Understand the value of thought leadership and gain the five proven strategies for creating original and engaging thought leadership articles.

My 1-hour Thought Leadership Session

Find out about my one-hour thought leadership brainstorming session that will get you a list of 24 ideas, an outline for three articles and define next steps to get you on the right path.

What is thought leadership?

Thought leadership is a proven way to build a strong brand, which may be personal or organisational, by sharing informative viewpoints, original ideas or useful insights.

The role of though leadership is to enable people and organisations to advance their industry’s discussions of timely, pertinent topics, educate others within or outside their profession and provide helpful tips, guides or other helpful information.

How to develop good ideas

Thought leadership is often part of a content marketing strategy, designed to advance the standing of someone or an organisation, develop awareness and build trust and authority within their profession or the wider community.

Thought leadership happens at the intersection of opinion, experience and analysis. Look for where you can create this intersection through your professional experience and the organisational expertise.

Here are five ways to create your own original, impactful thought leadership content.

5 tips for creating original thought leadership

Every successful venture starts with thorough planning and preparation. Just like you wouldn’t start painting without first preparing the walls and organising materials, creating well-considered, high-quality thought leadership starts with your strategy.

1. Define your strategy

Ask yourself these questions and then note down your responses to help define your audience, motivation and message.

• Who is your target audience?
• What are their challenges, opportunities, worries or obstacles that you can address?
• What is your point of view or message you want to offer them?

2. Offer value to your readers

Bring value to your readers in the form of your considered opinion or experience viewpoint. This is not the time to make a sales pitch or rant. Share your considered view on the topic and always bring it back to how this can provide some insight or understand to them.

3. Start with timely, relevant ideas
Is everyone talking about ‘X’? Then you probably won’t want to start writing about ‘Y’ unless there’s a good reason to be discussing it. Thought leadership should ideally shed some light on relevant industry topics and issues or provide evergreen information. Think about how your article can advance the discussion or provide another relevant point of view.

4. Be authentic and professional
With thought leadership, you’re expressing your own personal brand and usually that of your organisation too. Always be yourself, but in a professional manner. It’s good to be conversational, humorous and even poke a little gentle fun at things, but don’t go too far.

5. Develop a content creation plan
Just like any course or program, developing thought leadership takes time and dedication. Spinning out one article here and there is a haphazard way to develop thought leadership and will usually leave you lost for good ideas and with a lack of consistency. It’s why creating a content plan is a vital part of successful thought leadership.

Engaging a professional content strategist can make the task manageable and get you on the best path to developing original thought leadership.

Get help developing original thought leadership

Busy professionals can struggle to find the time to dedicate to creating compelling thought leadership ideas. It can also be a struggle to turn basic ideas into well developed articles that will grab the attention of readers.

If you can set a aside just 60 minutes, it’s possible to generate a whole year’s worth of valuable, engaging thought leaderships ideas. No more second-guessing, no more wasted time, no more writer’s block.

As a specialised writer and content strategist, I’ve undertaken ideation and created thought leadership articles for business leaders, marketing chiefs and technology executives over many years. I’ve also created and delivered thought leadership training to agencies and brands who want to develop their subject matter experts and managers to be thought leaders.

My 1-hour Thought Leadership Session

Find out about my one-hour thought leadership brainstorming session that will get you a list of 24 ideas, an outline for three articles and define next steps to get you on the right path.