What do NVIDIA’s CEO Jensen Huang and a gym bro have in common? Spoiler alert: It’s not their back squat PRs. It’s the understanding that greatness and success come from pain and resilience. Basically, what your gym bro’s sleeveless shirt says: No pain, no gain. But what does that have to do with thought leadership?
Thought leadership is all about leading the way with hands-on, profound knowledge and brilliant ideas. Success comes from a unique approach that brings prominence, trust, influence, and customers. But results don’t happen overnight.
Huang led NVIDIA from a struggling chipmaker in the nineties to an instrumental force in the AI revolution today. Modern GenAI, self-driving vehicles, gaming, and data centers all rely on NVIDIA’s GPUs. The CEO’s leadership and vision transformed the modest startup into a $3.4 T-worth company.
How? Through pain and resilience, says Huang in his speech to Stanford students. You grow into an influential leader of a successful firm by tackling challenges every single day. That takes resilience—and pain. But the good kind— like bench-pressing 220 lbs now when once struggled with half the weight
The resilience, pain, and success will be all yours. Our goal is to make your journey less bumpy; hence, this guide to thought leadership strategy. At 42DM, we’ve helped B2B tech giants build thought leadership strategies for their top-tier executives. Why not help you?
First things first: How to find your niche
The first strain you’ll experience is under the weight of: “What am I a thought leader in?” “How am I different?” “How do I communicate this distinctiveness?” and “What do I want to achieve?” In other words, you must define the unique niche, value, message, and goal of YOUR thought leadership.
And that cannot be done in general terms. Being a cybersecurity or GenAI expert is not enough. Concreteness is what counts. You must be, say, a runtime security expert, an APT attribution analyst, or an AI hallucination specialist.
If none of the existing niches match your expertise, carve a new one. Create demand where it didn’t exist before, just like Huang did. GPUs went from a virtually nonexistent market to necessary for gaming to critical for AI development. You are a thought leader, after all.
The key thing to see is that your niche, value, message, and goal will be a blend of your inside knowledge, industry gaps, and audience needs.
So, what are your core strengths, experiences, and passions within tech? Spotlight areas where you have a proven track record and unique perception. Use your knowledge of tendencies and predictions to distill industry gaps into opportunities. Discover who exactly struggles to bridge those gaps and put forward a solution. Or see what fellow competitors are missing and fill those gaps.
When doing all this, it would be fantastic if you come up with a signature framework. The word “cosmos” has Greek origins, meaning “order.” Well, your framework is that “order.” It turns the elusive and entropic world of concepts into a cosmos. A good framework, such as MITRE ATT&CK or Brian Dean’s Skyscraper Technique, allows people to connect the dots and tackle problems with ease.
Now that you have figured out the first principles, you can work on realizing your goal. Regardless of whether it’s higher brand awareness, more leads, or increased sales for your company, the right strategy makes all the difference.
How to understand your target audience
What keeps your audience up at night? What makes these people bright-eyed and bushy-tailed? Where do they look for solutions to their conundrums?
Understanding your audience’s needs, challenges, and interests is the next weight you lift. You achieve this feat through social listening, direct engagement, and market research.
Look at customer feedback, industry forums, LinkedIn discussions, and blog comment sections. They’ll reveal recurring issues and emerging trends. Make good use of Google Trends, Reddit, and LinkedIn Polls. They’re great for confirming your intuition, correcting it, or gaining brand-new insights. But most importantly, engage with your community. Nothing beats the insights gained from genuine one-on-one conversations.
Now, let us ask you something: When has generic industry babble ever helped anyone? Align your thought leadership content with what truly matters to your audience. Do your research and create content that speaks straight to people’s minds and hearts. A client of ours saw a dramatic increase in LinkedIn engagement after we left no stone unturned in analyzing his industry and its gaps.
Once you gather illuminating insights, it’s time to turn them into buyer personas. Plural because content has to speak to different strata of your multilayered audience. When it does, you’re like that knowledgeable friend who understands other people’s worlds. Your expertise can genuinely help answer their burning questions.
Keep in mind, however, that this part of the job is often handled by your team or outsourced. For example, our managers craft buyer personas for our clients and oversee planning and reporting. In short, they do the more mundane tasks, letting clients focus on ideas and innovation.
How to craft your thought leadership content
Ok, so you’re at your third lift now: crafting well-performing content. Off the bat, you should know that the decrease in pain here hinges on choosing the right content types and themes.
Is long-form content—blog posts, whitepapers, and LinkedIn newsletters—a good idea? You bet it is. It allows you to come across as a trustworthy source of invaluable insights. Hence, write those articles where you ruminate on industry perplexities. But don’t stop there. Offer a way out, like Jean Claude Van Damme in “Nowhere to Run” (only less violent).
