The gist of the article was a that each type of content is different, and therefore should be written by different people. Not exactly groundbreaking. One thing that I said, though, which I guess not everyone agrees with, is that people should blog in their own voice, for themselves.

I got an e-mail from a professional copywriter who said that she often blogs and writes speeches for busy CEOs, and that they often are very happy because she can say things better than they can.

This was my response to her in my e-mail:

I understand your point about busy CEOs and such. My strong belief, though, is that (barring a gross inability to communicate [which is rare among successful leaders]) those busy people, from fortune 500 CEOs to small business owners, should find some of their other work to outsource before they give up expressing their own opinions/ideas/etc on their blogs and Social Media accounts-especially if Thought Leadership is an important goal. These are not press releases I’m talking about, or sales copy. This is not “Here’s how great the company is doing” PR blogging. I’m talking about giving the public a glimpse into the insight and inspiration that is driving the company. If the CEO/Founder/Owner/Director doesn’t have some kind of magic secret sauce unto herself that no one else (even a good writer) can copy, then why is she in charge? And why should the rest of us care?

You could get a lot of different points out of this. Certainly this exchange covers a number of issues, from what leadership should be doing, to the quality all for authentic communication, to the economic benefit of outsourcing.

If you read my blog long enough, you will start to get a sense of what I think about all of those topics.

But the one thing that I want to specifically draw your attention to, is the “secret sauce.”

Thought leadership is not about social media. It is not about blogging. It is not about networking. It is not about using the latest technology, or having an iPhone, or any of that other stuff that the media likes to talk about.

Thought Leadership is about the secret sauce.

Nobody subscribes to your blog or seeks you out at a conference or twitters with you based on your well-written press releases that tell the world about how great your company is, or how innovative you are, or what benefits the new features of your new gizmo will be most beneficial, or any of the other crap that corporate blogs like to talk about. People will not recognize you or your company as a thought leader based on good sales copy, or well-crafted corporate communications material, or any of the other things that you should be hiring professional writers to do for you.

Those things are important. You should have well-crafted press releases, and precise sales copy in your brochures, and carefully worded corporate communications. You need all those things.

But they are not Thought Leadership.

You are a thought leader because of your secret sauce. You’re a thought leader because you have something unique to say, something unique to contribute, something unique that no one else has. It could be your method, it could be your ideas, it could be your source of inspiration, it could be the peculiar way that you string words together. Whatever it is, it’s the thing that makes you qualified to be a CEO or a founder or an entrepreneur or a what ever. It’s the thing that makes you qualified to be a thought leader. If you have that, then you should be writing in your own voice. If you really truly have it, then it should be obvious that a writer, no matter how good they are, cannot simply copy you.

And if you don’t have it, then you are not a thought leader.

Is all this content, since it is all words, approximately equivalent? Should the intern or outsourcer you’ve hired to post links on Twitter be the same person who writes your weekly blog post?

Obviously, the answer is, “of course not.”

In The Social Bootstrap guide to DIY Thought Leadership, I discuss 6 different kinds of text content that a thought leader needs on their website: articles, blog posts, sales copy, information, SEO filler, and hidden text.

So, who should be doing what?

If you are bootstrapping, you’ll probably do all of them yourself. That’s actually a really good thing, because once you are ready to begin outsourcing or hiring, you’ll actually know what needs to be done.

Here is a breakdown of the different hats you’ll wear (if you do it yourself), or the different people you’ll hire (if you can afford it).

Articles

Straightforward informational articles, like “What Is a Living Trust?” or “Notes of the Melodic Minor Blues Scale” can be written by any knowledgeable person. It helps if the writer has subject matter expertise, but with things like Google and Wikipedia, that isn’t really necessary. What helps the most is the ability to explain things simply, and an understanding of online search behavior.

This is the sort of thing entrepreneurs frequently outsource to content mills. That’s understandable, since they don’t expect this to be “thought leader content,” but rather, they often think of this as primarily search engine schlock. That’s not the best way to think about it.

Your potential clients, whether they show up through a search engine or from a business card, are going to check out your website. They are very likely, if they’re in the mood to buy something, to check out lots of other people’s websites as well. Good informational articles are not primarily about search engines. Good informational articles are about those people who are trying to learn about your service or pop-ups, and who would buy your products or services if they were well-informed enough. Obviously this means that your product or service needs to be good enough that a well-informed buyer would choose you over anybody else. Assuming that your product or service is good enough, actually educating your buyers about estate planning, or piano scales, or what ever, is a huge benefit.

