Category: Thought Leadership

How Long Is Too Long Nowadays?

I get this question a lot: “Should my thought-leadership articles be long or short?”

My answer? “Yes.”

That’s not a hedge. It’s my honest advice.

Yes…true, people’s attention spans are shrinking. Brevity is the soul of wit. But authority is the soul of expertise.

If you have little to say on a given topic, what message does that implicitly send to the intended audience? More than that…what message does it send to the algorithms on Google and social media platforms? Not the one you want.

These platforms have released the details of changes to their algorithms that favor “helpful” content from “authoritative experts.” They are suppressing content that sniffs of AI…you know, the short punchy blog posts that you think people want to read?

Short = Sweet?

So yes…experiment with shorter posts. They could very well be the bite-sized bits of wisdom your network is hungry for. But don’t be exclusive to them.

Both the people you need to pay attention and the algorithms that are indexing your content — and both are constantly judging the value and authority of your expressed expertise — value depth and differentiation.

And if you thought this post was too long to read, then I have a shorter one I can send you!

How Content Allows a Company to Make Sales Calls, as if by Artificial Intelligence

A veteran salesperson knows that look. That tone of voice. That one question for clarification uttered by a prospect that indicates a buying signal.

And that’s when the sale begins to become final.

A good sales agent knows what to do when that signal reveals itself. Soon, the seller becomes the closer, and the prospect becomes a client or customer.

The only disappointing thing about that promise of future success is that they are hard to come by. By that, I mean: those opportunities…those moments…those qualified, veteran sales professionals that can detect the aroma of opportunity and know how to respond to it.

If only you could clone that qualified sales person. If only those opportunities would arise in greater numbers. If only artificial intelligence could scrape the internet for you, uncovering prospects and revealing sales opportunities.

That’s where content comes in.

Let Content Serve as Your Artificial Prospecting Team

Just as people in all walks of life are experimenting with artificial intelligence to perform human labor at scale and with greater pace, thought leadership content — once developed, published and syndicated — can permeate and infiltrate the digital universe and find prospects who are looking for answers, perhaps shopping for service providers, and at very least, consuming expertise and insights to further their own personal and professional objectives.

Your human sales team can’t be everywhere at once. That’s not realistic, and it’s not scalable.

But what can live everywhere all at once is content. Mining and extracting expertise from your company’s leadership, then refining those raw materials into consumables (in the form of blog posts, emails, published articles, social media posts, podcasts, videos, etc.) allows your experts’ ideas to travel. It makes your corporate expertise discoverable by those on the lookout for it. It works on a 24/7 time schedule and can travel to all corners of the globe in the time it takes someone to click a link, perform a Google search, open an email, or download a podcast.

Where your humans — especially those wily sales professionals — can contribute to this winning formula is to share with your content strategy team what those common clarifying questions are…what those trigger points are that generate that one recognizable look, or tone of voice.

What are the questions your prospect ask?

What are the answers your sales team provides that trigger clarifying questions?

What are the most common inbound questions or challenges posed by existing and prospective clients?

What was a topic you knew more about than anyone else in the competitive field that landed you the contract of a coveted customer or client?

What do people go looking for, and how can your content provide a conduit to those answers, your products and services, and ultimately, your opportunity to win their business?

Content isn’t exactly artificial intelligence. But it is exploitable intelligence that travels, that lives and breathes everywhere your human sales team can’t, and it is discoverable by your prospects, whenever and wherever they going looking for it.

Content is scaleable intelligence.

CONTENT IS sale-able intelligence.

And it’s one thing your sales team can’t be:

everything everywhere all at once.

People aren’t interested in your words. They want your ideas.

Anyone can produce words. Even artificial intelligence can kick out fairly convincing-sounding words. But those aren’t ideas. At least not yours.

Ideas are the synthesis of available information, filtered through the prism of your unique perspectives and lived experiences, and delivered with proscriptive advice and personalized guidance. And the best ideas belong to the thought leaders among us. Are your best ideas worthy of broader recognition?

I understand the temptation to outsource the rigors of content development to AI; but just know that what you’re packaging is a culmination and compilation of other people’s published thoughts, data and information. Sure, robots can retrieve and package words for you; but they can deliver the same goods to pretty much anybody. And will.

