Today, even with the changing content marketing and thought leadership marketing landscapes, bylined articles are too valuable not to be part of your thought leadership program.
If you’re an attorney or you work in marketing or business development for a law firm or an organization that serves the legal industry, it’s easy to get frustrated by the craziness in the content marketing and thought leadership marketing world today.
Thanks to AI, many assumptions we’ve made about how content marketing and thought leadership marketing work have changed. From “zero-click” searches to AI gobbling up search traffic from Google, there’s a lot of uncertainty out there.
But you know what? In uncertain times, it’s nice to rely on old standbys to get the job done.
Bylined articles are exactly that. Today—perhaps even more so today—they remain effective tools for building and maintaining thought leadership.
Before I discuss why that’s the case, I realize that the success of a bylined article strategy depends on third-party publications publishing those articles. Those publications employ editors who serve as gatekeepers.
But there are no gatekeepers for “owned media,” such as law firms’ blogs, podcasts, videos, and email newsletters.
There’s no external force affecting a firm’s ability to publish or distribute content through these channels. That’s why developing owned media assets is a key thought leadership strategy for attorneys, executives, and firms seeking to establish and expand their authority.
However, that doesn’t mean they—or you—shouldn’t continue to use bylined articles to achieve the same goal.
Here are six reasons why they—and you—should.
Bylined articles help other humans discover you
When you write a thought leadership article that’s published by a third-party publication—one that serves the industry you’re currently serving or one that you want to be known more in—you’re allowing for past, current, and future clients and referral sources, as well as other target audiences, to stumble upon and discover (or re-discover) you by reading your content.
If you rely on an email newsletter to distribute your thought leadership, it’s hard for people to discover you unless they’ve already subscribed to the newsletter to receive it (or were forwarded it by someone else).
The same principle applies to your blogs and podcasts. With videos, a platform’s algorithm might help other people discover your videos, but they’d still need to follow you on a social media platform or subscribe to your YouTube channel to ensure they’re seeing everything you produce..
Bylined articles help AI platforms discover you
AI is a critical component of the discoverability and amplification of thought leadership today. If we want AI models like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Claude, and others to find us, suggest us as service providers, and cite our content in response to queries, we need to have content that’s discoverable by them.
Yes, I know AI models have and will continue to crawl the internet to find all the content they can gobble up, including our blog posts, email newsletters posted online, and transcripts of our YouTube videos.
But bylined articles published in reputable third-party publications give higher signs of authority and credibility than your blog posts or email newsletters. AI will deem the well-regarded publications you publish these articles in as more authoritative and credible than blog posts that may only get a few dozen readers.
Bylined articles let you build authority through borrowed credibility
When you publish an article in a well-regarded publication, you’re seen as having some level of authority and credibility because that publication was willing to publish your thought leadership. By doing so, the publication sends a signal that your content was worthy of being included in it and worthy of carrying its imprint.
Your podcasts, blog posts, email newsletters, and other owned media are a different story. As I discussed above, there’s no gatekeeper for this content, so the only credibility this content borrows is your and your firm’s credibility. Of course, if you or your firm are prominent thought leaders, that’s perfectly fine. But few attorneys or firms start their thought leadership journey from a position of high credibility and authority.
Bylined articles are potent business development materials
When a client or prospect has an issue that you’ve covered in a previous bylined article, you can send the article to them, which shows them that you’re familiar with the issue and likely have thoughts on how to address it. When you do so, you’re greasing the business development skids by letting the client/prospect know that you can handle this issue for them.
Sure, this could be accomplished by sending a link to a blog post or podcast episode. But sending an article hits differently because it was published in a third-party publication, so it borrows the publication’s credibility. This is particularly important when the prospect is someone with whom you haven’t worked before or is someone with whom you’re not well acquainted.
Bylined articles are more credible entries in your thought leadership library
When you’re a professional services provider, any thought leadership is good thought leadership. Let’s get that out of the way. Even if you’re only publishing blog posts or email newsletters, the fact that you’re producing any thought leadership puts you ahead of most of your competition.
Listing the blog posts you’ve written in your online bio and on your LinkedIn profile can help you build credibility and authority. But, again, that credibility and authority will be heightened when you’re listing the articles you’ve published in third-party publications, given the credibility you’re borrowing from those publications.
Additionally, if you’ve published articles in a variety of publications that serve different geographies, industries, or segments of industries, your articles show clients and referral sources that there’s a breadth and depth to your knowledge and wisdom. With your blog posts, newsletters, and other owned media, that breadth and depth might not come across as clearly, even if you’re covering a wide range of topics in your content.
Bylined articles can drive the news cycles at media outlets that publish them
Finally, when you submit bylined articles to media outlets, those articles will be seen by those outlets’ editors and reporters. Your bylined articles could get you a separate round of publicity because you’ve alerted reporters to an interesting issue you covered in an article.
This has happened several times with my clients. After submitting a bylined article that was published in a media outlet, a reporter from that outlet contacted the author to discuss the subject of their article because they wanted to report on it in a separate article. Of course, they called my client first to interview them about the topic because they had submitted the bylined article that piqued the reporter’s interest and demonstrated that the author was an authority on the article’s subject matter.
This is a unique feature of bylined articles: helping people who publish articles get two bites of the thought leadership apple by first publishing an article and then having the opportunity to be interviewed for a subsequent article about the same topic. This doesn’t happen often, but the fact that it can happen at all is another reason to employ a bylined article strategy for your thought leadership.
The classics are classics for a reason
It’s crazy times out there today in the content marketing and thought leadership marketing arenas. When things get a little crazy, it’s nice to rely on old standbys.
A bylined article strategy can help alleviate the concerns you and your colleagues have about AI and other technological developments negatively affecting your marketing and business development efforts.
Even in the face of rapid technological change and uncertainty about whether marketing strategies and tactics that once worked will still work, bylined articles can help you and your colleagues implement a thought leadership campaign to build and expand your authority.
Thinking about bringing on an outside writer to help your law firm strategize and create compelling thought-leadership marketing and business development content? Click here to schedule a 30-minute Content Strategy Audit to learn if collaborating with an outside writer is the right move for you and your firm.