How To Find External Sources To Create Trustworthy Content
Third-party sources can elevate the conversation with multiple and diverse viewpoints, examples, and experiences. In turn, the audience is more likely to consume and engage with the content because they recognize the publishing brand as an independent media resource, not a vendor of products and services.
Let’s explore five paths to inject relevant and helpful external sources into your articles, infographics, videos, podcasts, and any other kind of content:
- Ask industry-, role-, or geographic-specific organizations.
- Connect on interactive platforms.
- Seek non-human sources.
- Use Qwoted as a brand journalist.
- Build a source network.
Ask industry-, role-, or geographic-specific groups and associations
- Tens of thousands of professional and trade organizations exist in the United States alone.
- Identify senior leaders and their specialty areas, then email or call the one most relevant to your content topic.
- Review board members to see which companies they represent and contact those who represent brands your audience will recognize.
- Attend the organization’s in-person events to connect with potential sources. Go to the annual trade show and talk to some attendees to get a better understanding of their expertise. Ask them if you could reach out in the future when you’re creating content where their input would be helpful.
Connect on interactive platforms
Use your brand’s social channels to elicit input from your existing audience. This works well for reaction-focused or crowdsourced content because it lets you incorporate many voices in your piece – and you can do it quickly. (Don’t forget to mention in your social post that you may use their responses in an upcoming article, video, or podcast.)
Seek non-human sources
Industry and professional organizations, as well as other brands, also can be a great resource for research, white papers, and other media coverage. If you can’t get to the right person to interview, the next best thing may be a blog or other media coverage quoting that person – just make sure to cite and link to the original source.
Be a brand journalist on Qwoted
Qwoted is a relatively new service used by the marketing communication/PR world to connect the brand’s experts with the media. But content marketers can use it too – taking the journalist’s role to seek sources for their content. And it’s free.
Build a source network
As you cultivate new sources for your content, make sure to document their participation and contact information. Create a master spreadsheet for your team. Include the person’s name, title, organization, contact information, and social handles, and note their areas of specialty. Then reach out to them when you want their input on the content being created. Continue reading →
