Summary

Subject matter experts (SMEs) are crucial in creating high-value content by adding depth, accuracy, and credibility. This blog explores how businesses can transform SME knowledge into engaging, impactful content that resonates with audiences, enhances learning, and strengthens brand authority in competitive industries.

When creating high-value business or educational content, most companies rely on a go-to person to help answer specific questions or provide insights into a particular topic. This individual could be an in-house expert or an external consultant recognized as the Subject Matter Expert (SME) in their respective domain.

Even as AI technologies increasingly generate blogs and marketing material, subject matter expert’s depth and wisdom remain unparalleled. To maintain a competitive edge, turning to these experts for content creation can be a strategic move. However, merely incorporating SMEs doesn’t assure success. The key lies in crafting a practical roadmap for their expertise.

As aptly highlighted by Chegg, “the SME role is not just limited to a school, college, or university, as it may sound, but also covers company opportunities.” This blog reveals the best practices for transforming SME knowledge into high-impact content.

Table of Contents:

Who is a Subject Matter Expert?

Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) have deep knowledge and expertise in a specific field, topic, or industry. Their proficiency often stems from years of experience, education, or both, allowing them to provide comprehensive and nuanced insights.

They are the go-to folks when it comes to in-depth insights and guidance on a specific niche and can include different industries, academics, researchers, professionals, or other individuals.

Although there is no roadmap to becoming an SME expert, the roles and responsibilities of subject matter experts include the following:

  1. Providing guidance and innovative solutions to business issues
  2. Setting a standard in a particular field through innovative solutions, research, or path-breaking execution
  3. Consulting businesses or clients on relevant areas and suggesting improvements
  4. Having a fresh perspective or deep expertise in a particular subject
  5. Imparting deep knowledge on a particular subject to freshers or other team members to help them improve their understanding of the chosen niche or business area

Regarding content, SMEs play a pivotal role in ensuring the information presented is accurate, up-to-date, and relevant. Their input can significantly enhance the depth and breadth of the content, providing readers with a richer and more comprehensive understanding of the subject.

Benefits of Working with Subject Matter Experts

Benefits of Working with Subject Matter Experts

Collaborating with SME experts transcends mere knowledge acquisition; it’s a gateway to crafting compelling, pertinent, and precise content from subject matter experts. Here are some advantages of partnering with SME experts:

Below are some benefits of working with SME experts:

1. Improved Credibility

Value-driven and relevant content naturally gets more engagement and traffic, leading to improved SEO ranking.

When readers or consumers know that an expert in the field has contributed to or vetted the content, they are more likely to trust and value the information presented. Since SMEs bring expertise and credibility, these blogs are considered highly valuable for Google’s E-A-T algorithm (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness), ensuring they stay relevant longer.

2. Streamlined Content Creation

SME experts do not just improve your content quality but can also help you write blogs that are highly relevant to your niche or industry. Thus, instead of merely focusing on a particular content type, you can expand your content development to include blogs, real-world examples, case studies, and anecdotes that add authenticity and depth to your subject.

3. Improved Trustworthiness

SMEs possess a profound understanding of their industry, enabling them to provide insights and data that others may not have access to. For example, technical subject matter experts can write about technologies or trends that are fresh and relevant to the industry, making it highly targeted and credible.

This helps you to build trust among your target audience and provide fresh perspectives to stand out in a cluttered digital landscape.

Top 5 Ways SME Expertise Enhances Content Creation

Top 5 Ways SME Expertise Enhances Content Creation

SMEs are pivotal in crafting compelling, authoritative, and engaging material. Their specialized knowledge and expertise are key to unlocking content that resonates deeply with audiences.

Here are five ways SMEs can catalyze businesses in creating more effective and impactful content:

1. SMEs Provide Unmatched Expertise and Credibility to the Content

SMEs bring an unparalleled depth of knowledge in their respective fields. This content expertise can be translated into content that educates, informs, and solves problems for the audience. By producing high-quality, informative content, SMEs can position themselves as authoritative figures, enhancing their credibility.

Similarly, they share real-world examples, case studies, and success stories derived from their expertise to further solidify the credibility of the content they produce. These practical illustrations provide compelling evidence of a business’s knowledge in a particular field.

2. SMEs Utilize Niche Insights for Targeted Content Creation

SMEs’ expertise allows businesses to create highly targeted content. By understanding the nuances of their field, SMEs can assist in tailoring content that directly addresses specific pain points, interests, and questions of the audience. This targeted approach significantly enhances engagement and relevance, leading to a more impactful content strategy.

In addition, SMEs craft a consistent brand narrative through their content creation process. This involves aligning content with the brand’s values, voice, and overall narrative. SMEs can communicate your brand’s journey, successes, challenges, and unique selling propositions in a way that captivates the audience.

In short, by maintaining a cohesive storytelling approach across various content formats and platforms, SMEs can build stronger connections with their audience and foster brand loyalty.

3. SME Expertise Promotes Authentic Storytelling and Thought Leadership

SMEs often have compelling stories and unique perspectives. Collaborating with them allows businesses to infuse authentic storytelling into their content strategy.

Furthermore, SMEs can establish themselves as thought leaders by sharing valuable insights, industry trends, and forward-thinking ideas within their content. This showcases their expertise and distinguishes them as go-to sources for industry-related information.

These personal experiences and insights SMEs provide create thought leadership and curate content that resonates on a human level, establishing a deeper connection with the audience.

4. SMEs Keep Content Current and Trend-Reactive

Staying current with trends is pivotal in rapidly evolving industries. SMEs, being deeply entrenched in their fields, offer businesses a competitive edge by keeping content updated and responsive to industry changes.

