Stop Faking Thought Leadership: The Truth About Expert Content in B2B - EP2 - Content Wars

Adam Marquardt: One of the things that you talk about all the time is thought leadership. What does that mean in the realm of video? And then how does a company begin to approach thought leadership if they've never done it before on a video format? They might have done blogs or different white papers, different things where they have input from the thought leader. But what does it mean to actually do thought leadership based video? 

Nathan Yerian: So let's start with the term thought leader or thought leadership. I hate the term actually. You don't say? Yeah, no, I hate it. It is generally accepted as I guess what that category of content is called. 

So you kind of have to use it. But just because somebody comes out with ideas in general does not necessarily mean that they're leading ideas, self professing as I am a thought leader is a little little odd. I think there are people that are experts. That can give opinions and can have leading thoughts that should potentially be listened to and if they are whoever they are leading could call them a thought leader, but actually just coming out and saying I'm a thought leader is a little bit self serving. 

So that aside, I love it. If if companies are going to get involved in what they're going to traditionally call thought leadership, what we might call expert content, whatever it's going to be videos, probably the best place to start. It allows you to capture your experts and the information that they have, the experience they have and display it to your audience in a pure form. 

You're literally hearing it from the horse's mouth. Whereas where most B2B companies land is going to be a blog, they're going to say, oh, hey, we're going to do thought leadership. There's going to be a blog. There will be an attempt from the marketing team to include whoever the subject matter expert would be for that particular topic. 

I've spoken with a lot of marketing teams that have gone down this route. Sometimes they're successful. Sometimes they're not. A lot of times your your subject matter experts or would be thought leaders are they're busy. They don't understand why they're really involved in the content. They don't see the benefit of the content. 

In fact, many times the content doesn't directly benefit them. OK, hey, I sat down with you for an hour. You were able to write a blog out of it. What does that mean for the subject matter expert? 

The answer is not a whole lot. So it's it's hard to get them involved in that type of content. It's hard for them to understand why they're doing it. What information you need, how to prepare to give you that information. It's it's challenging. 

There's. Marketing teams that do it very well. They're subject matter experts that understand why you're creating the content and how it's going to be used and what they need to show up with. But I think there's a lot more that don't. So. You know, one of the reasons, you know, when we say, hey, from our perspective, I think video is the best starting point for thought leadership is going to be. One, like we talked about, it's it's hearing that message from the horse's mouth if you actually get that person on camera speaking directly to either an interviewee or the audience directly, you're able to get that perspective. 

As they present it, the other piece is going to be the participation in general. It's not some blog that, you know, maybe will be written. Maybe we'll include my quotes. Maybe we'll have my ideas in it. Maybe I'll be attributed. Maybe I won't. 

It's not this obscure piece of content. And it's you're going to be on video, bro. So let's actually do it. 

I think they can take it a little bit more serious. The hurdle is going to be the subject matter experts that know I don't want to be on camera. I don't want to be the guy or the girl that's, you know, the face of this. 

And that's fine. And that not everybody needs to be on camera, but there are people that are going to be wanting a little bit of the spotlight that have something to say, that have a perspective, that have an idea, that have expertise that they think could be shared. And those are the people you really want to focus on. 

Adam Marquardt: So for a company starting out, how many experts should they try to identify within their organization? Obviously you don't force it into, you know, a certain number, but round about what would make for, you know, both diverse and good quality content. 

Nathan Yerian: So it really depends on the company and what they're, what they're up to. I mean, I would say a minimum of one, right? You need somebody that's going to come to the table and say, Hey, I have something to say, here's what I want to talk about, or, or here's how this needs to unfold. Or here's how I see things differently. Right. You need at least one, or obviously it's not going to work. I would say don't start off with all of your subject matter experts. For instance, we have an engineering company that we work with. I think they have 12 or 13 different practice area leaders. 

Right. So, you know, getting into it with them, if they're like, Hey, we want to do it with 13 people immediately, that becomes very challenging. You can't, you can't go deep enough in any one category to make it make sense. And honestly, if you present that to those 13 individuals, some of them are going to take it very seriously. Some of them are not going to really want to participate. Some of them are going to be somewhere in the middle until you've proven success. 

It's very hard to go to a group of people and say, this is what we're doing. So I would say pick one, pick two, pick three and start there. And honestly, I'd really only get into the two or three if they're going to start co-creating content together. 

