Thought leadership is the only content
AI can't generate, making it one of the few ways
your brand can truly stand out through
content. But
thought leadership tends to perform
differently than other types of marketing or brand-level content, which can make it singularly
hard to measure, manage, and justify.
What Is Thought Leadership?
The water is muddy regarding what is and isn't thought leadership, and definitions vary. But
thought leadership is content that advocates an opinion, theory, or point of view for the
purposes of adding to, influencing, or advancing the discourse in an industry or discipline.
In short....
Thought Leadership Is Discourse
Coming from a brand, thought leadership could be called
branded discourse. But it's not the
sort of discourse you find in most newspaper editorials or political opinion pieces. It's not
aimed at the public (at least not directly). It's aimed at industry leaders, authorities, and
decision makers (along with the rank-and-file members who want to be them someday).
Thought leadership pieces also tend to make their arguments with a little more depth and rigor
than your average opinion piece (i.e., they feel more nerdy or academic), which tends to be
short and snappy. But one thing thought leadership does have in common with editorials
is....
Thought Leadership's Objective Is Subjective
Despite what I said a couple paragraphs back about thought leadership having an academic air,
thought leadership contributes to the discourse of a certain industry, not the body of
knowledge. It is called thought leadership, after all, not fact leadership.
Granted, thought leadership is often part of content that does add to the body of knowledge
(like whitepapers), but adding to it is not required.
A whitepaper is a piece of original research that adds something (usually data in B2B marketing)
to a subject's body of knowledge. If the authors of that whitepaper choose to interpret that
data and make conclusions based on it, that part is thought leadership.
And those conclusions can't just be "water is wet." They need to be something relevant to the
direction your industry or discipline is moving in. Something you believe in. In other
words....
Thought Leadership Is Advocacy
Thought leadership advances or argues for something. A theory. A vision. A point of view. An
opinion. All these things are products of the human mind (i.e., thoughts). What defines
thought leadership are thoughts, not facts.
The thoughts involved might be original, but don't have to be. Sometimes thought leadership
makes a better argument for an old point instead of advancing a new one.
Thought Leadership Is Unique
In
content marketing funnel terms, thought leadership
is
awareness content (which discusses
problems or issues your customers face) and/or
consideration content (which discusses what
you sell).
Though if it's the latter, thought leadership usually doesn't discuss specific models or
proprietary features, but products and features like yours in a general way.
However, most thought leadership doesn't look or act like standard awareness or
consideration content. It's an oddball.
Consideration is usually buyer's journey content, which thought leadership rarely is. And as to
awareness, well, it doesn't quite point in either direction.
Thought Leadership Isn't Strictly Inbound
Content marketing is largely an
inbound tactic. And inbound
content basically works by answering
prospects' questions. But thought leadership doesn't really answer questions (at least not the
sorts of questions prospects typically ask on the buyer's journey).
Thought leadership adds to or advances the discourse. It is literally the cutting edge. And one
doesn't know what the cutting edge is until they've already seen it. Which means they can't ask
questions about it ahead of time, which is why thought leadership can be hard to find in a web
search. However....
Thought Leadership Isn't Strictly Outbound
Outbound content isn't united by a single purpose. But it does have something in common. It's easy
to sell (or at least it's meant to be).
Whitepapers and e-books are among your typical
outbound fodder. And they might include
some thought
leadership. But pure thought leadership content doesn't really fit in with them.
Unlike an e-book, an opinion piece isn't something you offer at a tradeshow booth or when doing
cold outreach. And unlike a whitepaper, pure thought leadership isn't as easy to slice and dice
into bite-sized facts and figures for
social media
sharing. It's also not the sort of thing you'd
offer as bait when doing social media lead gen.
Thought leadership is hard to sell. A whitepaper offers data. An e-book offers practical guidance
or advice. But thought leadership is an opinion. And opinions are like assholes. Everybody's got
one. And the only way anyone will want to see yours is to place it in a newspaper or have an
influencer or industry leader behind it.
Thought Leadership Lacks a Natural Home
So we've established that thought leadership isn't entirely inbound or outbound. Why is this
important? Because plenty of marketers understand how to plan inbound or outbound content and
measure its success. But a type of content that is both and neither? Not so much.
What About Brand?
Thought leadership isn't what I would call brand-level content either (since people have
thoughts but not brands), making it even more jurisdictionally thorny. Could a brand newsroom or
content team run your thought leadership efforts? Yeah, they'd be a good fit. But they're rare in
the real world. And brands large enough to have such teams often aren't interested in saying
anything interesting.
What About Communications?
Could thought leadership be treated as
communications
instead of content? Theoretically, yes. But
in practice, communications work tends to involve a lot of diplomacy and ass-covering, making this
department an awkward keeper of a brand's thought leadership flame.
Marketing Wins by Default
Branded thought leadership tends to work better when your thought leaders are
subject matter experts (SMEs) who can speak their
minds, not executives who answer to stockholders.
And marketing tends to have better relationships with SMEs than your comms people, making
marketing a better, if still imperfect, thought leadership champion.
How Thought Leadership Succeeds
Since it's not about answering prospects' questions, the goal of thought leadership content is
not about winning business or improving your SEO (at least not directly). Instead, thought
leadership makes a dent in your industry's discourse (i.e., influencing what people think) in the
hope you'll profit from it sometime later.
How you do this will vary somewhat by your market position. As with many things in marketing,
the rules are different for leader and
non-leader
brands.