Therefore, informational articles should not just be something that you push deep into your site, hoping search engines will pick it up (they won’t), but rather something that people can find easily from the front page of your site, if they have a mind to be looking for it. And so therefore, good informational articles should be written well by someone who knows how to write well.

That might not be you. But, it should be someone that you hire or oversee. It could be a freelance writer, or an intern, or your husband-but a content e-mail or a bolt article purchasing site is not the way to go.

Blog Posts

You should write blog posts your self. Blog posts are the public face of your company, at least online. Blogs should be written by the person whose voice they are in. That is, employees should write blogs as themselves, not as you. And you should not outsource blog writing if you can at all help it. Blogging, and all social media, is about authenticity and interaction. If you can’t find time to blog, and are thinking about hiring someone else to do it, considering hiring someone else to do all the things you’re doing currently, so that you’ll have time to blog for yourself.

Sales Copy

Words that are directly a part of your sales funnel (“Buy now!” or “Sign up today for a free demo”) should be written by a professional copywriter. Blogs can ramble. Informational articles can be a little bit confusing as long as everything works out in the end. But sales copy needs to be efficient and effective.

Is there a difference between “learn more,” and “try a free demo?” How would you know?
A professional copywriter, along with deliberate use of Google Optimizer, will get results far and above what you will be able to do yourself. If you are selling things online, and you do not have previous verifiable success doing so, a professional copywriter who understands e-commerce and A-B testing should be an early investment.

Info

Basic information, like your address, your phone number, and even your name and occupation, you should be able to write yourself. As I mentioned in my book though, understanding how people structure searches in Google can help you turn basic information into yet another attraction marketing opportunity.

SEO Filler

You should have good basic informational articles that are easily accessible from your home page. Those are not SEO filler. SEO filler is when you have 10 or 15 different articles explaining “The Basics of Prenuptial Agreements.” Nobody who is searching for information on your site needs all the different permutations: Prenuptial Agreements for Beginners, Understanding Prenuptial Agreements, Newly Engaged Person’s Guide to Prenuptial Agreements, What Is a Prenuptial Agreement?, An Introduction to Prenuptial Agreements.

No, no. No human cares that you have 15 different versions of that article on your site. However, assuming they are different enough, Google prefers that sort of thing. You are creating more opportunities for someone to land on your site.

These don’t absolutely have to be as well-written as your primary informational articles. A content mill is an okay way to go (assuming they aren’t duplicating content, and assuming the content is written by native English speakers), but probably not the best way. Bulk article purchasing sites, especially like those that cater to attorneys, are especially not the way to go because you are usually buying a set of articles which they have also sold to 100 other professionals. There is no search engine benefit to duplicate content.

Your best option here is probably to hire freelance writers yourself through something like craigslist.com or elance.com. This takes a little bit more hands-on management than a content mill, but there is no additional profit margin above the writer. This allows you to either save money or spend the same amount of money and get higher quality writing.

Just make sure that before you hire or purchase, you have done good keyword research and understand how search engine optimization works.

Hidden Text

Hidden text is all the stuff on your website that humans never see, or at least never look for. URL structure, metadata, file names, hover text, alt tags, link titles…

If you retain an SEO firm or a web designer, all that should be their job. Otherwise (and even then) you should have an understanding of what all these things are, and you should have the ability to correct them.

The most important thing here is preplanning. You could always add another article later. You can reformat your information. You can try new sales copy. But it’s very difficult (well it can be) to change your URL structure after your website has been running for several months or years. It can be damn near impossible to change your file structure on your server. You will never ever go back and add alt tags to all of your images. The more of this that you can do ahead of time, the better.

Learn More, Teach More

You can learn more about text content for Thought Leadership in my book, The Social Bootstrap guide to DIY Thought Leadership, which you can purchase at Amazon or read free online. (See Chapter 5: Words, Words, Words)

Or, even better than learning more from me, is teaching me and other people what you already know. If you have a little bit to say, leave a comment. If you have a lot to say, write your own blog post and a link to it in the comments, so the rest of us can find it.

The book covers all the essential information you need so that you can position yourself as a Thought Leader. That’s 137 power-packed pages. (I love alliterative sales copy, don’t you?)

Best of all?

You can read it free!

Learn more about The Guide, read it free, and/or buy the paperback.

I love Revolve.

