The Content Creation Battle for Thought Leaders

On your thought leadership to-do list, content creation is likely one of the most important tasks (and perhaps the most overwhelming). After all, almost everybody argues you need a blog, YouTube channel, book, social media account, or podcast to build your credibility and expertise.  

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And they’re not completely wrong. But also not entirely right. Of course creating content can help build your reputation and attract people to your audience. And researching and providing an in-depth analysis, like in this article, can showcase your knowledge and be valuable to your followers. 

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But does more content mean more impact as a thought leader? What type of content is best for you and your thought leadership goals? 

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In the most recent article in this series, we explored the most effective ways to generate a following. We discovered that while content creation is helpful, public speaking is one of the quickest and most effective methods. 

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However, there’s still a lot of pressure to create content—even for thought leaders who frequently speak on stage. So let’s break down what truly builds your credibility and audience as a thought leader—and introduce a content creation engine that attracts the right type of followers and creates more accurate, relevant, and inspiring content. 

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The Content Creation Dilemma 

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You see, there are two big problems thought leaders face when it comes to content creation.  

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One: It’s extremely time consuming. 

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Sure, publishing a book and becoming an author can look really good on your LinkedIn profile. But you have to invest a colossal amount of time to organize, outline, plan, write, edit, publish, and market a new book.  

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Over the last twenty years, I’ve written and published seven editions of Book Yourself Solid, as well as Steal the Show, The Contrarian Effect, Beyond Booked Solid, The Think Big Manifesto, and, most recently, The Referable Speaker, with my writing partner, Andrew Davis. 

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Some of these books have been NY Times, WSJ, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestsellers. Others had less success. In total, that’s twelve books—and if there’s one thing I wish I had done differently, it would have been to write fewer books! 

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Plus, if you set out to write a book today, it’ll likely be at least nine months before it’s published and out on the market (at best, and being very optimistic). 

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Can you afford to wait a year to start growing your following? 

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The same goes for creating a YouTube channel or podcast or posting content on social media—you’ll likely have to spend a lot of time on the creation phase. Hopefully the return on investment is worth it. 

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Traditional content creation can consume your time (and money). Before you know it, it can become a huge source of stress.

Two: It’s not always relevant to your audience.  

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Most people think of content creation as mostly one-sided. Thought leaders create content, and their followers consume it. They write articles, make videos, and share ideas they think are groundbreaking and revolutionary—without much audience feedback. 

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Sometimes it resonates with their followers. But sometimes it just doesn’t. (If publishers and producers knew what would be a hit, they’d only make hits. Same goes for us.) Perhaps it’s too difficult to understand or too complicated, or maybe there are holes or missing parts. 

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Most thought leaders create content in a vacuum over a long period of time. They spend weeks, months, or even years working on a book, long-form articles or blog posts, podcasts, or speeches. And they rarely test the water to see if the content is relevant and worthwhile. Instead, they assume they know what their audience will relate to. Often, they’re wrong. 

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This type of approach is not the fastest way to grow your following and credibility. (Ask me how I know.) 

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Before investing a huge amount of time, money, and energy into writing a book or creating a podcast, you want to ensure your ideas make an impact. You want to be confident you’re delivering quality, visionary ideas. 

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There is a better way to create highly relevant content, quickly. 

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What you really need isn’t just more content to build your credibility—it’s a content creation engine that allows you to showcase your visionary ideas and get immediate feedback from your followers. 

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A process that allows you to share content before you create the “final product.” This ensures that you can create content quickly, and use the feedback to make it more and more relevant to your audience. 

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This process in and of itself builds credibility. It ensures you give your audience what they want and need. And it allows you to grow your following and create content at the same time. It can even expose you to new ideas you couldn’t have thought of on your own. 

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And, it’s fast—you don’t have to wait months or years to get started.  

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Aerate Your Ideas, Constantly.  

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All right, how does it work? 

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Well, instead of creating content in a vacuum—without any outside influences or feedback and with only your expertise and knowledge to draw from—start aerating your ideas.

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Aerating involves sharing your ideas with your followers and allowing their thoughts, beliefs, and feedback to intermingle with yours. This process fosters the growth of new ideas and clears up any confusion or complexity surrounding your original concepts. 

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It’s the process of creating content through experimentation and investigation—using all the platforms at your disposal. You can use a weekly newsletter, YouTube videos, your podcast, blog posts, social media, and speeches to share and aerate your ideas. 

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For example, you could aerate your idea on social media, get feedback, then test it in a speech to see how it lands. Then, take what you’ve learned and tweak it for a podcast interview. See how your audience receives it, then put the new version in your speech or your book. The key is to keep testing to find new, powerful ideas that resonate with your audience. 

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Now, you might be thinking, “I’m still building my following and don’t have even a thousand followers.” 

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But you don’t need a huge following for this to work, you just need substantial feedback from a small but diverse audience to decipher what they think and what they believe about your content.