Think about it: If your target audience can cut out the middle man and take on the task of retrieving words and data for themselves, where does that leave you as the expert counselor and trusted advisor?

DATA DATA EVERYWHERE, AND NOT A DROP OF IT THAT THINKS.

Data is everywhere. Information is boundless. Wisdom remains scarce.

Your ideas and your analysis are unique to you. Prove it. Generously and consistently offer up to the world how you think, where you fit, and how you solve problems to deliver value. Your ideas. Your expertise. Your unique perspectives.

Be different, because more of the same is certainly out there. And is it ever. More than ever.

People Go Looking for Answers, Not Options

A correlative example: I can go to WebMD and compare my symptoms to a plethora of possible ailments and maladies. They all sound convincing to the untrained ear. I can come away reasonably informed that an unknowable number of inflictions can be the root cause of my pain. And I can get that for free…and almost instantly.

But it’s not the answer I’m seeking. It’s just more inputs.

So I don’t turn to a website to treat me. For that, I rely on someone I trust. A human. Someone who can cut through the clutter and tell me — personally and directly — what’s going on and what I should do about it.

That trust is earned. But once earned, it’s difficult to erode.

Good news: It’s you they’re after. Not your words.

Show up. Be visible. Be human. Be different. The rewards are most definitely worth the effort.

Readers Want to Skim; If Not, They Skip

Very few content creators go into a piece of writing with the notion, “I hope readers skim this piece!” But, in fact, that’s exactly what you want them to do.

The binary isn’t between whether readers will skim your article or read it in its entirety; it’s whether they will skim it or skip it altogether.

And thus becomes one of the primary purposes of developing effective content for marketing purposes: the skim. Facilitate that, and you will earn the readers’ trust, interest and engagement. That initial skim, therefore, becomes the introduction to you, your expertise and the subject matter of the discrete piece of thought leadership. It is the portal into a deeper relationship between the author and reader.

The skim is the invitation to delve deeper. Without it, you’re risking the dreaded skip.

How to Use Skimmability to Further Engage the Reader

People are busy. They are easily distractible. They are being hard-wired by social media and a multimedia universe to have shorter attention spans. You are competing with everything, at every millisecond, for the attention of an audience. Step one is NOT to get the reader to immerse themselves into your chosen topic. Step one, on the contrary, is to get them to skim.

What’s Your Hook?

The first five seconds are critical. Fail to capture the attention of a scrolling or otherwise distracted reader and you will have lost your opportunity to influence that audience member forever. All of that writing, all of that expertise…gone in an instant. The dreaded skip!

There are two primary components to hooking a potential skimmer into your content funnel:

1 – Is your headline engaging?
Your headline has to immediately convey to a particular and distinct audience why your article is important and relevant to them. Why stop the scroll? What will be gained if I do? It needs to resonate with urgency. Anything less is an invitation to skip.

2 – Is your open an invitation to skim, or are you burying the lede?
Too often, writers reflexively withhold the a-ha moment for the dramatic close. The chief takeaway must lead your article, not recap it. If you can’t pay off your headline within the first 10 seconds of the reader’s investment in it, the reader will bounce (skip), and there will be nothing taken away other than a lasting impression that you wasted the readers’s time.

What’s Your Magnet?

A typical reader’s default inclination is to hit the back button. Get back to LinkedIn…delete the email newsletter…move onto another interest or priority. You must construct your article in a way that facilitates deeper investment. The goal here is to convert that initial 25-second investment (The Hook) into a 90-second session.

As a tradeoff for their time and attention, readers will be looking for reasons to linger. Will the problem be solved? Is this piece a mere marketing message disguised as a blog? Are their immediatly actionable insights to be gleaned?

Create visual landmarks that facilitate a skim all the way to the bottom of the piece:

1 – Use headings throughout.
Break up your paragraphs with enticing headers that serve both as visual landmarks for the eyeball to moor to and advance ahead, rather than allowing them to drift off into a homogenous sea of ennui. Headers re-invite a reader to resist waning interest and stay more deeply invested in the article’s value proposition. (They also serve as useful SEO “juice” for the search engine spiders crawling your site.)

2 – Employ bullet points and numbering.
Any presentation of text that doesn’t present as a long-winded paragraph provides another valuable invitation to skim. Remember, your first goal is to earn the skim…not present the argument in full. Bullet points and numbers are additional visual cues to the reader that content is being served up in digestible chunks, allowing the reader to maximize the efficiency of however much time they choose to invest in your piece.

