How to expand your audience and deepen your influence
By Danielle Mellema, Chief Ghostwriter, Digital Content Manager
For healthcare professionals with thought leadership goals, writing for publications beyond your own website or social media profiles is often part of the journey toward realizing that vision.
Right or wrong, having your work shared by a reputable publication outside your own platforms can lend a layer of legitimacy to your work and thinking. This third-party affirmation allows you to deepen your influence among the audience of people who are already leaning in to listen to your insights and expertise. Furthermore, as you share your writing in more spaces, you get the benefit of putting your name and thoughts in front of that publication’s readers in addition to your own. This offers the opportunity to expand your audience and make new connections that could be part of moving toward the next step in your career.
Find the right publication
What kinds of publications should you be considering? Here are a few possibilities to get your wheels turning:
Healthcare publications. Whether online or in print, there seems to be one for every focus. Leadership. Innovation. Nursing. Finance. Management. Financial Management. You name it, it’s out there. With a little research, you will find one that accepts submissions related to the topics you are most passionate about.
Your organization’s newsletter. Does your health system or hospital have a newsletter for employees or community stakeholders? Find out who runs it, and see if they’re looking for column writers or one-time submissions on a specific topic. Highlighting internal voices that are strong and thoughtful benefits the organization and the individual. Hunting down powerful stories from across large organizations is a lot of work for typically lean communications teams. From their perspective, the submission of a well-written piece from an employee is a slam dunk.
Publications from membership organizations. Are you or your company members of a professional or community-based organization? Reach out to their leadership with a few detailed topic ideas that would be a good fit for their member publications. This is a great way to get your name and expertise in front of colleagues who are working toward similar goals.
Create the right kind of content
Most publications will have information about submission requirements on their website or shared in response to serious submission inquiries via email. In general, here is what most publications are looking for:
Original opinions and analysis. Most publications have their own team to do any news-style reporting on developments in healthcare. What they need to round out their content are thought leaders who can offer their insights, stories, and analysis of how the challenges and opportunities present in the industry are impacting healthcare professionals, patients, and their organizations and communities. An article with a unique take or insight on what is happening in healthcare or a clear vision for the future, will catch the eye of editors who are tasked with filtering through submissions.
Pieces written by actual humans. Artificial intelligence (AI) is now part of the writing landscape, and that isn’t going to change any time soon. Yet, more and more publications are specifying in their submission guidelines that they will not accept any articles written by AI. It is important to note that there is a huge difference between AI helping you do the grunt work of gathering high-quality, reliable data and stories on a topic, and asking it to write a 2,000-word article for you. And lest you think you can “have your cake and eat it too,” so to speak, professional writers like the ones evaluating submissions are adept at spotting AI-written content and have the software to help them catch what their expertise doesn’t.
Unpublished content. Many publications require that the work they publish has not been shared on any other platform. If you are working on an article that you think would be relevant for a wider audience, try pitching it to a few publications before putting it on your LinkedIn page or personal website.
Clear citations. The last thing a reputable publication wants to get in trouble for is plagiarism. They are putting trust in the integrity of their guest article writers that they have included citations and quotation marks where appropriate, and most will use specialized software to ensure proper attribution. You won’t be making any friends by misrepresenting others’ words as your own. This is an essential part of establishing a mutually beneficial relationship with third-party publication.
Have a topic idea, a story to tell, or a take on the healthcare industry that is relevant to the moment, but no time to write? We can help!