Making thought leadership creation less painful, one little trick a time

You’ve gone through the checklist and are certain that you’ve got a thought leadership piece on your hands, and you’ve tried saying the title of this post 5 times quickly. 

The topic to cover is clear, and the article is floating about in your mind and is just ready to pounce out from the gates of thought into cohesive sentences on your screen.

Let’s go!

Title it good

TLDR is a real thing, expanding on it from our previous post, Copyblogger stated that 8 out of 10 people will read your headline copy, and 2 out of 10 will read the rest of your article. Google is the first search engine almost everyone uses, thus the importance of SEO can’t be understated - know your SEO words and clusters, and what clicks in the territory you’re targeting to give your thought leadership piece a better chance.

With headlines being such a strong gatekeeper, don’t leave it to chance. It is pretty common to mull over the best way to come up with a headline, and in the spirit of TLDR, here are some quick resources to help you out. Mix and match them accordingly.

• Keep your title relevant between 60-65 characters so parts of your title won’t get cut off, many more technical details are covered in an article by The Search Review if you want to peer under the hood
• Formulaic and treading on clickbaity territory, but 22 Sure-Fire Headline Formulas that Work are effective for a reason, take it as a reference and purpose it for your needs
• Portent has a title maker if you’re stumped for what would work, throw the essence of what you’re writing and see what sticks

Attribution determines your voice and tonality

The attribution to the thought leadership piece gives a gauge regarding the latitude in the voice (serious or casual), and the topics that can be presented (personal or business-related).

A company voice and the voice of an individual of a company can be similar, however, the individual has more leeway to state an opinion with a greater degree of candour.

Though you have one topic to present, different attributions give you a chance to approach it from multiple angles, and if there is enough depth and perspective, the possibilities of having two pieces that complement the idea can be explored.

An example would be when a topic is at the center of attention of a news cycle and a newsjacking opportunity turns into the first piece that can be revisited later. 

Format it for mobile

There’s a good chance that you’re reading this on mobile, and so is the audience you want to reach.

What you have to share can be engaging, but walls of text become a test of stamina before comprehension sets in. Depending on your writing process, you could be typing out your draft on your phone, or you’re like me and prefer doing it on a workstation sitting in a comfy chair with lumbar support.

Personally, working on my desktop with Google Docs on Arial font 11, 1 line of text on my monitor translates to 2 lines of text on my mobile device. Keeping that in mind, I make it a point to go no more than 6 lines of text per paragraph (12 lines on the mobile device) so my reader gets a break.

Audience and publication specs

Most publications will have a limit of words that they allow for thought leadership posts that they accept - stick to it. The breadth and depth that your thought leadership piece covers should match the type of publication. For publications with a wider, general audience, going for too much depth might not be suitable, and using too much industry lingo/jargon will alienate your audience. 

On the other hand, an industry-specific publication would cater to an educated audience that is up to date with the developments in the space. Such an audience would benefit from reading a piece with depth. 

As a rule of thumb, topics with breadth hit a wider audience that might not be key players in your industry, whereas topics with depth target a smaller, but related crowd.

Substantiate with evidence when needed, credit the source

A thought leadership piece can work well just through observations and opinions. Certain talking points, however, need stats, making or breaking the article in the process. Always hyperlink and credit your sources. That being said, everything you want your audience to know has to be contained within your thought leadership. 

Any links that guide the reader outside of the article should serve as supplementary reading, not a compulsory primer unless otherwise stated.

Writing tools, grammar apps and whatever floats your process

Writing can be a tricky endeavour to nail down. For some, their best writing comes at the tail end of the day when they have time to themselves and the world is quiet. For myself, most of the heavy lifting gets done in the day, and main writing points are done at night and I flesh them out the next morning.

for others like myself, getting 

Standalone or a series

Standalone thought leadership pieces are self-contained and can be straightforward and become a reference point for other pieces for other topics.

A thought leadership series happens when you have more points to cover, and it needs to be broken down across multiple pieces to match the publication word limit criteria. Planning for a series gives you options. You can focus your efforts to try to get them all on a single publication, or spread them across different ones to spread your reach. For example, the first in the series could be more breadth, and the second one having 

A thought leadership series can be slated for one publication or bounced between multiple publications. An example would be creating an introduction to be sent out to a publication focusing on a general audience, while the second piece is industry-focused.

If this is your first foray into thought leadership, I would suggest starting with standalone pieces first. Get a feel of the way you write, and build that writing muscle. Whatever it is, keep writing!

I would suggest starting with standalone pieces first to warm up your engines. Get a feel of the way you write, and build that writing muscle. Whatever it is, keep writing!

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Getting thought leadership out and being picked up is an ongoing effort. What other challenges or neat little things do you do to get your thought leadership pieces out? Hit us up and let us know!