What’s Your Catalyst?

The closing section should pay off the promise your Hook made at the outset. Remember that claim your article made at the open, as to why the piece was important and why the reader should care? Deliver on it in Act III.

1 – List the takeaways.
Give the reader three to five action items to implement right away to start chipping away at the challenge or opportunity your article examines.

2 – Close on a high note.
Believe it not, your final paragraph is more likely to be read by skimmers than much of the middle. Readers want to skip ahead to the big payoff they presume your saving up (the best for last). They figure you’ll summarize the most important points at the end, as we were taught way back in grade school. (Tell them what you’re going to say, say it, then tell them what you said.) Use this opportunity to echo The Hook, provide meaningful guidance on the provided action steps in The Magnet, or to offer the skimmer something next to do, read, watch or consider as The Catalyst to further the relationship.

Now That They’ve Skimmed, Skip Back to the Beginning

If you’ve gotten the reader this far — fully skimmed from top to bottom — it’s highly likely that you have, by then, earned his or her trust, attention, consideration and even intrigue. An effectively skimmable piece of thought leadership will provide that conduit to that next important step in the reader-audience relationship.

No, this is not when the reader calls you and demands to hire you on the spot (typically speaking). This is when the reader has taken enough value away from the initial skim that they begin to read the fuller piece more closely and deeply.

NOTE: This does not mean, necessarily, that the reader will start at the beginning and run through the piece in its entirety. What’s more likely is that the reader will continue to skip around, looking for nuggets of wisdom they missed on the initial skim. This is when full paragraphs get considered, digested and analyzed.

Milk the Skims!

If you’re lucky, the skim begets a read. The read plants a seed. The seed germinates into a reputation. That reputation is what begets consideration down the road when an opportunity arises for you to be on the short list of potential service providers.

But, remember, the alternative to a skim is not a word-for-word deep-dive study…

It’s a skip.

Be honest…you skimmed this article, didn’t you?

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Is Automated Content Truly Thought Leadership, Or Is It Following the Leaders?

In conversations with professional service providers on the topic of thought leadership, there often arises a need to make clear distinctions between thought-leadership marketing and other forms of content marketing.

As an agency, we firmly believe that thought-leadership content is the most effective form of content marketing for providers of sophisticated B2B services, as professionals get sought out and hired for their expertise, and that expertise needs to be consistently available and discoverable if the content creator is going to elevate to the status of thought leader.

Mere “content” for content’s sake is generally not enough to fully allow an individual to differentiate, to establish a credible expert reputation, and to separate oneself from the competitive field of peers and rivals in the increasingly crowded marketplace of ideas. Sure, if you would’ve asked me ten years ago, “Is any content better than no content?” the answer would’ve been a reluctant “sure.” But today, the media are noisier, the voices are more plentiful, and our audiences have never been more distractible.

The good news? Most of the content out there is considered by decision makers to be subpar. There’s your opportunity: to elevate your subject matter expertise into thought leadership, and your thought leadership into new business opportunities. But you likely won’t achieve your aspirations by adding to the content tsunami. You must engage in thought leadership, not just content creation.

So what’s the difference?

Picking up where my partner Jay Harrington left off, who recently posed three questions to attorneys who aspire to become thought leaders on our podcast, The Thought Leadership Project, I have a quick litmus test for you…

Here are three questions to ask honestly of the content you are creating. Evaluate your content and content strategy through this prism, and you’ll be able to self-identify as a thought leader or a content creator.

1 – Does My Content Consistently Serve a Singular Niche Audience?

By definition, generalists are not credible thought leaders. While their expertise domains may be broad and touch on a wide range of issues, it will always be difficult for a generalist to effectively penetrate any single domain with enough authority to garner the reputation as a leading voice, especially when competing against other domain-specific experts in a given arena.

Similar to how patients view their medical providers, we tend to go to general practitioners for shallow but broad medical expertise. But when specialized expertise is required, the stakes become higher, and we seek out leading care providers that have narrow but deep expertise applicable to our very specific and acute needs.

The same goes for the practice of professional services. As the stakes rise, so does the need for specialized expertise and deep understanding of the issues at play. Conveniently, as the stakes rise, so too does the premium, as highly regarded thought leaders are able to command higher fees and avoid the race to the bottom that generalists tend to need to.