If it's just, you know, you're expecting them to do it on their own. I would probably pick one, show the program, show how it works, make sure that, that not just the company, but also the subject matter expert is getting value out of it. And when you have that model, it will allow you to go to the next subject matter expert and the next one and the next one and present it and say, Hey, this is what we're doing. This is how it works. This is what we get out of it. This is how it will be used. This is what you get out of it. This is how it could be used. So it gives you the opportunity to actually give them something out of that relationship to where you might do a long form interview like this, but you're able to actually clip important pieces out where they're saying things that matter and create social cuts out of it and give it to them. So can it end up on the company's LinkedIn page? Absolutely. But that subject matter expert can also use that on their own personal LinkedIn page to position themselves as a person with something to say about that particular topic. 

Adam Marquardt: So when you're talking about thought leaders and getting them involved, what kind of format should you be looking at? 

Nathan Yerian: So I think there's a multitude of formats that makes sense. Probably the one they're going to be most comfortable with is question and answer session. And it could be as simple as collecting some frequently asked questions from your sales team or your customer service team and really having them go as deep as they can to answer those questions. They're going to be very used to that because that is what the sales team comes to them with. That's what the customers come to them with. 

That's what the customer success team comes to them with already and says, Hey, we got this problem. We've never seen this before. You are the expert. What is the answer? So giving those answers is going to be very natural for them. That's that probably the easiest place to start. One of the hardest places to start is going to be something like this, right? 

Where it's just like, OK, here's a microphone guy, sit down and say some things that are brilliant, right? It's going to be very hard for them to do that if they haven't done that type of content creation before. So experiment with different things, see what works. Obviously, when you get into more of a podcast type situation, that that can be great. You can you can create long form and short form. 

If you're just trying to see if you can create video content for your subject matter experts, a lot of times the easier one is going to be. Start with frequently asked questions. Start with current events. Start with just interviewing them about what's happening with the company, the industry, the product, the customer, whatever it's going to be. Because these are things that they're going to they're going to know very intricately about, and they're going to be able to speak to them from a point of knowledge, which is going to help them feel comfortable getting on camera. For many people, it's not the most comfortable thing. 

So you're already going to be pointing cameras at them and lights at them and put a microphone in front of their face, allowing them to kind of stay a little bit in their comfort zone, at least to start is probably it's probably going to be beneficial for both the company in which the content that you're going to get out of it and also the subject matter expert and their willingness to continue on. in that mission. 

Adam Marquardt: So you mentioned about continuing on. Is the vision to sit down with them once and get it all, extract all of it in that one instance? Or are you trying to do this on a repetitive or repeated basis to be able to capture as much as they know on an ongoing basis? 

Nathan Yerian: So the goal is always going to be to have some sort of continuation within the content. You're not going to be able to sit somebody down and extract all of the information about anything in a hell, even an hour long conversation. You're talking about somebody that has 10 years, 20 years, 40 years experience dealing with this stuff. I mean, sure, they can sit down and have a 20 minute conversation or maybe even a 20 minute answer to one question. 

But fooling yourself into thinking that you're going to limit it into some sort of compartment is short-sighted. Additionally, as a company and for the subject matter expert themselves, you're going to need a continuation of content. Your audience doesn't need to hear from you once. They need to hear from you perpetually, as long as you want to be looked at as a leader of whatever it is you're talking about, you need to keep talking about it, even if it feels a bit repetitive at times. 

And it will. But there isn't a one and done solution that just check it off the box because your audience is waiting to hear about this content, whether it's what's happening now, what's changing about what you're talking about, a new situation that has arisen that deals with something that you've talked about in the past. There's always going to be something new happening or a different perspective or a different facet about what you've already discussed to present to your audience to give them a more well-rounded understanding of your view of things or what you're thinking in general. 

Adam Marquardt: So walk us through, why is it okay for the content that you create to feel or even be repetitive in nature? 

Nathan Yerian: So there's a number of reasons that you can generally repeat, I guess, yourself. And that's the way it's going to feel. It's going to feel like, well, holy shit, I've said this before, I don't need to say it again. 

And you do. And the reason is that you have an audience that they're not only sitting and listening to you. They're literally digesting thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of messages on a daily basis. So you're only a fraction of what they hear. So it's only going to process a certain amount in their brain. And then they may go a day, a week, a month, six months, a year before they hear from you again, even if you're doing content on a daily basis. So you can't make the assumption that somebody is sitting there only watching you and consuming everything that you say and memorizing it. 