Revolve is “the largest community of entrepreneurs in Boston.” They are, at heart, a discussion and networking forum for entrepreneurs, business owners, venture capitalists, sales people, freelancers, service providers, and hopefuls.

The heart of the Revolve community is the bi-weekly discussion group, which draws an incredibly wide and deep group of people with an amazing range of talents, expertise, experience, passion, and ideas. They also have two industry specific discussion groups (Green and Entertainment), plus all sorts of additional events like film screenings, parties, educational seminars, panel discussions, award ceremonies…

Behind Revolve (the community) is Revolve (the company), part of the Exemplar Law family. It’s the coolest law firm in the country. No billable hours. No stodgy law firm crap. Tons of experience. Tons of expertise. Tons of love and passion.

My business wouldn’t exist without Revolve… and I’m not even a client of the law firm (yet). I started attending the weekly discussion groups back when I was in Financial Services, and just starting to figure out how to start my own firm. Revolve gave me inspiration, knowledge, and a friendly kick in the pants. After a few months of hanging around over there, I had launched Social Bootstrap. They gave me the push I needed.

Thank you.

This post is part of the Brogan 100.
Learn more here and here.

That’s why I’m offering:
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I’ll show you how to get beyond the boring, and a world where presentations stop sucking (the life out of your audience).

Where:
WorkBar Boston
129 South St.
Boston, MA 02111

When:
September 28, 2009
6pm-9pm
Workshop from 6:30 to 8:30 with networking before and after.

This content is priceless!

Well, actually- it costs $99.

But for my loyal Blog readers, only $69.
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People are mostly reactive. Given the choice, they may choose not to react, not to buy, not to engage- but when the moment comes, they simply react to whatever stimulus is acting on them. That’s why people who buy from telemarketers put themselves on the DO NOT CALL list. That’s why people get so annoyed about junkmail, when it’s pretty easy to just throw it away.

That’s why people use all sorts of filters- they don’t want to be acted upon, because they know they will react in some way: join, buy, give, volunteer, change, or grow in some way.

Your job is to make it past the filters so that you can move them to action. Join your community. Volunteer for your cause. Buy your stuff. Check into your rehab program. Get baptized. Whatever.

A lot of people spend a lot of energy overcoming objections. Objections are weak filters. You should spend your time and energy on the harder ones.

There are typically three strategies for making it through the filters:

1. Throw enough crap at it that something is bound to get through.
2. Pretend to be the thing that’s supposed to get through.
3. Be the thing that’s supposed to get through.

Item 1 is traditional advertising.
Some people channel surf during commercial breaks. Some people get up and go to the bathroom. But if the commercial is loud enough, and is played enough times during a single episode, some of the people will hear it.

Item 2 is traditional sales.
Pretend to be a friend (networking marketing and direct sales). Pretend to be helpful (consultative selling). Pretend to be curious (SPIN selling). Pretend to be the lowest price (Wal-Mart). Pretend to be the most useful (Billy Mays, God rest his soul).

Item 3 is Thought Leadership.

People really are looking for useful information. You can use paid search ads (option 1) or try to game SEO (option 2), but in the long run, the real love- and the real money- will come from actually being an expert and actually providing the useful information that people are looking for.

Engagement they want.
People should be engaged when, where, and how they want to be engaged. People seek out information, inspiration, entertainment, and help ALL the time. If you are there when they are looking, you can engage them. Otherwise, one of their filters will kick in, and you’ll be kicked out.

Process they want.
If someone is interested enough after engagement that they want to learn more about what you do, make, or sell, the process shouldn’t activate any filters. Self-serving sales-speak activates filters. Overly complicated shopping cart systems do too. Upselling usually doesn’t, unless you’re obnoxious or the upsell seems unrelated (would you like fries with that cell phone?).

Product they want.
Otherwise, they’ll use you for information- and then take the info to the competitor and buy from them. “That’s not what I’m looking for” is the ultimate filter.

If you consistently are the friend, the consultant, the expert, and the best, the most convenient, the most useful, then you’ll get through the filters, because you’ll be what your future client is looking for.

You’re being asked by a major newspaper to give your opinion on a breaking news story.

Or a book is being published, and they need you to write a quote for the back cover.

Or they’d like to interview you for a documentary.

Or someone wants to know if you could do some work for them- they’ll pay whatever it takes, because they really want you.

Imagine having a great idea, writing it down, and suddenly a few hundred people are talking about it, writing about it, arguing about it… paying you to find out more.

