Despite the urging of many a PR person, you may be reluctant to turn your big ideas into industry-busting thought leadership content.
Kelly Indrieri, VP at Offleash PR, points the finger at overthinking, a fear of being wrong, or believing that a colleague would be better in that capacity. Plus, with only so many hours in a day, you may not see the value in putting effort into thought leadership initiatives.
What you’re missing, though, is that thought leadership offers a valuable proposition for corporate and individual brand building, and in maintaining old relationships and creating new ones.
And it doesn’t have to be difficult or time-consuming. As with anything that makes you successful, practice, muscle memory, and the right tools make mastering thought leadership far less daunting and worth every penny.
If this sounds like you, here is a framework to give you the confidence to speak boldly – and be memorable.
What insights can you bring to your professional community?
According to Bonnie Chase, Product, Marketing and Knowledge Management Leader at Coveo, thought leadership should be defined as “connecting the dots between different existing ideas to form a new perspective. Whether it’s applying military tactics to business, or what you learned in sports to leadership, making those connections across topics and bringing new insights.”
Ultimate Endgamers League Founder, Titus Walker, adds, “It’s about sparking meaningful conversations, influencing positive change, and inspiring others.”
To do this, ask yourself:
- What are the shared pain points that you/your industry are up against?
- What are some overarching thoughts on how to solve them?
- How can/will your insights impact the future state of your industry?
In other words, “It’s not what you are doing today – it’s how you can do something better tomorrow,” says Diane Burley, Fractional Chief Content Officer and Brand Publisher and my co-founder of The Quotable Leader.
How well do you know your industry as a whole?
Often, we know the power of what we have to offer and how it impacts our audience. But to be a thought leader, you need to be armed with a solid understanding of the market beyond your company’s offerings.
Be sure to conduct industry research to get the broader pulse of your audience. Taken a step further, you can solidify your role as an industry thought leader with the media by citing statistics sourced by your own company.
Do your insights challenge the status quo?
Veronika Monell, CEO & CMO of JumpStartNOW, perhaps describes this best when she says, “[Thought leaders] will color outside the lines and deconstruct the norm to make a positive impact on their industry and potentially a wider world.”
If you are concerned about a negative reaction, Dan Gingiss, Chief Experience Officer of The Experience Maker, LLC, says, “…true thought leaders have something new to say based on their real-world experience. It isn’t just opinion… but it’s new, objective thinking that only comes with having actually done something and measured its results.”
Before you boldly opine, fortify yourself with:
- Supporting evidence for your thoughts and observations
- Run your thesis by your peers for their feedback
Are you selling something?
The answer to the question of whether you are selling a product through thought leadership is a hard and fast “NO!”
The ONLY thing you should be “selling” here is a free ticket to the thoughts swirling around that amazing brain of yours.
“…[It’s] not a product pitch, not a crowd-sourced mashup of best practices, but a hypothesis, POV, or even just a core question.,” explains Tameka Kee, Advertising Futurist.
It’s also critical to be an authentic and honest storyteller. “They build relationships with their audience and potential customers, not by selling a product, but by sharing a known challenge they can solve. They weave in personal anecdotes, they’re relatable and they’re passionate and knowledgeable about what they are speaking about,” Indrieri says.
Before releasing your article, ask yourself:
- At any point in the article, does it sound like you’re pushing your product to solve a problem?
- Is it written in your voice?
- Will it facilitate conversation?
Note: It is perfectly fine to include boilerplate copy at the end of the article that describes your company – but keep it brief and standard as you would in a press release.
Final thoughts on thought leadership
When it comes to measuring the success of thought leadership, Gingiss says it’s really all about the long game. “It’s almost impossible to connect a single blog post to a piece of business, but years of developing a personal brand based on thought leadership can definitely pay off as clients decide with whom they want to work,” he says.