Every thought leadership campaign needs a thought leader, and preferably more than one. While the CEO might be your go-to thought leader, there are many others inside the company who can establish credibility and build trust as a thought leader.
Establishing thought leadership status can boost industry presence and build a brand. Thought leadership increases strategic visibility and leads to exposure for your ideas both inside and outside your company.
Definition of Thought Leadership
Thought leadership is the regular demonstration of expertise in a particular field or topic. It takes dedication, patience, strategy, and education to become a thought leader.
Thought leadership campaigns take experts' insights and commentary, and share them through external communications channels. Often, these insights are published in media outlets, podcasts, white papers and presentations to position the expert as an authority in their field, lending credibility to a company.
Being a thought leader qualifies you as a reliable source of insight and information. Thought leadership can lead to invitations to join corporate boards, serve on government commissions, and participate in industry-wide committees.
How to Find Thought Leaders
Take a close look inside the organization. To start, explore your company's positioning. Then, look at the people inside the company who have expertise and knowledge in a particular niche or industry. You can often spot them because they're the go-to experts that internal stakeholders call on for their opinions and advice.
Thought leaders are passionate about sharing their knowledge and innovative ideas with others. They have the knowledge and expertise, and are able to put the information in context that their audiences understand.
Key Traits of Successful Thought Leaders
Thought leaders use relevant articles and other content to establish themselves as authorities in their field. They also create high-quality, informative content that resonates with their audience.
As informed opinion leaders, they engage in meaningful conversations with their audience and listen to their feedback.
Thought leaders use a variety of channels to create valuable connections, build a positive reputation and show their audiences that they care. They are active on social media platforms, such as LinkedIn, and participate in industry events and speaking engagements.
Building a Bench of Thought Leaders
It's ideal to have a broad bench of leaders who can speak on a variety of topics. This mix allows the company and its experts to comment on more types of topics.
Some of our favorite areas to look for a thought leader are front-line workers. These workers are in a hands-on environment and deeply understand the work they’re doing. They provide unique insights from their first-hand experience, and they have interesting stories and rewarding experiences to share.
Thought leaders could include:
- Practice leaders at law firms,
- Market leaders for large companies, or
- Nonprofit program managers.
A bench of SMEs ensures continuity for the company and variety in perspectives and topics. It also provides continuity if a thought leader exits the company or has extended time off.
External Thought Leaders
It sounds counter-intuitive, but the best thought leader on a topic might not work in your company. Take a broader look at the people who influence your market positioning or offerings, and explore the potential for them to serve as a thought leader.
Consultants
An external consultant, whether they are industry experts or someone from your organization’s Board, can be an effective thought leader. They often have deep industry expertise and specific insights to share. In addition, they're motivated to participate in thought leadership strategies because it can help their personal brand.
Influential partners
Influential partners, like analysts, academic researchers, or even a well-known publication, can lend their credibility as a thought leader for your company.
Analysts offer expert opinions on a topic and are trusted resources. People turn to analysts for opinions and advice, and earning their endorsement can increase your company's credibility.
Academic researchers and industry publications make great partners for original research done in partnership with your company. A co-branded research report effectively demonstrates category expertise and provides new insights into a target audience. Once complete, this original, co-branded research can be promoted through social media, industry publications, and other channels.
Claim Your Area of Expertise
Thought leaders must be clear and consistent with their insights within their area of expertise. Focus on what you know best and hone in on that message repeatedly.
It’s more effective to go deep on a few topics, such as software development, than to dilute your message across too many topics. Once the topics are selected, work to consistently provide valuable insights and perspectives that educate and engage your audience.
Building Your Thought Leadership Presence
Once you find your subject matter expert (SME), how do you maximize them? First, understand what they do. Then dig deeper to understand where they look for information and what trends and data they are currently observing in the industry.
Assess, Then Train
Establish a baseline understanding of each thought leader's capability to serve as an effective spokesperson. Most often, experts are knowledgable, but they haven't yet honed their presentation skills or received media training.
A thought leader needs to feel confident stepping into the spotlight. To feel confident, they need skills and techniques to captivate an audience on Zoom or in a ballroom.
In addition, they likely need media training to learn how to turn complex information into soundbites. Media training helps them connect the dots between data and their knowledge, and turns them into effective spokespeople.
Message Themes
After the thought leader enhances their presentation skills, we want to review consistent messaging themes and ensure all content produced aligns with the brand’s voice and values.
This positions the brand strategically in the external marketplace by providing a cohesive communications and marketing campaign.
Collaboration
The most important component to working with your thought leader is collaboration – with your SMEs, leadership, marketing, public relations team and more. Everyone will need to know what the plan is, what the goals are and how everyone will be working together. Working alongside each thought leader to produce factually accurate, but also insightful, tip-based content will expand your company’s reach, impact and market awareness.
Free Training on Thought Leadership
B2 Communications CEO Missy Hurley and Account Director Shannon Burch recently presented a free PR training course on thought leadership campaigns. In the replay, you'll learn to become a recognized thought leader and use thought leadership to build credibility, increase trust and raise awareness.
More on Identifying Thought Leaders
Read additional blog posts on the benefits of thought leadership campaigns and following B2's 4-step process to create a successful thought leadership strategy.
Need customized advice? Reach out to our team of communications experts for tailored PR advice.