Screw "branding", the hard part about thought leadership is the "thought" bit.
Medium · Marketing & Branding · 2014 · 1.2k words
Visa critiques superficial branding advice for thought leadership and emphasizes the importance of genuine ideas.
Screw "branding", the hard part about thought leadership is the "thought" bit.
I read a blogpost earlier today on KISSmetrics titled "How to brand yourself as a thought leader". It's written by Lucas Carlson, who's a developer and a successful founder/CEO. I respect that, deeply. The world needs more people who get things done.
Yet something about Lucas's post rubs me the wrong way.
Here's a summary of the 'How to brand yourself as a thought leader' post:
1. Register a domain name, ideally with your personal name.
2. Start an email newsletter.
3. Create a landing page.
4. Skip Wordpress, start on Medium, LinkedIn, Quora, etc. Guest blog.
5. Offer 'tangible direct value' and write good headlines.
6. Give away free stuff in your author bio and use UTM parameters to track your referrals.
7. Build relationships with your readers. Use social media effectively.
8. _(Bonus)_ Build relationships with other popular bloggers
All of this is really useful, actionable information. Lucas lists out all sorts of cool tools that are worth checking out, too. Definitely worth bookmarking.
But the post never actually gets to the heart of what thought leadership is about.
You see, thought leadership isn't a domain name, a landing page, a newsletter, a headline, a bio or Twitter engagement. Many people you might actually describe as 'thought leaders' don't know or care about any of that.
What then, is thought leadership?
**Thought leadership is the act of figuring out new, superior ways of thinking about things.**
Simple concept, difficult to execute.
The branding is (relatively) easy. The leadership is hard.
An analogy: Imagine if I told you that to become a professional musician, you need:
* an amazing guitar
* the best guitar strings
* a stylish guitar strap
* all manner of effects pedals
* the right rockstar pose
* the right hairstyle
* the right clothes
* the right band photos
* the right press kit, and so on.
Yes, all of those things are important, but none of that is as important as you being able to go onstage (or into the studio) and rocking everybody's pants off.
Unfortunately, we don't seem to talk very much about how to do that. We tend to focus on the trappings, not the fundamentals. The 'symptoms', not the 'disease'.
Get all of Slash's pedals and guitars, and you will sound like Slash! /s
So I had to write this. Not to single out Lucas's post (I think that's a useful asset that ought to exist) but to focus on what I think "thought-leaders-in-waiting" should actually care about.
It's not UTM parameters, in my personal opinion.
How do you actually become a thought leader, then?
1. **Pick a problem that you care about.** You have to really, really care about it, because you won't otherwise have the energy to pursue the next few steps. If you don't know what you care about, try a bit of everything and see what sticks.
2. **Read everything that anybody else has ever written about it**. At the very least, you should read the first 5–10 pages of Google search results. Even that sounds too little. You should read pretty much _everything_ that _anybody_ in the field has _ever_ written. (You're never done with this.) People from diverse backgrounds. Academics. Practicioners. Journalists. Regular people.
3. **Watch all the YouTube videos and TED talks.** Watch them twice, three times. Write reviews about them. Ask questions. Identify the assumptions, figure out where they might be wrong. Compare opposing perspectives and see where you stand. Ask yourself why you stand where you stand, and evaluate the reasons for that.
4. **Follow the most important people in that field on Twitter.** See what they have to say. Once you develop a deep understanding of the domain, you'll be able to ask good questions, which they will welcome. Ask good questions regularly, and develop some subject matter awareness, and next thing you know they'll involve you in their conversations and you'll become one of them.
5. **Test yourself regularly by applying your knowledge.** You should be able to outline and summarize the challenges and the history of the field. You should be able to cite all the important work that's ever been done in that field. What works? What doesn't? What were the major turning points? Explain them to somebody who doesn't care. The most central thing to thought leadership might be simply understanding what is important, and why.
If all of that sounds like an unbearable amount of work, thought leadership in this field might not be for you. Pick something else that you actually care about.
…but to be honest, you don't choose the problem. The problem chooses you.
I don't know what it is for you. For me, personally, it's this complex soup of procrastination, ADHD, addiction, time-blindness, writing-as-a-thinking-tool.
I didn't wake up one morning and think _"Oh, it would be nice to be a thought leader in the deep-procrastination space._" It's something that I suffer from horribly, and I have been forced to think about it as a sort of coping mechanism. It's messy, it's ugly.
I read everything that's been written and I watch all the videos out of desperation more than anything else, because I'm hoping somebody has solved this problem that bothers me so badly.
Here's how this can play out in reality:
In late 2013, I wrote a blogpost titled 'productivity apps fill buckets when they should be lighting fires'. It hit the front page of Hacker News, and it got me all sorts of emails from people asking me for advice, for input on their apps, requests for collaborations, even job offers.
A couple of months ago, I discovered that somebody actually used that essay as inspiration for thinking about how to build a CRM. It blew my mind. My frustration and pain was actually useful to somebody else.
If there's an objective measure of thought leadership, I think that might be it.
And now, for One Weird Trick…
Just kidding; there isn't one. I had been thinking and reading and writing about procrastination (and all sorts of other things) for years prior to that. I mull over my experiences over and over again, I try different things, I write about them, I talk to people about them, I try some more.
That's really it. Sure, I've learnt a bunch of little tricks and heuristics along the way, but none of that is important unless you're already en route, unless you're already thinking and writing every day.
So honestly? Disregard branding, explore problems.
Screw your author bio and your newsletter. Just pick something that really matters to you, and write your heart out about that. Internalize all the ideas that the thought leaders have, then smash them against each other. Ask questions mercilessly. Do it for 10 years, every day, with no extrinsic reward. Boom, you're a thought leader! Next thing you know, people start calling you an expert.
The funny thing is, when they finally give you the credibility you thought you wanted, you realize you don't actually care what they call you.
You just want the goddamn problem to be solved.
_Follow me on Twitter._
Originally published at https://medium.com/@visakanv/the-hard-part-about-thought-leadership-is-the-thought-bit-f720a28d4d9e.