Congratulations. You have an incredibly original and smart thought leadership content piece. So now what?
Having the right strategy to be an impactful storyteller is vital to crafting entertaining and educational thought leadership, but it’s only half the battle. The most effective efforts go beyond ‘what’ you want to share and focus on ‘how’ to share for maximum impact.
For example, does a new product just appear on a grocery store shelf? Does the manufacturer expect the product will sell without promotion? And is this product only sold in one store? No is the likely answer to all of these. The same type of research, execution, and refinement a company would implement to launch a new product should also be applied to your thought leadership efforts.
Smart Planning – Audience and Channel-Driven Focus
If you’re sharing your thought leadership with the wrong people or in the wrong platform, the brilliant insights you want to ‘shout from the rooftops’ will be equivalent to a whisper.
Before putting pen to paper or turning on a mic, the first step for thought leaders is to understand their target audiences’ information consumption behaviors. To assess, try to ask and answer:
- Who is my target audience? Look beyond a title (CFOs) or job function (procurement) and think about other factors such as geography, company size, and age. The more specifically you can define your audience, the better.
- What type of content do they consume? Using personal experience, do you find colleagues and prospects talk about stories they read or videos they watched? Do they start sentences saying, “I saw this on LinkedIn,” or “I was listening to this podcast.” Take all this as intel.
- Where does your audience physically consume content? Are they in front of a computer all day? Do they never put their phone down? Do they spend long stretches in the car or are they constantly flying? The device and environment for consumption are key to shaping your content and approach.
However, these shouldn’t be the only planning considerations.
For example, if LinkedIn is the chosen channel, does your profile reflect your brand, follow best practices to aid in discoverability, and offer additional content for someone to consume once they arrive? Are you also setting the stage to reach a wider audience by being part of groups and active in conversations on the platform?
Taking a measured and planful approach will pay dividends, as your audience will be more receptive and the relevance of what is presented will help establish your authority.
Content Strategy – How to Support Engagement
After making sure your thought leadership is smart, attention grabbing, and does more than sell yourself or your company, there are additional ways to improve content engagement.
Whether a blog, byline, podcast, or video, treat each thought leadership piece as the start to a conversation. How?
- Give your audience something to respond to – Asking for comments, soliciting questions, or future topics, will help extend the discussion and build community.
- Give your audience the chance to show they’re interested in more – Always request a download or follow. This provides proof people are not just consuming your thought leadership and enters them into your marketing funnel.
- Give them a tease of the future – Just like people love previews for the next episode of their favorite TV show, offer a sneak peek about what lies ahead.
In addition, always think of the content as the sum of its parts, meaning the more easily your thought leadership can be broken into smaller excerpts, videos, audio clips, etc., the more mileage you can get out of your efforts and more opportunities you have for promotion. And in a world where 4.6 billion pieces of content are published daily, not having to reinvent the wheel is valuable.
Ensuring Efficient Execution – Making Your Thought Leadership Go Further
Work smarter not harder. While there are times ‘grinding it out’ can net returns, it’s better to plan effective promotion of your content to maximize the impact.
The saying ‘timing is everything’ applies to posting and promoting your thought leadership. The following is a quick cheat sheet:
- LinkedIn – Weekdays are best, with optimal posting Tuesday through Thursday between 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.
- Podcasts – Since often consumed in the car, posting early in the morning is recommended with most downloads occurring on Tuesdays and Wednesdays
- YouTube – Weekday afternoons, from 2 p.m. – 6 p.m., are the recommended times for posting. However, if a video will go up on the weekend, upload in the morning.
Focusing on discoverability is also important. Using relevant hashtags and tagging companies and people are table stakes. The best thought leadership content considers search keywords and questions (an evolving form of search), and another new factor, artificial intelligence (AI).
With ChatGPT generating more than 2 billion page views a month, having your company appear in a recommendation the site provides has tremendous value. The top four factors ChatGPT considers in crafting its reply to prompts are brand mentions, reviews, relevancy, and authenticity. As you execute your thought leadership efforts, the more that you can consider these considerations, the more likely you are to be associated with a search.
Fortune 100 executives report thought leadership has an ROI of 14-to-1, therefore investing the time and effort to drive eyeballs to your content is a no brainer. Don’t employ a ‘spray and pray’ approach and treat your thought leadership efforts like the business driver it can be.