by BART KING
Some people cringe when they hear the term “thought leadership.”
To them—and perhaps to you, too—it’s just another marketing buzzword without any real meaning or usefulness. But I disagree.
I understand how the term got a bad rep. And if you’ll give me two minutes, I’ll explain how it’s been misused and why it’s worth rescuing.
It’s Not the Same as Content Marketing
Publishing thought leadership for marketing purposes—a.k.a. thought leadership marketing—isn’t the same as content marketing. This misunderstanding is what I think has given the term thought leadership a bad reputation.
For example, here’s how web marketing guru Michael Brenner misrepresents thought leadership:
“I define thought leadership as a type of content marketing where you tap into the talent, experience, and passion inside your business, or from your community, to consistently answer the biggest questions on the minds of your target audience, on a particular topic.”
I’m OK with the first half of his definition, but not the second.
Consistently publishing the answers to your target audience’s questions is a legitimate strategy for building affinity and search engine optimization (SEO). But that’s rarely thought leadership. It’s a task for a junior copywriter with a list of Google search terms.
For example, a true thought leader isn’t going to write a blog post telling people how to recycle printer cartridges or where to find a decent gluten free beer. Calling that type of content “thought leadership” is just silly. In fact, thought leaders are probably more likely to ask questions than to answer them.
Isn’t it just ‘Leadership?’
No, thought leadership isn’t the same thing as “leadership.” It’s not a case of using two words, when one would work just fine.
“Leadership” refers to the action of leading an organization, or the roles of responsibility within an organizational structure. Shelves full of books have been written about these two definitions, and we don’t need to burden them with any additional weight.
Thought leadership is more akin to “strategic leadership” in that it involves inquiry, judgment and decision making. But it’s more than just setting goals and how to achieve them. Thought leadership is what determines strategic direction.
In the case of sustainability, it involves not only deep business experience, but also the consideration of environmental and social ethics.
So What’s the Point?
True thought leaders have tremendous marketing value to an organization, but it isn’t lending their time or name to a bunch of search engine friendly articles. Real thought leaders wrestle with the ideas that turn heads within organizations, industries and sometimes entire disciplines of human endeavor. They know the critical issues that should have been solved yesterday, and the emerging ones that need to be addressed immediately.
As a marketing or PR communicator, the job isn’t to tell thought leaders what to write. Instead, our task is to help them publish what they have to say in a way that makes the best use of their time and reaches target audiences.
I’ll write more about this soon for readers of the New Growth Newsletter. In the meantime, you might want to check out “Can Ghostwriting Really Be Thought Leadership?”.