What about webinars and podcasts? Sure, why not? They allow for real-time interaction and are great for showing your company’s human side.
Maybe case studies and success stories? Absolutely. Portray the pragmatic effect of your product or service.
And Twitter threads, LinkedIn posts, or short videos? They help you inspire and keep engagement through quick, lucid points. So, they’re definitely worth your time.
The same applies to opinion pieces, where you share your take on industry shifts. And how-to guides, in which you lead people through the well-oiled steps of completing a goal.
As far as themes go, you can hardly go wrong with:
- Making original industry observations
- Covering innovative purpose-built solutions
- Sharing future predictions and other forward-looking ideas in tech
- Expounding best practices and methodologies
- Offering behind-the-scenes insights
The key is to offer a mix of evergreen (long-term value) and timely (reacting to industry news) content. That’s how you stay relevant no matter how the industry changes.
Remember that your buyer personas, niche, industry, and expertise all factor in deciding what content to create. Resources, too. Writing content that resonates with highly technical CISOs is one thing. Writing a piece that tickles an e-commerce business owner’s fancy is remarkably different.
How to use multiple channels for distribution
Creating content is not where the heavy lifting stops. Your articles, posts, carousels, and videos must reach everyone they were designed for. In the long run, the right distribution can be the difference between success and failure.
The wider you cast your nets, the higher the chances of success. An omnichannel approach is a must. Multiple distribution channels ensure that your ideas reach the broadest possible audience. And reach them in varied and relatable ways.
Social media platforms
LinkedIn, X, TikTok, and YouTube are immensely powerful media. Use them to post bite-sized wisdom, industry commentary, and even links to your blog posts.
In case you doubt TikTok’s relevance to tech, look at the TikTok account of Marcus Hutchins. He is the famous hacker who saved the internet from the WannaCry ransomware attack in 2017. (Yep, you got that right—a hacker who does good things. You should check him out).
The beauty of social media is that it lets you repurpose ideas across different formats. You can use tweets to summarize LinkedIn posts. Create LinkedIn carousels to break down webinar keynotes. Or record TikTok videos to share mesmerizing ideas, skills, or daily routine hacks.
So, don’t hesitate to use social media for ongoing dialogue with your audience and peers. A steady social media presence keeps your audience engaged year-round. It allows them to stay in touch with your ideaverse, and that, my friend, helps build trust bonds.
Industry publications
We cannot emphasize enough how much industry publications can contribute to your credibility.
Think Forbes, TechCrunch, and Wire. Guest articles and op-eds in authoritative publications like these are the way to go. Industry-specific journals, too. They make it possible to demonstrate authority and send strong signals of reputation. That, in return, boosts your brand’s organic visibility.
Speaking engagements
Speaking gigs—conferences, webinars, and podcasts—are ideal for connecting with audiences in real time. What’s more, this connection happens in a natural, conversational environment. And what’s better than giving a human voice to your brand and business?
How to engage with your audience as a thought leader
This one’s tough. It’s not only about lifting your weight. It’s about lifting your audience’s weight (concerns, puzzles, and challenges). And doing that is not a small feat.
Content that turns your audience into active participants is, indeed, king. So, don’t broadcast views in one direction. You must embrace feedback and encourage discussions around your ideas.
But how?
Ask open-ended questions in your posts. Conduct a poll. Spark a conversation—express a unique angle or unorthodox view. Create tweets, webinars, or LinkedIn posts that convey sticky ideas that raise questions.
Respond to user comments with respect for sound and not-so-sound opposing perspectives. But challenge differing opinions with thoughtful dialogue. Start a lively debate. That provides ample opportunity to hone and showcase your skills as a good listener.
The perk of this proactive approach is that it allows your content to remain relevant. That’s because, through audience engagement, you gain an unmediated realization of your people’s thoughts. A realization that’s beyond helpful in crafting future content.
Moreover, questions and topics that keep resurfacing in discussions point to actual concerns. You know you’ll be addressing real needs and offering your two cents on confirmed problems.
How to measure the impact of your thought leadership
Analytics is a pain. Perusing all those stats, looking for signs of success or the lack thereof is like sifting rice. (Which is why we do it for our clients.)
But you can’t improve what you don’t measure. You must’ve heard this a thousand times—and for good reason. It’s a fact almost as certain as a day consisting of 24 hours (or so). Hence, you must measure the impact of your thought leadership efforts.
A trick that works for our clients is to define KPIs/metrics that match business goals from the outset. Let’s not forget that, ultimately, thought leadership is about growing your business.
Following metrics manually is mission impossible, with Ethan Hunt nowhere in sight. That’s why we always use analytics and social listening tools to track our clients’ KPIs.
- Google Analytics and LinkedIn Analytics are great for tracking audience engagement.
- BuzzSumo and Brandwatch provide insights into content virality and sentiment trends.