And then as soon as you say something twice, they're going to go, ah, gotcha. That's not the situation. The situation is you have a perspective. 

You have a change, a mental change that you're trying to walk them through. And they're doing one of two things. They're either going, oh, yeah, that's right. I agree with that. Or they're going, I'm not sure. 

They could be going, you know what, that's absolutely wrong. So there's a perspective they're going to have based on what you're presenting and whether they're agreeing with you or disagreeing with you, being able to present that and continually present it is going to be important if you want to get them on your side of your thought. You know, even when we look at different pieces of content or even advertising, you know, it takes how many touches to get someone to do X very infrequently is it, oh, we showed them one thing, one time and then an action happened, right? Just the way the human mind works. You need a repetition to remember, to recall, to have that just mentally available for you. 

And that's one of the aspects of just kind of programming the mind of like, what is that thought? And then, you know, the other aspect is that you're going to have new people that have never heard your message before. You know, just because this might be the 75th time that you said something, when that piece of content hits that market, it may be the first time that a viewer hears that from you. And that's important because if you just said it one time and, you know, that was three months ago and you never create that next piece of content, that new viewer is never going to hear that perspective and they're never going to know what you think and they're never going to come along to your way of thinking. So having that perpetual conversation and being willing, it takes, it does, it takes a certain vulnerability almost to say, I'm going to say the same thing and I'm going to be repetitive and I'm going to have it from a multitude of presentation points, vantage points, facets, whatever you want to say, but I'm going to cover it as clearly as possible to the best of my ability as the expert that I am because my responsibility is to communicate that point of view to the audience and get them to do one of two things, either see it my way or potentially come and interface with me and let's talk about it because as an expert, the best experts in the world are not right about everything, right? So when you're creating content, when you're having these conversations, it also opens up a dialogue where you can say, hey, maybe there's an aspect I haven't thought of, maybe there's a different perspective out there that might change the way that I'm thinking. So perpetually putting that out and into the market gives you the opportunity to get new people to be exposed to that message. 

It gives the opportunity for the people who have been exposed to it to get enough of the perspective to come around to your way of thinking or potentially someone to come and say, hey, I don't think you're 100% right there and this is what I think should be changed about your perspective or altered in a way that can be improved over time. So I think the perpetual nature of the content is important and getting the subject matter expert on board for that is definitely going to be beneficial. 

Adam Marquardt: So for the people that really want to be able to include more thought leaders or experts of their team into video content, where do they start? 

Nathan Yerian: So I think there's two different starting points that really make sense for companies that are wanting to do more video based thought leadership. Obviously to do video, you have to have a way to get video done. You have to have lights, cameras, microphones, potentially, or you know what? 

Everybody has one of these at this point. So you can get it done as simply as your iPhone and a couple apps. But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter about the technology. 

It doesn't matter about the equipment. What does matter is buy-in. And there's really two levels of buy-in, which is why I say there's two different starting points. 

So you can go direct to your subject matter expert and say, hey, I kind of want to do this. How do we get this done? And there are certain companies in certain situations where that will work. The other way, and I would say probably the smarter way is to really include it into the overall marketing plan that has leadership buy-in. If you get leadership buy-in, the CEO, the CMO, the upper tier of the company, whether they are going to be the thought leader or whether somebody else is going to be, if they're at least bought-in, there's not a reason to immediately shut it down on the subject matter expert level where they're coming in and saying, oh, well, you know, I don't know. This isn't approved. 

It's not a thing. And then on the opposite side, it also gives the upper tier of management the opportunity to step in and be that subject matter expert and potentially be that thought leader if they know, hey, this is the direction marketing is going. They want to hear original thought. They want to hear our opinion. And they have a perspective of the challenges that their customers are facing, the direction the company is going, or maybe the direction the industry is going. They may step up and say, hey, I see what you're doing there. 

I like it. I want to be that person. So again, you can go either route. You can go directly to, you know, a subject matter expert and say, hey, we kind of want to do an experiment here and kind of make you a star or include it in your overall marketing, your overall marketing plan that you're actually presenting back into that executive team. And then almost asking them, do you want us to go down a level or two to start this process? Or do you want to start it at the top? My personal opinion is that it's always going to be more successful if you can start it at the top, if you have leadership buy-in and as much as many CEOs will not want to be the person, I think it'll be most successful if the CEO is the person. They should be the person with the perspective of where the company is going, where the industry is going and how to successfully get there. That is usually the direction of the company.