Imagine mentioning a product, a website, a book, or a company, and within minutes a thousand people have bought, visited, read, and hired.

Imagine a hundred, a thousand, a million people each day seeing your name, or thinking about one of your products, or wishing they could afford to hire you, or hoping to meet you at a conference.

That’s being a Thought Leader.

Well… Maybe.

The thing is, you do have to do all that if you want to become a Thought Leader… in the field of New Media, Social Media, and Thought Leadership. If you want bloggers to see you as the world’s greatest blogger, there is a never ending arms race to have the coolest new technology, the greatest new Socially-integrated, semantic high-definition 3G cheese slicer.

But you just want to be a Thought Leader for Estate Planning or payroll processing. You just want more people to donate to your community theatre. You just want to sell more red flip-flops.

For you, most of those things are not essentials, just possibilities. Good ideas, maybe. Additional tools.

What does it really take to become a Thought Leader? What are the small set of things that are required?
Here’s my list.

Innovation

The bedrock of Thought Leadership is innovation. That doesn’t have to mean crazy-new technology. It might mean that, but it also might mean a new way of doing an old thing, or a new way of thinking about things, or even just a unique point of view.

If you’re not different- unique, interesting, innovative, creative- in some way, then it’s remarkably unlikely that anyone will ever care about your Social Media strategy. They won’t remember you after networking events. They won’t bother to come to your seminars or read your books. Why would they?

Without innovation, everything else stops being “Thought Leadership Activity” and becomes “New-Fangled Advertising and Time-Waste.”

Content-Rich Website

Until the world changes again (it will, but it hasn’t yet), a website that is full of interesting and useful content is the cornerstone of Thought Leadership. When someone hears your name, meets you at an event, or gets one of your newsletters, the first thing they’ll do (if they care) is Google you.

As great as a LinkedIn profile is, what they really want to find is your website. And when they get to it, they will make all sorts of judgements about you. Based on the way your site looks, the way it navigates, and depth of its resources, people will decide how good you are, how interesting, and how valuable. They will know (or think they know) if you are a start-up or an established business. They will know (or think they know) how much you know about your industry. How big your firm is. How profitable you are. Whether you’re a legitimate business or some goofy MLM scam. What kind of culture your company has. What kind of clients you service. Whether you are honest or not. Whether you are cool or not.

Blog

A blog (like the one you are reading) is something like an online journal and something like a personal Op-Ed collumn. They can be part of your overall firm website, or they can be separately hosted and separately branded. It’s a place where you can, on a regular basis, write about your thoughts and opinions relating to your field or industry. You can comment on current events and trends, you can announce company news or promotions, and you can advance your philosophies.

Blogs are essential for at least three reasons. The first is that they provide a regular way for people to connect with you and your ideas. The second is that the constant addition of content provided by blog writing is highly valued by Google. The third is simply that it is expected.

Robust Social Media Presence

No, you don’t have to live tweet while you stand in line at the grocery store. Nor do you need to post on everybody’s wall or follow everyone’s feeds. But you do need a presence. If someone wants to link to you, they should be able to find you. If they want to follow you on Twitter, they should have the option.

You can’t do everything, and it is very easy to lose yourself to the time-sink of Social Media (especially if you can convince yourself that it is “business”). But people expect to be able to find you on at least the most popular networks. If they can’t, they’ll just move on to the next hopeful.

E-Books and White Papers

These are just PDF files (usually), which address particular issues within your field in a more in depth way than a blog post or online article could. Typically, White Papers are shorter (5-15 pages) than E-Books (25-100) and more technical as well.

White Papers and E-Books give visitors to your site an opportunity to see the depth of your knowledge on particular topics, while getting some informatiion they can actually use. Even better, If your E-books or White Papers are useful and valuable, your readers will forward copies to their friends and colleagues, advertising on your behalf.

Print Books

Nothing says “expert” more than having published a book.

It is now possible to write, edit, design, publish, distribute, and profit from the sale of books, without a publishing company or an agent. Will you be a New York Times Bestseller? Probably not (although, probably not anyway), but that isn’t the goal, really. The goal is to position yourself as an expert, as a Thought Leader, and bring in additional sales to for your primary business. It may turn out that you make additional money from the sale of the print book. That’s just a (welcome) bonus.

Real World Networking

So much of Thought Leadership is tied to relationships. You’re trying to create a network (or a community, or a tribe) of people who think of you when they hear a reference to your industry. People who provide you with new business, but more than that- people who provide you with new ideas, information, resources, friendship, and joy. (It isn’t all abot money, you know).

