On the back of Ramya’s recent post on thought leadership, here are my two cents!

We are inundated with requests from clients to create compelling thought leadership content. Day in and day out. Blogs, white papers, point of

view articles and mo

re recently videos and podcasts – the format may vary but the intent is the same to capture the attention of the audience who is deluged with information.

So what makes for compelling thought leadership content? For one, the piece should offer uncommon wisdom. It should make the reader feel, at the end of it, wow, this is something to think about . Of course, goes without saying that the reader must feel like reading it completely. Clearly the uncommon wisdom part is the crux of thought leadership and obviously the hardest part

too. So, in my view,companies should be careful in labelling content as thought leadership, this is the one area, unlike brochures and case studies, where it is better to say less, but say things that are truly unique and engaging.

Unfortunately the marketing function in most companies sets impractical goals for thought leadership. While metrics are great, they need to be apt too. If businesses have goals like producing x pieces per month, then, the quality suffers and managers focus on churning out the stuff.

Rather, the goal of thought leadership should be the impact a piece created. Where did it get published, how many people responded, what was done to disseminate the piece in the online world, did any influential person give positive feedback and so on. Eventually, what positive effect does this have on the company’s brand?

Content that passes such a test can be truly categorized as thought leadership material. Do you agree?