Thought Leaders Improve the Climate of Trust
Edelman’s 2020 Trust Barometer offers the latest annual update to a gold standard for understanding shifts in the levels of trust placed in major global institutions. Once again, the research has major implications for corporate communications, content marketers, and thought leaders in the world of business. The opportunity to inspire and grow trust is there if we only dare to act on it.
Reframing Corporate Communications as a Love of Truth
In company after company, the Communications department devolves into becoming the source of talking points and official versions. No one believes these things anymore. Not the media, not influencers. Not employees, not customers. Not investors, not the general public. In fact, no one even has the patience to pretend to believe these things. In short, […]
Combating and Defeating Thought Leadership Resistance
Every marketing and communications strategy requires some alignment with the business, but thought leadership needs more than mere alignment. It requires a deep relationship between marketer/communicators and subject-matter experts. That relationship is so close that it could almost be called symbiosis: close, frequent, and mutual interaction throughout the entire lifecycle. That requirement can seem off-putting […]
Moving the B2B Payments Ball Forward
Payments from businesses to vendors and suppliers remain a huge pain point in the payments ecosystem. I can speak from personal experience as a provider of B2B services. While most clients pay on time, the risks of late and non-payment can create a lot of anxiety. The pressure only intensifies for manufacturers of wholesale products, […]
Are You Planning for 2020 Thought Leadership?
Don’t make thought leadership an afterthought in your 2020 planning. The fourth quarter of the year usually means thinking through your strategy, plans, and budgets for marketing and communications. But if thought leadership has not been a major component of your planning in the past, it’s easy to get caught in “template blindness.” Most companies […]
The Power of Deep Specialists
Do you want to be known as an innovator in financial technology? Think about what it would be like working with someone who truly understood your business. Most of my clients come to me with unfortunate ideas about what it’s like working with a content agency. They have spent a lot of time and money […]
Making Thought Leadership Matter: A Sharing Manifesto
Imagine this scenario: one of the smartest people in your company has just published a blog post on her area of expertise. Some of her direct followers on LinkedIn like or share the post. It eventually goes out on official corporate social feeds and gets the usual degree of engagement. What was the point? This […]
It’s Time for Crypto to Get Beyond Cryptic
When technologies or trends end up far down in the trough of their hype curve, a funny thing happens. They tend to double down on talking only to themselves. I was reminded of this unfortunate tendency this week while attending an industry event on crypto investment, full of eager startups and zealous converts. Despite so […]
Four Things You Should Expect from a Ghostwriter
Not everyone has the time or talent to write. While I have not seen any specific studies, it is not unreasonable to assume that the majority of C-level executives do not develop their own articles or speeches. In my own experience, most people with a significant span of responsibilities within a company prefer not to […]
A 12-Point Checklist for Press Releases
People are often perplexed by the nuances of a press release. Unlike more free-form content formats, press releases have very specific rules and conventions. Here you are with an exciting new product or publication or announcement, excited to get the word out, but you risk falling flat by releasing something that does not look like […]