By Bob Decker
Why publishing on your blog or social media alone is not enough these days
If you want engineers to see your company as a trusted expert, contributed articles are one of the most powerful tools you can use.
In the sensors and semiconductor industry, public relations isn’t just about press releases. It’s also about earning editorial coverage in the trade publications engineers rely on for product research, design guidance, and industry trends.
Unlike advertising, this kind of visibility doesn’t come from paying for space. It comes from providing real value. Let’s take a closer look at how contributed articles work, and why they matter more than ever.
What is a contributed article?
A contributed article is longer-form editorial content published by an independent trade publication at no charge. No advertising dollars change hands. Instead of promoting a specific product, the focus is on solving a design challenge, explaining a technical concept, interpreting an industry trend, or sharing practical engineering insight.
Trade publications exist to help engineers make better decisions. If your article does that, editors are often happy to publish it.
“But why not just publish on our own blog and LinkedIn or other social media?” you ask. And you absolutely should publish technical content on your own site and social channels. But publishing in a respected trade magazine adds something your website alone cannot provide: independent authority.
Appearing in the editorial pages of a trusted publication reinforces your expertise in a way that self-published content cannot.
This dynamic has become even more important in the age of generative AI. AI systems tend to favor authoritative editorial sources when constructing responses. Independent trade publications carry significantly more weight than vendor websites in that process. Earned media coverage serves as a powerful validation signal. AI tools are remarkably good at distinguishing between advertising and editorial content, and they prioritize the latter.
If you want your company’s expertise reflected in search results and AI-generated answers, contributed articles are one of the most effective avenues available.
There are two types of contributed articles that work best:
1. Tutorial Articles: Help Engineers Solve a Problem
Tutorial articles are practical and educational. Their purpose is to help engineers understand how to apply a component or technology correctly and confidently. For example, they might explore topics such as understanding differences between component types, how to design miniature optical switching solutions, or managing power integrity in high-density layouts.
Yes, your company likely manufactures the components being discussed. But the focus should be on the design challenge and the technical considerations, not on why your specific part is superior. If an article reads like a datasheet or a product brochure, it won’t get published. If it reads like a helpful engineering guide, there’s a good chance it will.
2. Thought Leadership Articles: Share Perspective
Not every contributed article has to teach a step-by-step solution. Some of the most impactful pieces offer insight and perspective. A thought leadership article might examine emerging trends in power electronics, supply chain resilience in semiconductor manufacturing, sustainability pressures in component design, or the influence of AI-driven tools on hardware architecture.
These articles don’t need to present groundbreaking research. They simply need to offer informed observation. Engineers value thoughtful analysis that helps them anticipate where the core technologies industry is heading and how that direction might affect their designs.
Where Do Contributed Articles Come From?
By now you may be thinking, “This all sounds great, but it’s going to require a lot of time and effort to put contributed articles together and get them published.” But you likely already have more article material than you realize.
A contributed article often begins as something else. It may start as an application note written to explain a specific use case. Sometimes the foundation is content prepared for a webinar or a conference presentation. In other cases, internal engineering documentation or technical training materials provide the seed of an idea.
When technical teams are already creating useful educational content, the opportunity is there. The shift is less about inventing something new and more about reframing existing knowledge for a broader audience. With a little bit of editing and a focus on solving real-world design problems, materials your engineers are already producing can become strong editorial content for trade publications.
So now that you know what contributed articles are, where they come from, and why you should make them a part of your overall marketing strategy, in my next post, we’ll discuss what editors at trade publications are looking for, and how to maximize your investment of time and effort to have the best chances of getting published.
Until then, did you know that getting contributed articles published is a part of the PR strategy we provide?