When it comes to content strategy, you want to rise above the noise and avoid the too-trendy, the buzzword-status topics and strategies, right? We get it, and we applaud you for your instincts. BUT, if you’re not thinking about thought leadership, you need to be. “Thought leader” may be a buzzword (little more than business jargon by some accounts), but all it really means to be a thought leader is demonstrating your expertise in a particular field, area, or topic. 

Thought leadership content, by extension, is content that showcases your knowledge and unique perspective with the goal of engaging and educating your target audience. Consider thought leadership a component of your content marketing strategy. It’s content that answers your audience’s burning questions and includes original insight that aligns with your expertise.

What Thought Leadership Content Is + What It Isn’t

Thought leadership content IS …

• Relevant: Topics should align with your expertise and resonate with your target audience.
• Helpful: What keeps your target audience up at night? Your content should address those concerns. 
• Engaging: No one wants to slog through something boring or poorly written. Your specific tone and the level of humor/sarcasm/playfulness you use will depend on your brand and your target audience. 
• Actionable: You could tell someone what they should do to accomplish a certain business goal and leave it at that, or you could actually tell them how to go about accomplishing this goal (or how you/your clients have accomplished this same goal in the past). For example, you could use this content hook: Here’s my exact blueprint for how I [insert result] in your next social media caption, blog post or podcast episode.. 
• Consistent: One piece of thought leadership content (or one piece per month) is not enough to set you up as a thought leader. Ideally, thought leadership style content is EVERY piece of content you post! Even just three posts per week on social media will make a big difference.

Thought leadership content IS NOT …

• Generic: Thought leaders relate to their audience using their specific experience as a guide for others. You want your content to reflect a depth and breadth of knowledge that your audience can’t find elsewhere.
• Promotional: It’s oh so tempting to shout about your brand’s awesomeness from the rooftops, but thought leadership content is not the place to do it. You want this content to be a no-strings-attached sort of deal.
• Only about you/your business: One best practice for thought leadership is to build a sense of community with other industry experts. A couple of examples of this include: Promoting another industry expert that you align with and tagging or linking to them in your content, or explaining why a company/person you admire has an effective social/branding/cx strategy.

Done right, thought leadership can really help your business.

If you’re answering your target audience’s most burning questions in an in-depth, relevant, engaging way, you’re going to become a go-to source for them. This is especially true if you’re offering thought leadership content for free (which we highly recommend doing). According to a 2020 survey by Edelman on the impact of thought leadership in the B2B realm, 54 percent of decision makers purchased a new product or service they had not previously considered buying after engaging with a piece of thought leadership content from the product or service provider. 

Thought leadership content also builds your brand’s credibility—more so than other, more traditional ways of doing so. For instance, 64 percent of buyers in the Edelman study said an organization’s thought leadership content is a more trustworthy basis for assessing its capabilities and competency than its marketing materials and product sheets. If you can let go of the knee-jerk reaction to promote yourself, your thought leadership content will do the work for you. It’ll connect, inform, and leave a lasting impression that’ll bring your audience back for more. 

For more content hacks, download our FREE 30 Thought Leadership Hooks that you can use right now to create scroll-stopping content!