If you make your content bland, or plain vanilla, it’s true you’re unlikely to offend anyone. But you’re also unlikely to persuade anyone either.
If your goal is to capture hearts, minds and ultimately sales leads, be sure your content has a point. It’s so much more interesting for the listener/reader/viewer.
MARINA DEL REY, CA and SCOTTSDALE, AZ Nov. 1, 2017–Amendola Communications, an award-winning healthcare marketing and public relations agency, is pleased to welcome back 4medica, the market leader in moving clinical data in real time across the healthcare continuum, to its customer family. Amendola has previously served as 4medica’s public relations agency of record. In this newest engagement, Amendola will produce quality content and provide additional public relations support.
The reengagement is a timely one as 4medica pivots from being identified largely with its top ranking laboratory and imaging connectivity solutions, to broader recognition as an expert in real time clinical data integration and data management accuracy with its highly patented and innovative Big Data MPI.
“We know from experience there is no agency better suited or more familiar with the healthcare IT space– to help amplify our positioning than Amendola,” said Gregory Church, President, 4medica.
Church added, “Jodi Amendola and her team also have a strong commitment to client service that has proven to help us quickly act on important opportunities.”
Beyond static electronic health records to true clinical data interoperability
In a diversified health IT field, 4medica has earned its position as one of the leading clinical data exchange vendors. The company has seen firsthand the need for the fluid flow of data throughout the healthcare organization, without sacrificing data accuracy, quality and security.
To that end, 4medica offers an expansive portfolio of solutions for health systems, hospitals, laboratories, imaging centers, health information exchanges (HIEs), accountable care organizations (ACOs), health plans and other diagnostic care organizations. These solutions include:
ClinXdata, a powerful platform for clinical data exchange
4medica Big Data MPI, which performs patient identity matching at unprecedented speed and scale
Revenue cycle management services to make lab orders management a revenue-generating function
All 4medica solutions reside in a highly secure cloud environment that adheres to HIPAA’s stringent data security and privacy standards. This is of particular importance for healthcare data that is rapidly becoming digital.
“We are so pleased to be working with 4medica again, a company that has been at the forefront of healthcare data’s digital transformation. We look forward to helping 4medica create and promote content that memorably articulates its value proposition to a variety of healthcare audiences,” said Jodi Amendola, CEO of Amendola.
Amendola will deliver a range of content from bylined articles and informative briefs to press releases and award application abstracts–that highlights 4medica’s thought leadership and expertise. Amendola will also provide public relations to promote 4medica’s newsworthy events and milestones.
About 4medica
4medica provides the industry’s leading SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) big data MPI, clinical data exchange and integration platform to help healthcare organizations of diverse types create a seamless view of the patient care experience and help further drive better health outcomes. The clinical data exchange platform integrates with and builds upon disparate systems to facilitate interoperable data exchange across various care settings to promote care continuity. The cloud computing model is scalable, lower cost, maintenance-free, easy to use and deployable in a few months or less, eliminating large capital outlays or resource utilization. This is especially critical for hospitals and physician health organizations of all types and sizes. 4medica connects hundreds of institutional facilities including hospitals, health systems, physicians, laboratories, radiology centers and pathology clinics. More than 35,000 physicians use its solutions every day. Learn more at www.4medica.com and www.bigdatampi.com.
Most of us are our own worst critics. It’s easy to understand why. After all, no one knows us better than us. Who better to uncover and critique all our foibles, follies and failures than our own inner critic?
There’s a fine line, of course, between self-criticism and self-awareness. Maturity requires that we view ourselves with objectivity and correct those faults that can be corrected. The kind of criticism that comes of self-awareness and that leads to self-improvement is a prerequisite for happiness and love.
But when it comes to work, self-criticism can be crippling. Carl Richards, a certified financial planner, author, and regular New York Times contributor, makes that point in his fine article for the Times, “Free Yourself of Your Harshest Critic, and Plow Ahead.” Richards argues that we accomplish much of our best work when we stop critiquing and just do it.
“Think of how liberating it would be to free yourself from the role of being your own harshest critic,” he writes. What might happen if you took all the energy that goes in to judging your work and put it right back into the wellspring of creating the work instead?”
Writer’s Block
Richards article mainly concerns writing, and the common experience of writer’s block. But he notes that letting go of your inner critic is good advice for “anything meaningful you do. Singing, painting, entrepreneurship, giving financial advice, museum curating, boat building, skiing, whatever.”
Like Richards, my own experience with the shadow side of criticism concerns writing. I was a journalist for 15 years before tackling PR. Most days, my livelihood, to say nothing of my self-esteem, depended on my ability to crank out large amounts of decent copy on deadline. As a newspaper reporter with daily deadlines you either get over writer’s block or you get out. There’s no time for self-criticism when they’re holding the front page for your story.
It was after I left newspapers to become a freelance magazine writer that my self-criticism blossomed. I blame my editors. I learned shortly after starting to freelance that deadlines mean something very different for magazine editors than for newspaper editors. Magazine editors give their freelancers early deadlines, days or weeks before they intend to actually edit the article. They do that to guard against precisely the sort of writer’s block that often crippled me.
Yet, ironically, it was because I knew that my deadlines were fake and therefor moveable that my self-criticism could work its evil. With several days to write, no beginning was ever clever enough. Writing is rewriting, as every good writer knows. But when you reach the hundredth rewrite of your lede, you know you’re in trouble.
The Godfather of Gonzo
I’m reminded of the story of Rolling Stone Books editor Alan Rinzler who, in trying to wrangle the manuscript for Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail out of legendary procrastinator Hunter S. Thompson, ended up chasing the godfather of gonzo journalism around a hotel room for 48 hours with a tape recorder in hand. Unable to write, Thompson literally dictated the bestseller.
I never reached that point. What saved me, every time, was a deadline. Faced with no alternative but to produce, the words flowed. In the end, I simply lowered my standards and trusted that what came out of my experience and craft would be good enough.
In his article, Richards quotes a letter from reader Chip Scanlon. Scanlon, a writer himself, recounted how he overcame writer’s block: “I do my best to not have any standards at all. I abandon my standards. I urge myself to write badly, and once I do that my fingers begin to fly, and the inner critic is powerless.”
Does your inner critic ever keep you from completing work? How do you overcome it?