Make sure your content strategy is oriented toward a narrowly defined niche audience—the narrower the better. Soon you will be recognized as a true expert…indeed, a thought leader, and not just an author who produces content on a variety of topics relevant to a broad number of industry segments that may or may not apply to any one individual at any given moment.

2 – Does My Content Fully Address the Issues and Questions that My Audience Grapples with Daily?

Remember who you serve (or who you are endeavoring to serve). A common mistake we see among content producers is that they orient their content around themselves—eager to display expertise and authority—but neglect to serve the content consumer.

An example: “News jacking” is a term we in the content business use to describe the tactic of aligning one’s content strategy with what’s currently in the media. For example, consider topics like coronavirus and (in states like Michigan and others) the legalization of recreational marijuana. A common temptation for content creators is to author articles around the attorney’s expertise or track record relevant to these issues in the news. One might cite past successes or highlight specific case law in order to establish the reputation as someone with a firm grasp of the critical issue.

All of this is fine and good, as far as it goes. But it doesn’t go far enough. What is too often missing is a deconstruction of the complexities that the content consuming audience is grappling with. Are you answering their questions? Fully? Are you writing or speaking in language that is accessible to potential clients who are not themselves lawyers? Are you providing answers and enlightening analysis, or merely presenting rhetorical questions and highlighting potential pitfalls?

Thought leaders lead. They demystify the complex. They give—even at the risk of providing “free advice.” Those online searching for solutions will keep searching until they find the answers they seek. Ideally, you want them to stop at your content, not glide over it in a continuing search for the comfort of knowledge.

Yes, you may be providing value at no billable return. But those investments in establishing trust and earning authority will pay compounding dividends in both the short and long term. It’s highly likely your competitors are not providing those answers…but that is precisely what your potential prospects are seeking.

3 – Does My Thought Leadership Meet My Audiences Where They Live, Work and Play?

Are you maximizing the reach and, thereby, the effect of your content? The first consideration you should make is being certain that your content is being published on your law firm’s owned media properties, such as your website/blog and the email alerts distributed to the firm’s database. But that’s only the first consideration. Too often, it’s the last.

Content creators produce content and publish that content on owned channels. Some will go the extra step of making sure that content is significantly leveraged across shared channels, such as social media—both the firm’s and the professional’s individual social media platforms. One might even put practices into place to optimize the visibility and engagement of that content, as we coach and train our clients to do.

But when consumers of content seek out thought leaders and expert voices on topics relevant to their specific and pressing needs, they typically don’t go to marketing channels like websites and newsletters. They tend to seek out well-established, highly regarded niche authorities, such as industry media, trade associations and online content communities that orient their own missions around providing resources and value to the same audiences you might be courting for business.

We urge content creators to seek out and secure publishing (or even syndication!) opportunities on third-party platforms that bring with them gravitas, earned trust and authority, and by extension to your content that they may choose to publish, an implicit third-party endorsement of your bona fides as thought leader. We recently had as guest on our podcast an expert in techniques thought leaders can master to position their content for publication on media platforms, if you’re looking to understand how this is best accomplished.

Be cognizant of where your audiences live, work and play. Know that these are the domains to which they retreat to find answers, seek out solutions, and identify experts. This is where your content needs to live…and when it does, how you establish your reputation as a legitimate thought leader.

The Thought Leadership Formula for Success

These comprise the foundation of our philosophy relative to thought-leadership marketing, as opposed to other forms of content marketing:

• You can’t be credibly regarded as a thought leader until you endeavor to serve a narrowly defined niche audience.

• You won’t earn the trust and affinity of that audience unless you provide true value to them, at no cost: answering their questions, simplifying complexity, and providing expertise and analysis that only thought leaders can offer.

• You won’t optimize the reach nor efficacy of your content if you don’t generate exposure on the platforms on which your niche audience relies to deliver expertise and thought leadership.

All of this is something to think more deeply about, especially in the age of ChatGPT and the like. Google, LinkedIn and other Big Tech are reengineering their algorithms to sniff out and snuff out content created by automation. So are your prospects. People want to “hire the attorney, not the firm,” as the saying goes. And they sure as heck don’t want to hire the artificial intelligence platform that scrapes the internet and regurgitates other people’s ideas.