3 Simple Steps to Scaling Thought Leadership

Dr Suess said it best: “Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”

And it’s true, the one thing that sets your business apart from every single other business is…you.

Unless you’re the only business in the world who can do what you can do, then the only differentiator is you.

Yes, there will be slight differences between your business and your competitors’ business, but nothing is as strong and compelling as you. If you can become the leader in your industry—the most trusted and respected voice—then your business will be unstoppable. 

The question is…how?

How do you become the leader in your industry?

The quick answer is by creating thought-leadership content. 

The second, more complicated answer is getting this ‘thought leadership content’ in front of as many people as possible. The problem – it’s notoriously hard to scale this type of content. 

So how do you scale it in a way that gets your message heard far and wide…without losing quality? 

It’s something we’ve managed to do for ourselves and others, so let’s show you how…

What is thought leadership content?

What do Steven Bartlett, Gary Vaynerchuck and Marie Forleo have in common? 

Apart from being world-class marketers, they are all considered thought leaders in their industry. 

Believe it or not, this word isn’t just reserved for celebrities – anyone with ideas/experiences or expertise that sets them apart from their industry can become a thought leader – they just need to formulate and share their thoughts.

But what do we actually mean by thought leadership…

Thought leadership is a term used to describe an individual or business that is widely recognised as an authority in a particular field. A thought leader is someone who specialises in a specific area and is sought after by others in the industry for guidance. As the name suggests, thought leaders are at the forefront of shaping ideas and leading discussions on a particular topic.

In other words, thought leadership is all about being the go-to person in your field, the one that everyone looks to for guidance and expertise. It’s not just about having a great voice but also about being able to influence and inspire others with your ideas and insights. 

And how do you become a thought leader, you ask? 

Well, it’s simple – you need to create thought leadership content, not just any old content. It’s not about regurgitating information that everyone already knows or rehashing the same tired ideas that you’ve found from a quick Google. 

No, thought leadership content is about pushing the boundaries, challenging the status quo, and offering fresh perspectives that make people sit up and take notice. It’s about being able to anticipate trends and identify opportunities before anyone else does. 

In short, it’s about being a game-changer!

Thought leadership content is uniquely yours based on your own experiences, and can include things such as:

• Methodologies
• Experiences
• Stories
• Anecdotes
• Case studies
• New trends 
• Framworks

If it’s something that only your brain could come up with, then it’s your thoughts and thought leadership. 

Why is thought leadership important?

In our opinion, it’s always been important to showcase your expertise through original, expert content. It’s not only an excellent way to build trust and improve rankings, but it also creates a platform to demonstrate your experience and uniqueness—a.k.a. the reason why people should work with you over others. 

However, these days it is even more important than ever to create thought-leadership content. 

Why?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll have heard the buzz around AI content – and how it’s taking over the world. 

And yes, it’s definitely easier than ever to use AI to create run-of-the-mill content to populate your website. But the problem is,  AI just regurgitates what’s online. You certainly can’t create thought-leadership content with AI – it comes from a uniquely human perspective – yours. 

So, focussing on creating distinctive content can help you stand out in a crowded marketplace where everyone is relying on AI rather than their own thoughts and processes. 

Whether you’re an entrepreneur looking to establish yourself as an authority in your niche or a corporate executive aiming to position your company as an industry leader, thought leadership is the name of the game. 

It’s the secret sauce that sets you apart from the competition and gives you that extra edge. 

Read more: SEO Content vs Thought Leadership Content: which should you create for your business?

How do we scale thought leadership?

Over the last few weeks, we’ve spent a fair bit of time explaining why strategy and a repeatable process are critical to the success of your B2B content marketing. Without them, you can kiss goodbye to a successful content marketing story. 

But actually, scaling this type of thought leadership content can be incredibly difficult…

Why?

Well, we’ve already touched upon the fact that you can’t use AI to help write it (which might not be the worst thing). But it also requires a lot of thought (unsurprisingly), and work to create the ideas upon which to base your content – this isn’t another generic listicle that anyone can bash out in a few hours. 

However, difficult definitely doesn’t mean impossible—we’ve done it for ourselves and many of our clients. 

And yet again, it all comes down to having the right process in place to ensure that you can create and scale thought leadership content within your business. 

So, how can you scale thought leadership content?

1. Start long-form first 

Firstly, you will need to solidify your ideas into long-form, thought-leadership content. 

This can be whatever type of content you are most familiar with, including:

Blogs
Videos
Podcasts
Books
Webinars
Courses 

Of course, this needs to be good-quality content…

“Garbage in, garbage out” – was a concept coined in computer science, but it can definitely be applied to creating and scaling content – you definitely don’t want to be scaling rubbish content.

So that’s your starting point – creating really good content on which to base the scaling process. You may have this already, especially if you’ve been creating content for a while, in which case you’re at an advantage and can go straight to step two…

2. Pull out the key points…

Next, it’s time to determine the parts of your content that make it unique, juicy, and valuable to your potential customers.

This is going to be where your frameworks, methodologies, experiences, stories, anecdotes, case studies – anything that can’t be found elsewhere – are going to come into play. 

These key points are going to form the basis of your scaling process, as this is the stuff that really cements you as a thought leader, and what you want to share and get as many eyes on as possible. 

