How do you measure your impact?

In today's digital landscape, the saying, 'What gets measured gets managed,' resonates deeply. While many tools allow easy content creation, the challenge is standing out, not merely adding to the online clamor. Your goals should guide your metrics. Whether attracting clients, gaining speaking gigs, or catching a recruiter's eye, always aim for quantifiable outcomes. Vanity metrics may dazzle but lack actionable depth. Real success? Authentic engagement with an audience tailored to your objectives.

While setting your goals, remember that the foundation of thought leadership is about adding value to others. It is about inspiring and giving people actionable points that they can use immediately.

The wording on this is interesting, that people set out to be thought leaders/influencers. Should we follow someone whose aim is to influence or should we follow them because of their expertise, experience, & knowledge? It’s like the X-Factor or Idol, or some other reality TV, some people just want to be famous / be an influencer. The people we should be following are those individuals who influence without actively seeking it. They're not in it for the fame or the numbers; instead, they're driven by an unwavering passion for a specific topic or hobby. ?? Their authenticity shines through in every piece of content they create, and their audience is drawn to them like a magnet. These are the "RELUCTENT INFLUENCER." ??

It is good to have SMART goals. To practice thought leadership you will also require a degree of 'blue skies thinking'. Your work, in part, is about connecting the dots and developing materials, insights and other actionable materials even before the users realise that they need them.

As we advance in our career and space it is expected that our actions are by default guided by the end result in mind, hence value creation must always be associated with us. Measuring impact therefore can come from the obvious i.e. Data - engagement, repost tags etc. it is also in the value of conversations offer a coffee or social events that refer to the impact you have made.

Sometimes we can tend to overcomplicate metrics. On LinkedIn, and especially when it comes to thought leadership, reputation is built over time. Yes, you can use hard data like followers and engagement rates (and you should track these), but there's a more subtle metric I'd like you to consider when tracking 'success' for stepping into the light and sharing your perspective as a thought leader. This metric is 'interesting conversations started'. And while most of these conversations may happen in your LinkedIn newsfeed and via LinkedIn messaging, I also want you to be on the look out for in real life conversations when people mention something you've written, re-posted or shared on LinkedIn.

'Culture eats strategy' applies to the logistics of data collection after a speaking event. The effectiveness of data collection is beholden to attendees' natural behaviors. This is why I always end workshops and keynote presentations with a slide that includes my contact information. The one-on-one conversations after the event, the follow-up emails and DMs, the nature of meetings being scheduled are signals of success. A big mistake I made early on was not accounting for burnout, so take comfort in defining your 10/10 customer and avoiding agreeing to too many conversions or casual meetings after the fact. At the scale of a thought leader, it's best to use qualitative signals to measure the resonance of your content.

Conversations around my input , repost, engagement and features are top for me in measuring impact. at times they come instant other times they come later.

Imagine you're a cosmic gardener planting idea seeds in a starlit garden. Just like you tend to your garden, nurture your ideas by watching for the cosmic blooms – the shifts in conversations, the "aha" moments twinkling like stars, and the ripples of change that spread through the universe. It's like having your own constellation of impact, each twinkle representing a life touched by your thoughts. So, keep stargazing and tending your cosmic garden – your impact is out there!

As much as I agree with the article and everyone’s contribution here. I am just adding a few points nothing amazing. 1. Measuring an impact is directly proportional to the outcome 2. An impact doesn’t have number perse. For instance, thought leader advice culminated in helping a founder tackle her / his challenges in ops. They improved efficiency by 80% without increase in ops cost. There is still an impact even if it only helped one person and one company 3. Setting a north star metric may not work here as thought leadership has diff medium to spread across. Even if you measure them, they would merely be vanity numbers.