SMEs are often at the forefront of experimenting with new technologies and platforms. By embracing innovative tools and techniques, SMEs can integrate new trends and technologies into their content strategy more rapidly than larger, more bureaucratic organizations.

Furthermore, their ability to forecast trends and anticipate shifts ensures that businesses remain at the forefront of industry developments, generating timely and relevant content.

5. SMEs Utilize Diverse Content Formats and Channels

SMEs are important because they bring versatility to content creation. Their expertise can be harnessed to diversify content formats, including whitepapers, case studies, webinars, podcasts, and more.

Similarly, different platforms cater to different content formats. Social media platforms like Instagram favor short-form visual content, while YouTube is ideal for long video content. Since individuals have different learning styles—some prefer reading, others are visual learners, and some prefer audio content—SME experts accommodate varied learning styles by offering content in multiple formats, making it easier for diverse audiences to grasp and retain information.

Moreover, SMEs often have insights into the most effective channels for distributing content within their industry, ensuring businesses choose the right platforms to reach their target audience.

Why Collaborate With SMEs to Create Content For Your Business?

Why Collaborate With SMEs to Create Content For Your Business?

Still not convinced of whether or not your business should collaborate with SMEs to create SME content? Here are our top three reasons why your business must collaborate with SMEs for content creation that will change your mind.

1. Tailored and Targeted Content

SMEs understand the intricacies of their markets. By working closely with your business and following content creation best practices, they can aid in crafting highly targeted content that speaks directly to the needs and desires of your target audience. This tailored approach improves engagement and conversion rates, marking a definite win for your business!

2. Localized Insights and Cultural Relevance to Your Content

In a globalized world, understanding local nuances and cultural differences is crucial. SME services provide businesses with insights into these specific factors, ensuring content is relevant and culturally sensitive. Because the last thing you want for your business is to unintentionally alienate or offend segments of your audience through its content.

SME expertise includes this understanding that minimizes the risk of misinterpretation or insensitivity in diverse markets. This safeguards your business and ensures your message is localized and resonates with your target audience effectively.

3. Affordable Expense that Delivers Results!

SMEs often offer cost-effective solutions for content creation. Their lean structures, coupled with expertise, enable businesses to create high-quality content without substantial financial investments. This is especially beneficial for startups or businesses operating on tight budgets.

Four Best Practices to Transform SME Knowledge into Valuable Content

Four Best Practices to Transform SME Knowledge into Valuable Content

Collaborating with the right SME expert can mean the difference between creating average content and high-quality content. To leverage your collaboration, you need to transform SME knowledge into compelling content that can deliver value to your prospects.

You need to incorporate the right steps into your content creation strategies for effective transformation. Here are the best practices that can help you transform SME knowledge into high-impact content efficiently:

1. Define Your Content Goal and Provide a Head Start to Your SMEs

The first thing to do is to establish your content creation goals. A clear idea of your content goals is essential for successful collaboration with your SMEs. It will help you to outline what you want from them to achieve your goals.

Once you do this, share your content objectives with your SMEs. This will help them to align their contributions with your goals.

Next, give your subject matter experts a head start on your desired content. Create a first draft and ask your SMEs to review it if possible. This will save them the effort of creating content from scratch.

Your SMEs can elevate the content by making necessary edits and offering suggestions based on their expert knowledge. This will help you to improve the quality of your content.

At the same time, it will enable you to ensure that the content is accurate.

2. Set up Clear and Consistent Communication Channels

Communication is a key aspect of collaborating with subject matter experts. If you have communication barriers, it may be difficult to access SME knowledge and transform it into valuable content.

Establish clear communication channels with your SMEs. This is essential for communicating all relevant information about your content objectives, including your content requirements, time limits, revisions, feedback, and more.

Ensure that your SME also prefers the communication channel you select. You can choose from the various available options: chat, email, video calls, content management systems, and project management software.

You can also opt for face-to-face conversations with your SME. This will make it easier for you to convey your requirements and seek answers to follow-up questions.

3. Provide Constructive Feedback and Express Appreciation

Developing a feedback culture is another essential aspect of the content creation process. By providing feedback, you can enhance the quality of your content.

This, in turn, can help increase your content’s effectiveness or impact.

If you skip providing feedback, it can cause misunderstanding and frustration. So, make it a point to provide constructive feedback to your SMEs. Try to be objective in your remarks and use positive language while commenting.

Also, remember that everyone wants to be respected for their hard work, and SMEs are no different either. When you appreciate your technical subject matter experts, you convey that their work is important to you. This gesture can make them feel valued.

Further, such appreciation can make your SMEs more responsive to your requests in the future.

4. Make Use of Existing Content by Your SMEs

Sometimes, an SME may not have the time to collaborate with you and deliver the required content. It can also happen that you do not have the time to interview and engage with the SME to create content. In both cases, there is a way out.

You can look for existing content by the SME and repurpose it. The existing content can be in any form, such as a webinar, blog post, video, whitepaper, etc. You can start by taking notes from these sources and then using the knowledge to create your content.

Remember that the aim is to derive maximum mileage from the existing content. But make sure to repurpose the content in a different format.

Conclusion

In the ever-evolving content marketing landscape, Subject Matter Experts are the secret ingredient that can transform ordinary content into something extraordinary. Their expertise, credibility, and unique insights can make your content stand out in a crowded digital world.

As you embark on your content creation journey, don’t underestimate the value of SMEs. Identify, engage, and collaborate with these experts, and watch as your content takes on a new dimension of authenticity and authority.

If you are unsure about your content SME, we recommend partnering with an eLearning solutions company like Hurix Digital that can help you update your content for the digital era.

Get in touch with our experts today to know more!