- Meltwater or Cision track how often you are cited, which is great for media mentions and PR impact.
- HubSpot and Salesforce link thought leadership content strategy to AI lead generation and conversions.
Oh, one more thing. Surveys and qualitative feedback—say, direct messages from industry peers—are helpful too. They give insights into how your B2B thought leadership strategy performs beyond numbers.
Challenges and how to overcome them
In our years of experience, we’ve noticed an interesting pattern: Our clients are excited by the idea of building a powerful thought leader aura. But B2B tech is no picnic, and countless priorities pull them away from making it a reality.
The raison d’être of 42DM is not to allow leaders to succumb to the weight of their grueling schedules. Our belief? They can make their mark while staying fully committed to their day-to-day work.
How?
How to maintain consistency
It’s hard to squeeze out a good idea when you’re at the end of your work day. Or when you’ve had a never-ending series of meetings. Or when you’ve switched contexts a thousand times. Yet, not posting is hardly the solution. It can create a butterfly effect that hinges on everything, from how people perceive you to whether they engage.
Something that has worked for our clients is setting clear but realistic goals. Broken down into small pieces and turned into a routine, this approach can work wonders.
For example:
- Develop a practicable content calendar. That is, a publishing calendar you know in advance you’d be able to stick to. To ensure it’s attainable, test it before your first thought leadership campaign. We mean, truly test it. Then fine-tune it. Trial and error is the mother of factual understanding.
- Do not let thought leadership be an afterthought. 73% of decision-makers see thought leadership as more trustworthy than standard marketing. 7 out of 10 look favorably at organizations that create thought leadership content. (Edelman’s “2024 B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report”). So, make it a priority, as it can make a world of difference.
- Repurpose content. This is such a simple yet effective tactic that it’s a shame not to apply it (and this is an understatement). Turn webinars into blog articles, blog articles into LinkedIn posts, LinkedIn posts into catchy TikTok videos… You get the drill. It can save you tons of time while keeping everyone engaged.
How to ensure content relevance
When relevant content is the goal, ask yourself: Will my audience find this piece helpful? Am I solving anything? Am I offering a new idea, no matter how small compared to the discovery of the photoelectric effect? Will this arouse the attention and interest of anyone?
To make sure your answers to these questions are favorable, you can take a range of actions.
One is to stay updated with industry trends and regularly gather audience feedback. Relevance comes from understanding challenges and detecting ongoing industry shifts. So, stay up to date with industry trends and learn what your community cares about.
Drawing ideas from original reports, authoritative commentary, and case studies is another one. Other authorities’ outputs can provide a steady stream of content. In case you were wondering, relying on other people’s revelations is perfectly legit. No one can research everything alone. So, lean on your peers’ expertise to be a recognized expert yourself.
How to measure ROI
Measuring ROI in thought leadership is a convoluted affair. Conversions from thought leadership don’t happen immediately, nor are they always easy to track. And that’s just one challenge.
To ease the pain, specify what success looks like for your thought leadership marketing strategy. Lay it out in crystal clear terms and tangible benefits. Then, add the KPIs discussed earlier, and you’ve got yourself a solid ground for measuring ROI. Indirectly, but still measuring.
Examples of successful thought leadership in tech B2B
A good thought leadership strategy rests on consistent value-driven content. Original insights and techniques that inspire credibility and engagement are two other pillars. Here are three examples of tech thought leadership that embody these qualities.
Microsoft
Microsoft is a visionary leader who sets the bar high for other companies. It publishes original reports on AI, cybersecurity, and digital developments. It conducts in-depth research. It creates products that are household names. And it remains committed to open-source projects like VS Code and Azure ML. All of these contribute to reaffirming its leadership within the tech community.
Salesforce
What makes Salesforce an exemplary tech thought leader? Top-notch technology combined with accessible reports, engaging webinars, and captivating blog posts. Its content provides guidance backed by hard data and insider info on sales and marketing trends. This is how the company engages its audience year-round and builds impeccable authority.
HubSpot
HubSpot has become synonymous with exceptionally engaging educational resources. Its sales and marketing articles, courses, and certifications set the standard for quality. And its product ecosystem is an indispensable asset for any business.
HubSpot first teaches you how to succeed and then enables you to succeed via its technology. That is how you become a prime example of thought leadership.
Conclusion
Thought leadership is an effective way of achieving your business goals. It’s also a creative means for fulfilling your personal passion for your industry. It’s just different. But like anything worth doing in life, it takes pain and resilience to see results.
We described typical deterrents on the path to thought leadership excellence. By now, you should have a good understanding of what to expect and how to overcome trials. We covered how to find a niche, understand your audience, and craft and distribute content. We didn’t leave out analytics and ROI, either. So, what’s next?
Frequently Asked Questions