So pull out the points that help showcase your expertise, and help you stand out as a leader rather than a follower in the industry, and then it’s onto the final scaling step. 

3. Come up with a scaling plan…

Here’s the thing… thought leadership is not just about creating great content; it’s also about distributing it effectively. 

After all, what good is your genius if no one sees it? 

As a thought leader, you need to be strategic about how you share your insights. 

Once you have a list of all the good stuff from your long-form content, it’s time to figure out how to get it in front of as many people as possible. 

By publishing and sharing thought leadership across social media and other platforms, you will amplify your message and reach a wider audience—this is how you will scale the content that you create.

An example for scaling thought-leadership content…

So, what does this actually look like in practice?

Knowing how to do it is all well and good, but we’ve implemented it repeatedly, and we want to share that knowledge with you. 

Let’s have a look at our Standout method for content creation as an example of how to do this…

This is a methodology that is unique to us and forms the basis of our Standout content and coaching course to help our clients get off the sidelines and into the spotlight. It stands for:

• Strategy
• Target Audience
• Action Plan
• Noteworthy Content
• Design
• Optimise
• Upgrade
• Traction

We’ve completed step one by creating this thought leadership content (a.k.a. the course) and then used our proprietary standout content framework for stage two. 

Now, it’s time to scale this thought leadership content by sharing highlights across multiple platforms, and we can do this by…

1. Explaining how we came up with the framework – what triggered the process?
2. Creating a LinkedIn post for each of the framework acronym ‘letters’ and expanding on them (that’s eight posts just from that)
3. Sharing a LinkedIn and Instagram Carousel post
4. Creating a cheat sheet for LinkedIn and Instagram (that people can print off and use)
5. Using success stories to illustrate how the method can have an impact on content
6. Creating a ‘before and after’ illustration table (i.e. what’s it like before you use the standout method and then after) 

These are just a handful of the ways that you can repurpose content and create multiple posts from one idea.  

From this example alone, you could get at least 12 posts, plus another piece of content in the form of a downloadable cheat sheet. Multiply this across all your social platforms and your email lists, and you’ve potentially got weeks’ worth of content – all pointing back to the one thought leadership piece of content. 

The whole point is to create as much good content as you can around the thought leadership methodology. 

By creating really solid thought leadership content and amplifying the message across numerous posts and pieces of additional content, you can scale without having to produce loads of new content. 

So scaling isn’t really about creating more, but about doing more with what you’ve already created. 

Can you outsource scaling thought leadership? 

If you’ve read any of our blogs, you’ll know that creating great content that moves the needle isn’t complicated, but it does take dedication. 

It’s not about producing one excellent blog but developing an infrastructure of engaging, informative and educational content that you hit publish on week after week. 

This is why it’s commonly one of those tasks that business owners decide to outsource to an expert (such as Jammy Digital). We’ve seen a lack of commitment to an ongoing content strategy be the downfall of many well-meaning business owners when it comes to content. 

But that begs the question that if thought leadership content is uniquely yours, and based on your own experience – then can it be outsourced, or do you have to do it yourself?

You’d be forgiven for thinking – absolutely not – but believe it or not, outsourcing thought leadership content is actually something that you can do, and that we do for many of our clients. 

With one major caveat…

You have to have good content to begin with…

At Jammy Digital, we have a team of phenomenal writers, video editors and content strategists who can create engaging, search-engine-optimised content that pulls in your ideal clients. But we’re not experts in your industry, and so we can’t create frameworks, methodologies, or anecdotes from your experience—we’re not mind readers. 

However, we can absorb your expertise and use that to create thought leadership content on your behalf. 

For example – this month, our team has read 14 books from our clients and used that material to create hundreds of brilliant pieces of content, including blogs, videos and social media content. 

So, if you already have a bank of good content, we can use this to create and scale thought leadership content. 

Read more: SOS! 3 Forgotten Things that Can Make or Break Your B2B Content Marketing

How do you make sure you don’t lose quality when scaling? 

Like we said earlier – garbage in, garbage out!

The first step in ensuring that you keep the quality of your content, even when scaling, is to create really great content. Without that crucial step, you’re never going to be able to scale it in a way that makes an impact. 

But also be mindful of losing what makes your thought-leadership content unique when you scale it – it’s easy for it to slip into bland and boring.

This is why it’s important to repurpose the content – not just regurgitate. Use it to create something engaging, with value-add, and expand on what you’ve already created to ensure that each interaction is bringing more and more to your potential customer. 

Also, remember, it’s hard work…

Yes, the original thought-leadership content does take time, but so does repurposing and expanding it into something that amplifies the message. Transforming a methodology into a carousel will take time, graphic design and copywriting skills, so you might need help. 

If that’s the case, don’t hesitate to reach out and find a team that can help you create and scale top-quality, engaging content rather than doing it half-heatedly yourself. 

Need help with thought leadership content?

Thought leadership will catapult you from the sidelines to the spotlight, but it’s not easy to create content that hits the spot over and over again.

Not only can we create and repurpose thought-leadership content, with all the expertise and skills you might not have. But, we also teach you how to effectively create and scale high-quality, needle-moving thought leadership content. 

Our STAND OUT content course, where we give people the frameworks to do this, and implement AI to scale it in a way that works for you.