TL; DR: Featured connects industry experts with publishers through its knowledge-sharing platform. Whether you’re a small business owner or a blogger, Featured provides a solution for you to get your voice heard and build authority in your industry. Its platform allows experts to answer questions according to their area of expertise and matches those answers to publishers in need of reliable sources and subject matter. We spoke with Brett Farmiloe, Founder of Featured, about the unique platform and its capabilities.
One of my favorite content forms is Q&A articles. Its straightforward but detailed format provides so much knowledge and makes digesting content much easier. Readers also get to see inside the interviewee’s mind for a short while. Whether it’s a beloved musical artist or a psychologist, Q&A content can help you learn so much about an industry or a subject by reading only one article.
However, for smaller-named industry experts, receiving visibility this way isn’t always possible. With so many people vying for readers’ attention, getting your voice heard above the chorus of voices online can take a lot of effort. But have no worries. Thanks to Featured, building exposure as an industry expert has become more accessible.
“Featured is a knowledge-sharing platform where we connect experts with publishers and have them complete question-and-answer content,” said Brett Farmiloe, Founder of Featured.
Featured helps subject matter experts match with publications to create high-quality Q&A content for their articles. Its platform allows experts to answer questions in their area of expertise, then Featured partners with publishers to feature top answers on leading media sites. This way, experts can establish thought leadership in their industries, and publishers can receive in-demand knowledge.
And it’s easy for experts to get started. “Sign up for Featured.com, try to find questions relevant to your area of expertise, answer those questions, and begin to take those very first steps into authorship without spending any large amount of time,” said Brett.
Helping Industry Experts Build Exposure Online
Brett previously owned a digital marketing agency, which he sold to launch Featured. Since that fateful day, Featured has steadily grown in size and user base. Brett told us that Featured has had more than 30,000 experts complete Q&A content and has had articles published in 1,000-plus publications, including Fast Company and The Business Journals.
“The problem that we’ve solved with Featured is building visibility online. This can be incredibly hard due to competitive search results, social media, etc,” said Brett.
Featured is a solution first and foremost. It solves a significant issue that many business owners and budding experts face: getting their voice heard in the sea of content. A small blog run by a bakery owner may not get many views, but leading media sites do. So Featured can help those niche experts get visibility with a connection to its network of publishers.
“There are people who have the knowledge and expertise when it comes to their business but just don’t have anywhere to share it. So Featured unlocks that knowledge and allows experts to share that knowledge about their business, further providing themselves visibility online,” said Brett.
Not only does Featured help experts build authority, but it also helps them build exposure for their brands. Becoming a thought leader can help small business owners redirect readers from other media sites to their own platforms or blogs. Another highlight is users can take everything at their own pace.
“If you want to start by answering only about three questions a month, that’s totally fine. But if you see value in some of our other publications, then you can control the amount of output based on what kind of coverage you’re specifically looking for,” said Brett.
A Knowledge-Sharing Platform Matching Experts With Publishers
More than 500 publishers, including Fast Company, GoDaddy, The University of Arizona, and Entrepreneur, trust Featured for expert knowledge sharing. Featured caters to publishers’ needs in multiple ways. It not only provides a knowledgebase of reliable sources but also eliminates the guesswork by matching publisher questions with experts.
“We are an AI-recognized startup in OpenAI’s and Google’s AI programs, so in terms of AI analysis, we match experts with questions related to their area of expertise. We don’t use AI to create content,” said Brett.
Brett describes Featured as a human-powered content machine for publishers that harnesses AI to match the experts with publishers. All publishers have to do is create the topics and questions, and Featured will do the rest.
“The beautiful thing about where we’re at is that publishers will create popular topics in the space. We depend on the publishers to be at the forefront of these topics within their industry. So, if you need fresh content and need an expert quote, you can use Featured to prompt these questions to our experts,” said Brett.
Featured is an open platform with no criteria for signing up. But the team does take its quality control seriously. Although anyone can join the platform, the Featured team ensures publishers only get the best, tailored content.
“On average, we get quite a few answers to questions and then try to widdle things down from there. We want to make sure we’re maintaining quality control while meeting the expectations of the publishers and delivering ready-to-publish content that’s the best in the space,” said Brett.
What’s Next for Featured
Featured also has some new features coming on the horizon. The team plans to expand its capabilities by branching into new content forms.
“For the last two and a half years, we’ve been focused on questions and answers as our main content type, but we’re looking at rolling out new kinds of content features,” said Brett.
One of the content forms on the road map is byline articles. Featured will provide opportunities for experts to author full-length articles with their own bylines. It will also allow experts to build interview profiles where they can show off their features and answer many personalized questions to fill out their executive profile.
Featured is all about opening up avenues for its users, whether experts or publishers. Its platform will continue to be open and accessible to users so they can answer questions to build authority or ask questions to create content for their sites.
“What’s unique about Featured is that if you have knowledge in the space, you can be an expert. And if you’re an expert in the space, then you have knowledge to share. We always recommend our experts take advantage of our powerful publishing capabilities,” said Brett.