Thought leadership. Something you hear about constantly in today's content-hungry digital age - but what does it really mean? How can you use it for your business? We come across a lot of firms who tell us early on that they are thought leaders in their space - that their internal experts are well known as such and that “thought leadership” is an asset to the company.
The problem? A simple Google search proves otherwise.
So... Are you really a thought leader? To truly be a thought leader your reach needs to go beyond your peers so that you can help, influence and educate those who need and will benefit from your knowledge - not a bunch of like-minded folks from your industry. Back to your thought leaders; do people outside their direct peers know who they are, or more specifically, what they are thinking? Is it an asset if its unknown and un-leveraged? This is where thought leadership falls apart for brands - if you are respected and influential among your peers, that's great - but it doesn't make you a thought leader. A thought leader is someone who is looked upon as an authority on a topic or set of topics by the community at large, not by a small group of peers (who aren't your customers anyway). Ask yourself, do your potential clients know who any of your staff thought leaders are? Why would they? How would they?
The good news is, you can get there - but it takes discipline, planning, and hard work. You first need to generate content. Good content. Content relevant to your customers (not your peers). Put yourself in their shoes and figure out what problems they have or what questions always seem to come up and start there… address them, each of them, and craft a content strategy around addressing it for the gaggle of googlers searching hungrily for your knowledge and insights. Content comes in many forms, and you should take advantage of all that suit your discipline. Blogs, vlogs, white papers, tools, webinars, and so on. Get busy creating helpful content that addresses the core needs of your target persona. And keep doing it. As time rolls on you will start to become a trusted resource for creating, publishing and distributing high-quality content by the most important judge of all… The Google. By becoming a content authority in Google’s eyes, you rank higher in search thereby becoming an authority in the eyes of the world.
Starting to see how the pieces fall into place? Get after it! Think you might need help with the plan or execution? Check out this post to help determine whether you should outsource for help.