Who, Exactly, Are You Leading?

There’s a pretty easy joke to be made when you talk about thought leadership content: most of it doesn’t involve much thought. Leadership? Even less so.

It’s played out, but there’s a fair amount of truth to it. Think about the executives that decide they “want to become thought leaders,” take three months to draft and painstakingly edit one 650-word byline, then never write another article. Or the hopeful LinkedIn influencers who give up after a month because they’re only getting three likes on their posts. Without a concrete strategy, it’s very easy for “thought leadership” to become a missed opportunity — one executive whispering against gale-force winds.

The “thought” part of thought leadership is relatively easy. To be honest, you don’t even need the thought to be new. You’re better off repeating a good thought that gets your point across than trying to come up with something original. With a little bit of coaching and some commitment to the message, you can keep sharpening that thought until it’s a finely-honed marketing tool.

But “leadership”? That’s where things go off the rails before the journey has even begun.

Leaders without followers

Most people want to be leaders, but the path from wanting to be a leader to achieving it isn’t straightforward.

If I want to become a tennis star, I can theoretically do that by myself. If I want to manage an MLB team, that’s going to require a much different route.

To become a leader — in this case a thought leader — you need a group of people who are willing to be led.

In my work helping corporate executives become thought leaders in their specific industries, I come across a few common stumbling blocks that get in the way of success. In each of these cases, the issue is that the executive’s expectations (or one of their employee’s expectations) are misguided):

• Trying to impress the wrong crowd: Here’s a real example from a former client. If you’re selling enterprise cybersecurity software, you don’t want your followers to be the people reading WIRED and Gizmodo. The majority of them are more interested in the newest iPhone release than they are in enterprise identity protection, and they also probably don’t have the budget for a six-figure software service.?

• Aiming for the largest possible audience: Every company wants to have their content featured in the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal. I get it. It would be tremendous for my ego if the Post published my op-ed (my wife would truly never recover). But the vast, vast, vast majority of people who read the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal are not going to sign up for an executive thought leadership program, nor will they be purchasing an expensive, AI-backed enterprise data platform. Would you rather be in a stadium full of people who don’t care about your product, or a living room full of people who could be convinced to hand over their money by the end of the day?
• Getting bored with the basics: Here’s something both marketers and PR professionals experience every once in a while: a piece of content runs in a trade publication or on a sponsored channel like Forbes Technology Council. The piece makes a clear impact with the company’s buyers, indicating that the company has found a proven, valuable channel for communicating with their audience. Rather than continuing to double down on that channel, in the next client meeting, they say “I feel like we’ve already done that — let’s try to land something new.” If I find a button that gives me $10 every time I push it, I’m going to keep pushing that button until it stops giving me money. Is it worth spending some time checking to see if there might be a more lucrative button somewhere? Sure. But don’t stop pushing the $10 button!

Finding your crowd

So if you want to go from being someone who has some thoughts and no audience to an actual thought leader, you need to decide who your audience should be. It’s OK to be aspirational — if your company is selling today to a small subset of customers but you expect to someday be selling to a much larger audience, you can start aiming for that larger group already. Be specific about who you want to be leading and aim your content at those people.

You can try to drive your target audience to your owned channels — getting them to visit your company’s blog or subscribe to a newsletter. But those people are all already hanging out somewhere, aren’t they?

Why do so many bands consider it their big break when they get to open for a famous artist? Because it puts them directly in front of their target audience. Instead of trying to get those committed music fans with disposable income to come to their gig in a local dive bar, they’re able to stand in front of them and play for 20 minutes.

If you’re a tech company, landing a byline in TechCrunch is like opening for Beyonce.

Your company’s blog is the dive bar.

There’s also some middle ground. Think about a popular summer music festival: there’s a lot going on and you’re probably going to be competing with some bigger, better known voices. But you can at least be confident that your audience is there at the festival. Put on a good enough show and you’ll probably gain some new followers.

The music festival is LinkedIn. Don't overlook it.

I expect to see a lot of companies exploring thought leadership heading into 2024 — it’s a relatively affordable, effective way to build brand awareness and convert potential customers into committed buyers. But the approach and strategy matter. Decide who you want to lead, find where they hang out, then go and start talking to them.