How can you measure the engagement and influence of your Thought Leadership content effectively?

The biggest thing to remember about engagement is that it needs to be REAL (so don't use AI for the actual comment ??). And for Influence, you need to be genuine, authentic, but most of all ACCESSIBLE. ?? Thought leaders are doing both and taking the time to ensure they use it build awareness, likeability and trust. ? Thought leaders know the difference and leverage the difference. ??

It’s easy to get carried away by engagement metrics. For instance, a post might get many likes or comments - however if they are from audiences that don’t matter to you, there is no real benefit of all that engagement metrics On the other hand, if the post leads to an enquiry, a real business conversation or better still, a purchase, then it’s worth its weight in gold - irrespective of whether it cracked any engagement metric records.

Measuring the engagement and influence of Thought Leadership content is vital to understand its impact and refine your strategies. Start by setting clear objectives: what are you aiming to achieve? Awareness, authority, lead generation, or community building? Utilize a mix of quantitative and qualitative metrics for a holistic view. Quantitatively, analyze web traffic, social shares, backlinks, and leads generated. Tools like Google Analytics and social listening platforms can be instrumental. Qualitatively, observe the resonance and conversations your content sparks, and seek feedback through surveys or direct engagements. Look for mentions in industry publications or invitations to speak at events as signs of growing influence.

In the realm of content marketing and influence play distinct yet complementary roles. Engagement, characterized by metrics like likes, shares, and comments, provides a tangible gauge of audience interaction with your content. It's readily quantifiable but doesn't always signify content quality. On the other hand influence, encompassing factors like trust, loyalty, and conversions, delves deeper into how content shapes audience perceptions and actions. While more challenging to measure precisely, influence is a closer match to business objectives ultimately reflecting the impact and value of your content. Striking a balance between tracking engagement metrics and assessing influence is key to crafting effective content. #leadershiptrainer

The difference between engagement and influence is like nodding to a stranger on the street vs. stopping to offer someone a compliment. In the first scenario, you're acknowledging their presence. In the second scenario, you might have uplifted someone spirits with just a simple, but meaningful gesture. Obviously that's an oversimplification, but it illustrates the intangible effect someone's words can have on another's heart and mind.

One way I've applied this professionally is to identify a niche group and hang on. I put myself in the shoes of my audience and remained consistent knowing that I needed to meet their need for my guidance daily. The importance of defining my goals and audience is crucial to my mission to add value to the experience of entry-level professionals in field.

This is the most critical part of influence. Know your intended audience to a very low level of detail. Even more important is to set goals that your audience want to achieve.

In my view, the audience follows you because they find value in your opinions. Be authentic, real and support your view with evidence and your "audience" will form naturally.

Defining your goals and audience would be essential for you to get the outcome that you want with your thought leadership. Another thing to remind your self of is that humans consume and process information in different ways. The WHY, the WHAT, the HOW and WHAT IF attracts different personas. You can use 4MAT to make sure that you reach as broad audience as possible. But first, define your goal ??

Thought Leadership content is just like any other marketing strategy: it's only as powerful as the goals and objectives you set. That approach should always start with an analysis of your target customers - who they are, their challenges, and what content they would find most relevant. It’s also essential to analyse your internal expertise, and understand what value you can offer as an organisation or an individual. ?? It’s also important to factor in what the rest of the market is doing and what industry trends might give you the greatest leverage. A content gap analysis is a powerful tool to help you do that.

Measuring engagement is something that the HR continues to search for new ways and tools always. For me, one of the best ways to measure engagement is to listen to your people , form a network of change agents that come from every department and they should list what the people really need for more engagement . There is no better way than hearing it from yhe people themselves what they need for their angagement, no consultant or outsider can tell better than the employees in the company. Once the needs for engagement of the people is listed , then the company and HR should look back to themselves if these needs are really met by the company . Then the difference will show you how you can measure engagement of your people.

Effective measurement of Thought Leadership content involves a holistic approach, combining hard metrics with qualitative insights, and aligning them with strategic objectives. By continuously monitoring, analyzing, and adjusting your strategy based on these metrics, you can enhance the impact and influence of your Thought Leadership content in the long run.

Do the people who you communicate your thoughts with understand your ideas ? Do they follow ? Are they willing to invest time and so money on trying and further adopting your ideas ? Eventually is there respect, credibility and 'followers' for thoughts and ideas within your team, company, community or society ? These are some of the measurements for both the quality of your thoughts and also how effectively they are communicated.

I have found success using the SMART framework, which stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. Specific should focus on detailed areas that each stakeholder represents. Measurable means it must be something that can be quantified, such as “MQLs”. Achievable refers to goals that are realistic, but do require effort. Relevant means the goals must relate directly to the initiatives of the project. Time bound refers to ensuring specific dates are put in place.

Best Practices to measure engagement the most important thing is to determine the clarity of the context of the outcome you are trying to achieve. “Start with the end in mind.” Then you want to determine where you are right now. Then you can measure the gap between what you want to achieve and where you are right now. Without this a first step measuring engagement will result in unintended results regardless of the tools or practices used to measure. Data analysis and the associated tools will most likely become apparent from there.

To maximize and measure the influence of thought leadership content, consider the targeted response path from awareness to advocacy. For each phase, develop metrics, benchmarks, and goals across paid, owned, and earned media channels. It is a collection of several, small improvements across the target response path that lead to overall increased conversion. Be thoughtful about the calls to action (e.g., likes, shares, comments) and the landing page experience in advance. Having relevant, gated assets on the landing page next to thought leadership provides an opportunity to capture e-mail address, giving an ability to link above the line to below the line marketing activities with a hashed e-mail w/ GA4 and increases attribution.

