Is thought leadership for you?
Beyond buzzwords, let’s look at thought leadership.
I’ve had the opportunity to work on content strategy to help founders and leaders build their thought leadership brand — and I’m constantly creating content, sharing mainly on LinkedIn, Instagram and this blog you’re reading. I’ve actually been doing so for the last decade in different formats.
If you’re an emerging or established leader within a business or organization, or looking to build your personal brand, chances are thought leadership is worth looking into for you, too.
Why? The demand for thought leadership has continued to increase — more than half of decision-makers and C-suite executives are saying they now spend more time-consuming thought leadership content than before.
The data shows that organizations with thought-leading executives often lead their industries.
Thought leadership isn’t only external, it’s even been proven to improve organizational performance by increasing retention by 34% and boosting productivity by 52%.
When it comes to B2B, we know that the vast majority of businesses — 95% in fact — are not in the market for products or services at any given moment. Thought leadership therefore maintains brand presence and authority.
Today, there's a shift towards bolder opinions in thought leadership content, with audiences demanding unique viewpoints that go beyond surface-level insights. And of course, authenticity has become a key focus in thought leadership trends for 2024.
Recently I presented a workshop through The Good Growth Company on thought leadership and personal branding for nonprofit leaders, and this month I will be presenting a workshop through Founder Institute on the topic, for startup founders. From conferences to courses and being asked to facilitate, thought leadership lately, is becoming more top of mind, hence this blog post.
How should you think about thought leadership?
It’s you, sharing what you know.
Why? There are countless benefits of thought leadership, many are obvious. You can improve your credibility over time, build your brand presence, increase your exposure and generate referrals, inbound leads and ultimately increase sales.
But it won’t solve all of your problems, at least not at once — so set clear goals.
Thought leadership is not only for “founders”.
CEOs and other high-level managers create thought leadership content in over 50% of companies.
Subject matter experts (SMEs) can be thought leaders and create content in 49.4% of businesses.
Don’t overthink it when you’re getting started.
That being said, here are some things to consider.
What makes effective thought leadership content?
It starts with identifying your target audience and understanding their needs, challenges, and interests. When you speak to everyone, you’re resonating with almost no-one.
When done well, thought leadership marketing can boost a brand's authority, visibility, and business results. Just remember that it requires a long-term commitment to sharing expertise and adding value to industry conversations.
To be impactful, thought leadership content should offer a fresh perspective or innovative ideas that challenge conventional thinking in your industry — try to a stand on important issues and share personal experiences or expertise that empower your audience.
How you can use thought leadership as a content strategy?
If you don’t have a keynote coming up (many of us do not), think about what questions people are asking about your industry and what they're discussing most often. Simply create content that answers these questions as your core pillar — whether that's blog articles, a newsletter, a podcast, or simply LinkedIn text posts.
To effectively leverage thought leadership for your marketing and content, my recommendations are to:
Know your target audience and their pain points
Create truly valuable, insightful content (not just self-promotion)
Share content across multiple channels and formats
Consistently produce content to stay relevant (but avoid “filler” content)
Measure its impact and refine your approach over time
You don’t have to do it alone. Through CreatorClub, we’ve supported several founders and executives in creating a continuous flow of thought leadership content, particularly with video and audio content. If you’re looking to create thought leadership content at scale, we’ve built a content pipeline platform for both agencies and marketers — a centralized collaboration space for creators, clients, and teams to have smooth communication, clear task delegation, and tracking of each content piece from ideation to distribution.
Share, set goals and stick with it.
After all your efforts and investing time and resources, remember to thoroughly distribute the content — regularly, optimized per platform, and where your target audience actually spends their time.
But how do you know if it’s working? It takes time. You can still set benchmarks, and decide what objectives are important to you (increasing brand awareness or generating leads). Thought leadership can directly impact the bottom line by attracting new clients, partnerships, and business opportunities — in fact, many decision-makers say thought leadership influences their purchasing decisions. The data shows that 65% of buyers shared that they felt better about a company after reading its marketing thought leadership articles, according to a B2B study from LinkedIn.
Stick with it over time, tweak your content along the way and you'll inevitably build up your thought leadership brand.
What’s next for your brand?
If you are interested in support with your thought leadership brand, you can book an advising session.
If you’re in the social good space, I’ve hosted a full training on Thought Leadership & Personal Branding for you within The Good Growth Company membership. You can view that and other sessions below.
PS — I also have quite a few videos on this topic on YouTube.
