Introduction: What is ‘thought leadership’ and why does it matter?

Thought leadership is the practice of showcasing your company’s experience and authority in its field through content. At a time when brands are competing for attention and visibility via search engine optimisation (SEO) or on large language models (LLMs) via generative engine optimisation (GEO, or AI search), thought leadership has become critical.

Social media posts, LinkedIn articles, even trusted old-school blog posts are essential to demonstrate the values that search engines and LLMs are looking for, often summarised as ‘EEAT’, or Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.

From a content marketing perspective, these could include: 

• Experience: Case studies, tutorials, FAQs, walkthroughs, etc.
• Expertise: How-to guides, expert explainers, whitepapers, training, etc.
• Authoritativeness: Media citations, backlinks, guest posts, etc.
• Trustworthiness: Author biographies, clear sourcing, user reviews, etc.

Because recency is a big factor in GEO, especially, brands must publish consistently on topics that matter to them and their audience. 

People buy from people, so thought leadership offers brands the opportunity to feature their key spokespeople as human faces, rather than just generic branded content. 

It’s increasingly important to nurture and maintain an authentic voice. At a time when many brands are turning to AI to create masses of samey-sounding content, brands who resist the temptation to use AI and instead retain a human creator have a better chance of retaining a human voice and standing out. 

After all, if you’re turning to AI to come up with ‘thought leadership’, it’s not really your content; it’s a curation of other people’s surfaced by a machine.

Thought Leadership Formats

Thought leadership comes in several formats:

Short form: Media interviews and newsjacking comments, letters to editors, social media posts

Medium form (600-1,200 words): Blog posts, LinkedIn posts and articles

Long form (1,200+ words): White papers, in-depth reports, or podcasts (audio with transcripts)

Who should write thought leadership pieces?

Thought leaders rarely write pieces themselves; they do not have the time to do it, and writing may not be their forte. This is why they turn to PR teams and expert copywriters to craft the content for them.

Authority and authenticity are key. The company spokespeople should speak to topics within their realm of expertise, for example:

Founder/CEO: Top-level business topics, strategic direction and vision

CTO: Technical development and security

CFO: Financial matters

Product Marketing Manager: Product features and industry topics

As I mentioned at the outset, people buy from people, so they want to see and hear from people that speak to their exact remit and challenges. Matching company voices to a specific audience on specific topics makes perfect sense.

What makes an engaging piece of thought leadership content?

The unfortunate fact in the attention economy is that many people either skim-read content or even give up after the first paragraph. The age of AI summaries is changing reading behaviour, too. You have to hook people in early and keep them engaged.

Natural voice is essential here. It’s a differentiator in a world where so many brands are using AI to create their ‘original’ content.

The process behind thought leadership creation

It pays to have a content calendar with ‘known’ content tied to key events (e.g., calendar-specific events or annual reports) while leaving capacity to respond to events such as government budgets or news stories.

Content creation always starts with an interview. For short-form content, like a newsjacking opportunity or request for comment from the media, it can be as simple as leaving a WhatsApp voice note to the PR team for them to craft into a comment.

Medium-form comment requires more planning and insight. Medium-form content requires a story arc, supporting data and real-life examples, and takeaways, so an initial call to lay out the argument is critical. A comprehensive brief from the brand helps set expectations and makes the process easier, as the copywriter is clear on the objective. And, of course, there should be a clear call to action at the end. What do you want the reader to do with the information you have provided.

Even more planning is required for long-form content, like reports and white papers. This type of content will often be turned into a professionally designed PDF, which might be gated by an email for sales purposes. However, I have seen recent research from trusted search engine optimisation (SEO) consultants who have seen search visibility drop significantly for PDF material, so brands may be better off keeping content on webpages is search visibility is their objective.

For research, brands will often engage a third-party specialist research house. They will be able to guide on the wording of questions and the right target audiences. In a world where B2B opinion is increasingly generic, unique research becomes even more valuable and potentially newsworthy. They provide brands with exclusive data that they can analyse, thus showcasing their expertise.

Channel specificity is key

While content hosted on a brand’s website is valuable for search visibility, brands must also promote their spokespeople across channels. News channels and guest articles for trade publications are naturally important for thought leadership, but LinkedIn as a B2B channel requires its own strategy.

Why? Partly because that’s where B2B decision-makers are active, but also because LinkedIn’s algorithm favours content that keeps people engaged on the platform. So, brands should identify which spokespeople to promote and create regular, consistent, LinkedIn-specific content to build their profile.

LinkedIn requires its own content strategy, and brand pages aren’t that popular, so, again, it’s down to promoting the individual.

Measuring thought leaderhip

Once content is out there, brands must measure its impact. In the short term, look at social media engagement on posts, analyse genuine comments, measure click-throughs and assess intention thereafter. 

Over the long term, look at search performance and visitor performance. Consider the entire content campaign, not just individual pieces. Are your efforts increasing your visibility on search engines and within AI search (GEO)?

Conclusion

Thought leadership is critical to remain in the conversation and remain relevant. High-quality, relevant content gives brands a better chance to be found on search engines and LLMs when their potential customers search for their products or services. 

Given the lengthy B2B decision-making funnel, content plays a key role in informing and persuading audiences. However, it’s important to remember that thought leadership is not an opportunity to sell; it’s a way to demonstrate your value and that, in the long run, can help ‘sell’ you as a brand.

Be human, be useful, be consistent, and measure the impact of your work. It takes time to build up a presence and start to see results. 

If you need a content expert to help you with your thought leadership planning and creation, please contact me. I’ve been in B2B tech PR and journalism for 28 years, so I am a trusted pair of hands.

AI disclosure: I wrote this content myself and ran it through Grammarly to check for grammar/typos, etc.

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