Measuring influence is much more intangible than engagement, that's why it's important to think more creatively about how you plan to capture data. My advice is to lean more heavily in favour of qualitative feedback... especially down the funnel where customers are more likely to become "data" like leads and sales, and attribution can easily get lost. One example is to survey customers at the point of sale or straight after and ask what role your Thought Leadership content played in their decision and whether it altered how they felt about your brand. Using a scale of 1-10 and a free box to comment should give you a clearer picture of how your influence is developing over time and the role your TL content played in that.

If you’re trying to influence a small, niche audience (for example, state governments or hospitals) then the standard metrics of views, clicks and downloads don’t give you the picture you need. You have to understand the value of conversations, invitations to key meetings or task forces, speaking requests … and how all these ultimately influence policy and practice.

To effectively measure the influence of thought leadership, begin by tracking key performance indicators such as website traffic, social media engagement, and content shares to gauge reach and resonance. Implement surveys and feedback mechanisms to assess thought leaders' impact on audience perceptions, trust, and credibility, gaining qualitative insights. Finally, don't overlook the long-term impact; monitor how thought leadership contributes to business goals like lead generation, customer retention, and industry recognition to ensure it aligns with strategic objectives.

The path from engagement with thought leadership to a sale can be quite a long one, taking years sometimes, and often is takes many touches to turn someone into a new client. I would say to not expect immediate returns in terms of sales, but instead focus on increasing engagement with your audience and your industry: likes, follows, re-shares, page views, speaking events, interviews, and more!

I think it's important to understand your objectives for posting content first. I began writing about stores about nine years ago, because I just wanted to share thoughts on something interesting I had discovered. I had no agenda, I just wanted talk about shops, and as a result I found an audience that shared this interest. This resulted in a growing audience for my content, because I had no commercial strategy. Credibility comes from open honest opinion, supported by examples. Now I am an independent consultant, I leverage this exposure to win work. But I have to stick to the same principles for content creation. People will pigeon-hole you for your content, style and presentation. For better or worse, use this perception.

Enhancing engagement and influence in your thought leadership content necessitates a multifaceted approach that intertwines the creation of valuable, relevant, and SEO-optimized content with active and personalized engagement strategies. It's pivotal to leverage social media and other platforms for active participation, storytelling, and hosting events, while also building a community where your audience can interact and share. Collaborating with influencers, encouraging user-generated content, and utilizing interactive content like polls and live sessions can further bolster engagement. Ensure that the content and engagement strategies are consistently aligned with audience expectations and preferences.

Great ideas and powerful, true, human stories will always win out in the end. Instead of immediately looking to data and analytics take a moment to first ask yourself a few questions. Does this idea resonate with me? Do I feel something from it? I think we often jump too quickly to asking if something will prove effective in increasing engagement with our consumers, before we ever stop to consider if what we are proposing would cause ourselves to engage with our content, our product, whatever. A moment of honestly with yourself can save you from hundreds of lost hours working on an idea that was flawed from the start. Or even worse, one you were never passionate about to begin with.

1. Consistent, Quality Content: Regularly produce high-quality, informative, and relevant content that resonates with your target audience. Consistency in content delivery builds trust and keeps your audience engaged. 2. Active Social Media Presence: Maintain an active presence on social media platforms where your audience congregates. Engage with your followers, respond to comments, and participate in relevant conversations to foster a sense of community and increase influence. 3. Collaborate and Network: Collaborate with other influencers and thought leaders in your industry. Partnerships and networking can help expand your reach and enhance your credibility.

BE REAL! If you want to improve your engagement and influence, the first thing is to actually engage with your audience. Although it may sound obvious, it is less common than it seems. And in a world with so many meaningless exchanges, those who know how to leverage the real connection between themselves and their audience will always stand out.

Fun fact - most of us can tell when content, engagement and influence is manufactured or using AI vs. being a real person. (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) Do you agree? Feel free to click the 'like' button below. ???

At the heart of thought leadership content is the aim to stimulate creative ways of thinking and advance our collective knowledge and understanding. Along with creative thinking, the goal of thought leadership should be to provide needed solutions and influence change for everyone. That can be achieved by inviting in more voices, incorporating more of who we are (not just what we know), and connecting through our shared experiences to inspire action. The result will be a shift in whose voices we deem worth listening to, access to a wider array of knowledge, and truly revolutionary ideas that push us all to think differently and move forward - leaving our industries and the world in better shape than when we started.

While it seems basic, it's critical to start with the definition of "thought leadership." What is thought leadership? The buzzword is ubiquitous in marketing circles—and as its usage expands, so does its (fuzzy) definition. I've landed on this definition (see below), which would suggest influence is more important than engagement (in this instance). "Covers inspirational, research-driven content that drives change and has educational value. Can be based on personal experience and expertise, and takes a stand/assumes a position on a particular topic. Created by or shared on behalf of a thought leader [ex: subject matter expert or knowledgeable influencer]."

Regardless of how you track and measure your Thought Leadership content, it must be authentic in order to resonate on either the influence or engagement scale. Whether AI-produced or ghostwritten by a freelancer who is not fluent in your field, your content will fall flat because it won't contain your expertise, your character, or the positioning that only comes from someone deeply immersed as an expert in the subject matter. With that said, if you're not a strong writer, don't compose the piece alone. Draft or audio-record your ideas, then share with a skilled writer on your team. Ideally, your company should have knowledgeable Communications or Content folks on staff who can help you shape your story into something impressive.

There are different goals to think about. Are you attempting to elevate your brand? Are you attempting to drive a specific call to action? There are too many "vanity" metrics that can easily show you how engaged folks are with your content but ultimately driving business growth is the only metric that matters.