While it’s possible to develop connections like that solely online and through media, it is so much easier if you just spend time with people. So go. Go to networking events, to conferences, to seminars, to workshops. If there are more than five people in a room, and one of them might be a potential client, you should be there.

Public Speaking

After print books, the most powerful Thought Leadership tool is Public Speaking. That could mean running your own seminars and workshops, or it could mean speaking and giving presentations at other events. When you stand in front of a group of people, and all the attention (or most of it, anyway) is focused on you, people assume you must know what you’re talking about. If it turns out that you do know what you’re talking about, and that you’re able to provide valuable, useful information, your audience will remember. They will tell their friends, they will seek you out for additional information- they will buy from you.

Visual Branding

A fresh, impactful logo.
A consistent color scheme and style.
Attractive fonts, perfect kerning, and a vivid margin.

In order to become a Thought Leader, you need people to engage with you and with your ideas. Your ideas will mostly be words, so you need people to take the time to read your words. Before anyone bothers to read, they will see the logo, or the cover design, or the splash page. They need to be compelled to read what you have to say. And once you have them reading, your branded design needs to make it easy for them to keep reading or to engage further with your material.

Sloppy branding turns people away. Inconsistent branding confuses people, which eventually turns them away. Branding that doesn’t quite match your culture, your personality, or your product inevitably attracts the wrong clients, who will be disappointed when they don’t get what they were expecting.

If you go crazy, trying to jump from one essential element to another, you’ll waste vast amounts of time and money. You’ll become frustrated and eventually give up.

But if you think strategically about how to combine the nine elements into a plan that makes sense for your business and your budget of time and money, you can build a following, become an expert, and create Thought Leadership.

And make a lot of money.

This post is adapted from a chapter in my soon-to-be-available book, DIY Thought Leadership.
The book will break down each one of those Essential Elements and show you how to do each one by yourself and on a budget.
If you’d like to know when the book is available,
Subscribe to This Blog OR Follow me on Twitter

What do you think? Too many essentials? Too few? What are you doing to create Thought Leadership?

To wit:
Adam Purcell of Hungry Dog Media has just posted this video, showing how to create an ecommerce site with a product for sale up and running in five minutes!
Ridiculous! Awesome! Fantastic! Scary as all get-out!

Few thoughts:

• Anyone out there thinking that it is too hard to start a business just got pwned.
• Anyone out there thinking that there won’t be any competetion for whatever goofy thing they’ve decided to sell (this includes me, you, and everyone you know)… we just got pwned, too.

More interesting, though (because it’s what I care about) is how easy to use the WP e-commerce plug-in is for selling downloads (ebooks, people; info-products). You don’t have to mess with payloads or anything else.

Now… Trying to actually make a living selling digital products and ebooks is tough, BUT… for all you consultants, service providers, professional experts, and (hooray) Social Bootstrappers… Ebooks, and other digital info-products, are KEY to your success as a thought leader.
Thought Leaders do a few key things:

• Innovate their industry. That is, have a unique point of view or way of doing things.
• Give away a lot of information, so that people start to use them as the “go-to” reference.
• Charge for additional (or simply repackaged) information, so that people see the value of their expertise. (The extra money is nice, but that usually isn’t the point.)

Number one is hard… very hard, and no one can do that for you. But WP has made it easier and easier to distribute your information, both for free and at a premium.

If you can learn how to harness Word Press for thought leadership, you can make a fortune! You have two options:

• If you are a service provider, a consultant, or a business owner who is INNOVATIVE and a has UNIQUE point of view, you can become a thought leader.
• If can find people who want to become thought leaders (they are everywhere), you can become a Social Bootstrapper, and help them reach their goals (and they will pay you… oh, how they will pay you).

Happy Bootstrapping!

In the “old days” people thought branding was just about a logo or a color scheme or a tagline. Today, people recognize that your brand is an identity that infuses your company from top to bottom. Well, most people recognize that, anyway.

Unfortunately, a lot of the social media gurus (heroes, all) understand the new meaning of branding, but have forgotten that it should include the old part as well… Color and design and logos and a “look” are important.

So, it’s exciting that Social Bootstrap is rolling out a new logo! Along with the logo, we’re infusing this site and all of our communications and materials with the color scheme.

You’ll see the new logo on the top of this page in the next day or so, and piece by piece a “look” will start to emerge. We hope you like it.

We think it’s awesome.