The secret for thought leadership: consistency wins from intensity

Not seeing the results from your leadership content? Hardly any reach and no impact on sales? To cut to the chase, your strategic approach might be off. You're doing it wrong.  

Or your expectations are too high; seeing revenue from your leadership content takes at least 1 year, 3 years is more realistic. Two things to know for your strategic approach. 

First, you and your team have to do the boring stuff. Practice makes perfect. Be hands-on to make progress and an impact. The stuff you’re doing when no one is watching creates great content. 

Second, you have to be there and show up. Be visible. Always on. Leadership content isn’t a campaign that you run and give some love and attention every once in a while. Don't measure vanity metrics such as likes, comments, and shares, and stop when you're not seeing the high numbers. You can't 1:1 attribute thought leadership content; it's a long-term invisible game.  

And realize AI can help, yet it's not the magical solution. In all my daily content work, I use AI to do research, help me with my writing and proofreading, analyze my data, and speed up processes. AI is integrated into the daily grinding; there's no such thing as an AI solution or tool that creates multiple variations of your thought leadership content, spits out your content assets, and amplifies your reach. 

What I'll explain below:

1. Build trust through consistency
2. Maximize reach by repeating what works
3. Expand your reach by posting asynchronously
4. Become agile, responsive, and adapt quickly
5. Create 42+ assets from 1 piece of content;  multiply with AI
6. Refresh and update existing content; 2 to 5 pages drive 80% of your traffic
7. KPIs. If you want to measure, zoom out and long-term

Let's dive into the details. 

→ Content distribution: be there and show up

Let’s start with the most sexy part of the boring stuff: the distribution on social and email marketing.

Leadership content is just like a human love relationship; it’s the daily attention, love, and care that builds trust, not the impressive, big, intense things such as a night out, fancy dinner, or occasionally flowers.

And good to know, all the algorithms absolutely love consistency as well.

1. Build trust through consistency 

You have to be ‘always on’ on social, even when the vanity metrics are disappointing. It’s not about the likes or comments. It’s being there consistently and frequently that builds trust and relationships.

So, for you to do right now is to fill your calendar for the next 12 months with bi-weekly content for LinkedIn and email marketing.

Lack of content? You can repeat what works. If your content added value the first time, for sure, it also does the second time.

2. Maximize reach by repeating what works

There’s nothing wrong with repeating what works; never presume everyone has seen your content the first time you published, and it’s good to know that you have to repeat your message at least 5 to 7 times before it sticks.

You can use AI to create multiple variations, as explained in the paragraph below.

Still a lack of content? You can spread out your content over the channels and the weeks. Expand the lifetime of your assets by posting asynchronously.

3. Expand your reach by posting asynchronously

This is the best trick to get more reach with the same content. Someone who browses Instagram stories probably also checks their Instagram feed and opens their email, all on the same day. You can reach them three times with the same content if you spread it out.

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket; spread it out. Nobody gives a f*ck if it’s yesterday's or last week's post; as long as it’s relevant, it’s relevant. 

→ Daily love and grinding, practice makes perfect

This is the less sexy part of the content. It’s the grinding of the work. With practice, that makes perfect. 

Daily love and attention to your content production results in sustainable progress with habits that together have a cumulative effect. The more content you make, the better your content becomes.

Just like sports and fitness, learning to play an instrument, the sexy and exciting results come from doing all the boring things really well. For the runners, it’s the dreadful, endless, slow, long runs to build your base for a marathon. For an athlete, it’s the endless reps to create muscle memory and stamina. For a musician, it’s the never-ending daily practice on a piano.

The daily grinding in content production also brings you closer to the action.

4. Become agile, responsive, and adapt quickly

The nice side effect of an always-on production process is that you’ll become more agile and responsive to the market and society. You can jump on the opportunity and respond to what’s happening around you and what matters to your customers now.

Once you have your content, getting multiple reusable assets from just one piece of content is a great trick to get more value for money.

5. Create 42+ assets from 1 piece of content; multiply with AI

Have you considered creating multiple variations with reusable assets from just one piece? With some creativity, you can create 42+ or more assets from just one content piece. If you have some patience and repeat what works, you can multiply that even more.