Leader Brands Control the Discourse
Thought leadership from leader brands exists to get the industry you serve talking about what
you want them talking about. To get them thinking their problems are the problems you solve. To
get them thinking the future will be the future you envision (and to spend their money, write
the laws or set the standards accordingly). At least those are the big picture goals.
Some people will tell you that good "small picture" indicators for thought leadership success
are things like followers numbers. That works for people. Not so much for brands. Especially
large ones. Because gathering more followers means shit when you're a large brand. You've got
oodles already.
You don't need to know if people are listening. You already know they are. What you need to know
is if your message is working. This means things like social listening. Search traffic volume.
Surveys. These sorts of things.
Non-Leader Brands Attract Attention
Non-leader brands have been getting a lot of bad
advice about thought leadership over the past
ten years, because they've been told to look for success in the same way leaders achieve success,
but that doesn't work. Because nobody cares or talks about you when you're a non-leader.
So don't look at Fortune 500 tools like social listening. Use your eyes and ears.
When a small and relatively unknown brand (without a rockstar CEO to propel it) starts out on a
thought leadership program, you're going to see little-to-no tangible business benefit for a
while.
But if your thought leadership is saying something new or interesting or adding value in some way
(especially if you've got some original research or practical guidance mixed in with it), and if
you keep putting in the reps on enough channels (maybe for six months to a year), followers will
gather, and people you want to notice your thought leadership will eventually notice it.
And then they ask your author for an interview. Or they ask for a quote to include in an article.
Or they ask your author to be a podcast guest or to write a guest blog or byline.
Keep your expectations modest at first. It probably won't be the New York Times that reaches out
the first time. Your first byline or interview as a thought leader might be in
a publication so
obscure, you're the one earning them press.
But don't think you're above this stuff. You need to be seen as in-demand, so that means saying
yes a lot. If you keep taking these opportunities (and get seen taking them), better ones will
follow. And eventually the media will start asking you for your take on other things that are not
necessarily your original thought leadership points.
In short, your thought leadership efforts will feel less like giving speeches and more like a
conversation. And when that happens, congratulations. You're no longer just a thought haver,
you're a thought leader. Because people are actually asking you what they should think.
And when you're a thought leader, your goal shouldn't simply be influencing the discourse.
Because you aren't just a knowledgeable fan anymore. You're on the court with the other players.
And your goal now should be what leader brands do, control the game.
Who Should Your Thought Leaders Be?
Don't make the mistake of thinking that success in your industry automatically makes you, or
qualifies you to be, a thought leader. Many executives and industry leaders are asked for their
takes and opinions by the media, but that alone isn't thought leadership.
Thought Leaders Think Voluntarily
A thought leader mostly offers thoughts of their own volition (i.e., spontaneously and not when
asked). Which means thought leaders write, speak, or host. Not just for business reasons. But
because they want to.
Thought Leaders Want To Be Thought Leaders
Trust me, the drive needs to come from within. When seeking thought leader candidates among
your executives and SMEs, you want someone who's already a thought haver and thought sharer.
If someone is not inclined to do this, you can't incline them. It won't work. The half-assedness
of the endeavor simply won't endure, because your source will view it as a tedious distraction
from the work they should be doing, not a fun part of their job they're lucky to get paid to
do.
What Brands Should Be Doing Thought Leadership?
B2B leader brands should all be doing thought leadership, of course. But thought leadership is
also surprisingly
startup-friendly, for two
reasons.
One, there are fewer lawyers and approval layers watering down what you say. And two, the social
media reach for your top people will often be larger than your brand's reach, making thought
leadership from the former a good way to
augment the
latter, especially since people tend
to be more attuned to people as thought leaders (as opposed to brands).
Mid-sized companies are probably the least suited to thought leadership. They often have the same
approval problems when it comes to non-lobotomized content that large companies do, while lacking
the power and money to get the world to eat thought leadership from their hand the way the Fortune
500 can.
But that doesn't mean it can't be done. It's just harder.
Don't Let Thought Leadership Intimidate You
Considering what I've just told you, a thought leadership program might sound exhausting.
Generating original thoughts? Getting subjective opinions approved? Yeesh.
But remember something. There's thought leadership. There's thought leadership content. And there
are thought leadership programs.
Most thought leadership, at its core, boils down to a single argument or point that's one sentence
to one paragraph long, with most thought leadership content simply a house you build around that
single point to justify it.
And a thought leadership program need not be anything more than the building of different houses to
justify the same point. And if that one point is taken up and accepted by all or part of your
industry, third parties will start building their own houses for that point, with you just needing
to curate them (which means less work later on).
A thought leadership program is not about having a hundred original thoughts. It's about having one
original thought and repeating it a hundred times in a hundred ways. And if that thought is a good
one, and you repeat it well and often, people will come to you and ask you to repeat it for them.
And then they'll start repeating it.
Later they'll start coming to you for new thoughts and that's when you know you've
succeeded.
Parting Thoughts
The difference between a successful and an unsuccessful thought leader is that a successful one both
offers and gets asked for thought leadership, while an unsuccessful one merely offers it.
If you want to make the "getting asked" part happen, try answering first.
A thought leader is also a thought follower. Make comments on other thought leaders' articles and posts.
Answer questions asked in the industry community. And don't just be thoughtful. Be useful.
If all you do is preach, you're not listening. And when people figure out you're not listening, they
won't listen to you.
So don't just shout into the void and expect people to gather. That's what crazy people do.
Happy thought leading.