First, you create one piece of content for your .com or newsroom. Then, with the help of AI, you pivot that into multiple variations, and per variation, you create multiple assets for your distribution on social and email marketing. Easy does it.

Still a lack of content despite the tricks, you can refresh and update what you already have.

6. Refresh and update existing content; 2 to 5 pages drive 80% of your traffic

If you check your Google Analytics, you’ll see that just a few pages drive 80% of your traffic. In my case, it’s 2 pages that are huge and 3 to 5 that have a significant impact.

So, I check, update, and refresh these pages every month. This means I add, make small changes, or update the visual. By doing this, I keep my SEO ranking while the content is fresh and new again. 

Read here the best trick to finding content you can recycle and republish. 

7. KPIs. If you want to measure, zoom out and long-term

I get it you want to keep track of progress and report to your peers in the C-suite. Instead of zooming in on the short-term vanity metrics such as likes and comments, zoom out. 

• Zoom out on the metrics and plot your thought leadership content against your business results. A good alternative to your overall sales is your ranking on SEO. Google ranks your content based on its relevance and quality for your audience. The better your content gives an answer to their search, the higher you'll rank. Of course, this is a very simplified statement, and there is much more to SEO ranking, yet that's basically what it comes down to.  
• Zoom out over time. Don't look to the weeks or months; quarterly or half-yearly is a much better indicator of what's happening. Not only do you need time to get your thought leadership content seen, you also need to eliminate the impact of seasonality or hiccups from the algorithms and changes in SEO rankings. 

Here's what you can do, the actionable steps

Here are 3 big tips to nail this. Most importantly, this is also what you need to manage in the leadership team. Be frank and upfront about what to expect and when. 

Have allocated resources in your team. 

Leadership content needs daily love and attention to make an impact. Not only in de production, also in updating, monitoring, analyzing, and planning. It’s not a campaign you run every once in a while.

No full-timer needed; it takes me 1 to 2 days a week to run my newsroom, from content production to distribution.

Get AI; the next best time to start is today

If I still have to explain how AI can help you speed up your content production process and scale your assets, you’ve been living under a rock the last year. And all while you stay authentic and true to your brand voice. 

AI grows exponentially; however, on the senior executive level, 1 in 5 experiments with AI, while in the younger generation, 4 in 5 embraces AI. And not even 1 in 3 organizations are prepared for it. And the business is 10% win in time against 2% investment in licenses and training. 

Realize it takes time

It takes roughly about 6 to 12 months before you see an impact on your SEO ranking and maybe even longer before an impact on sales. You have to manage your peers in the leadership team and adjust your KPIs in the reporting. 

From experience, it took me 9 to 12 months to see sustainable growth in my SEO traffic. 

Wrapping it up

So, if you want to maximize your impact with leadership content, the best strategy is to be always on. Leadership content is not a campaign; it's an ongoing, continuous effort to build trust. It takes patience and consistency, which can only be done if you take your time and have allocated resources. 

But if you do, you can claim that leadership in your industry and show your customers that you're the one. 

What you need to know to engage your audience by doing the boring stuff well.

1. Build trust through consistency
2. Maximize reach by repeating what works
3. Expand your reach by posting asynchronously
4. Become agile, responsive, and adapt quickly
5. Create 42+ assets from 1 piece of content;  multiply with AI
6. Refresh and update existing content; 2 to 5 pages drive 80% of your traffic
7. KPIs. If you want to measure, zoom out and long-term

What to do right now

• Have allocated resources in your team. 
• Get AI; the next best time to start is today
• Realize it takes time

And don't forget to have some fun along the way. Even when you're doing the boring stuff. 

Stay ahead: subscribe to my newsletter

If you want to stay up to date on AI, content, and marketing based on insight and how it matters to you, subscribe to my LinkedIn newsletter. And you'll receive my monthly update on the LinkedIn algorithm automatically in your inbox. 

Two-click subscribe, and one-click to unsubscribe if you don’t like it.

Easy does it.

→ Subscribe