“The key word here is authenticity. If you’re not authentic, people see right through it. And then it doesn’t have the same impact, because if you’re just saying it to say it or because you think you need to have an opinion or a hot take, it’s not doing you any good.”—Mike Petchenik
In this #ContentChat recap, Erika Heald is joined by Mike Petchenik, a broadcast TV professional turned public relations and communications consultant, to discuss how to align communications and content teams to develop executive thought leadership. They explain how to identify the best brand thought leaders and develop their platforms, including ways to maximize your success with earned media pitching.
Watch the entire conversation on YouTube or read through the highlights below.
Identifying the Right Thought Leaders
The ideal thought leaders are subject matter experts in their field, actively engaging in industry conversations, and have time to dedicate to thought leadership activities.
“Just because they’re on your team doesn’t necessarily make them the experts that we should be pushing out and talking about.”—Mike Petchenik
CEOs rarely have enough time to give a thought leadership program the consistent attention it needs to grow.
“Just because it’s the CEO doesn’t mean they should be part of the thought leadership program. In many organizations, the CEO is really more like an operating partner in a VC fund, where they’re out there doing the work. They have so many things on their plate that thought leadership is not something they’re going to have time for. They might have time to be a spokesperson, so when you have a big announcement, you can give them the talking points, get them on screen, and they can be the face of the brand in that way. But it doesn’t mean that they necessarily are the right person to be out there and to be the leader for your thought leadership program.”—Erika Heald
Interview your prospective thought leaders to understand if they have valuable insights to share and stories to tell.
“Conduct a real in-depth interview. What are the facets of their expertise, what makes them tick, why are they interesting? Why are people outside of the organization going to care about what they have to say? That will inform the overall strategy as to how we put them out there as the thought leader when it comes to, specifically, earned media opportunities.”—Mike Petchenik
The Startup Thought Leadership Advantage
Startups typically have less red tape or organizational hurdles to clear for thought leadership. This enables them to be quicker and potentially more bold with their statements.
“In a way, it feels like our startup clients have the edge [on thought leadership]… because they don’t have so many people to have the level of bureaucracy or approvals, or regulations to think about.”—Erika Heald
“One of my corporate clients is a big wholesale insurance company. I’ve never put out the CEO as the thought leader. It’s always the subject matter experts who are really laser-focused on their specific track within the company that we’re putting out there. And because we’re not having to deal with that bureaucracy, they’re available; they’re there, they’re ready and willing to participate. Whereas the CEO is dealing with much bigger issues, and so it’s harder to get through to them. So I think startups definitely have an edge when it comes to being able to put together a thought leadership program much more nimbly.”—Mike Petchenik
“When you are in those bigger organizations, and you’re trying to do thought leadership, frequently, it ends up taking so long because you need to find the right ghostwriter, you need to have some availability, then they need to schedule a call, and do all of these other things. And so it frequently can take so long that unless you’re in a very staid industry that isn’t having any kind of disruption—and I can’t even name one industry right now that that fits—it can be really difficult to do.”—Erika Heald
Startup founders often have compelling stories about why they founded the company to solve a real challenge their customers face.
“Having worked in a startup where the CEOs were the subject matter experts because they started the company because of the pain point that they were feeling in their own life, it made them not only the perfect spokespersons, but also the perfect thought leader to share their expertise and how we are solving for this problem.”—Mike Petchenik
The Value of a Diverse Thought Leadership Bench
Develop multiple subject matter experts into thought leaders. If you invest your entire strategy in one individual and they leave, then the program has to start from scratch with a new thought leader.
“Whenever there’s a situation where there’s more than one thought leader at a company, [it] is ideal. You don’t ever want to be in that situation where there’s just that one person who has a lofty title about thought leadership, who then inevitably retires or leaves for a competitor. And then you have nothing.”—Erika Heald
Different thought leaders can address distinct content channels and formats based on what they are most comfortable with or where they shine best.
“Are they somebody who wants to be out there creating content that then we’re distributing? Or do they want to be out there speaking [on stage]? Or doing webinars and [virtual] presentations? Or are they somebody who wants to really focus on media interviews? Because those are four very different types of thought leadership opportunities that different people have different levels of comfort with. If you have somebody that needs to have written talking points or a teleprompter in front of them, you don’t want them having those off-the-cuff podcast conversations or even talk to a journalist, unless it’s something very product specific or very concrete that they’re well versed on.”—Erika Heald
Developing Thought Leadership Platforms
Align your team on the industry themes and topics most relevant to your organization. Then, identify thought leaders who can champion each theme.
“I like to get everybody on board with what the major themes are that are important to the industry, and then develop the equivalent of a speaker profile. It’s a thought leadership profile that lays out what they want to be known for, the ideal kinds of ways to work with them, and things we can share as examples that show that they know their stuff.”—Erika Heald
Ask ‘why’ questions to uncover your thought leader’s stories.
“When I go into one of these interviews, and I’m trying to kind of peel back the layers of the onion on who this person is and what makes them tick and why are they interesting, it’s really just a lot of ‘why.’ Not necessarily what or who, but why. Why did you get into something? Why are you passionate about this? Why should your expertise matter to somebody else? And it might be adversarial, this might sound that way, but what I’m trying to do is pick at them to get them to open up and share. Because the more we know—as the content people and the PR folks—about them, the easier time we’re going to have sharing their story with somebody who has no idea who they are and what they’re all about.”—Mike Petchenik
Host media training with thought leaders to practice messaging and tough Q&As.
“They need to have their key messages ready to go. Whether they are going on a podcast, or they’re speaking at a conference, or they’re just talking to a print reporter, or a trade reporter, they need to know their stuff. Get to the heart of the issues that they’re going to be talking about. And that might require some media training.”—Mike Petchenik
Learn more about how to develop a thought leadership platform in this blog post.
Aligning Content and Communications Teams for Thought Leadership Success
Organizational structures often silo comms and content teams, making it difficult to align their activities.
“In many organizations, the comms team doesn’t report into marketing, it reports into the CEO. And it may be on a different floor with the CEO, if you’re in a bigger company. And so you can end up in these situations where the content and the comms teams don’t really know what’s happening with each other. And so they can’t support each other’s work.”—Erika Heald
Thought leadership activities are valuable opportunities to promote content featuring new research or data.
“When you have one of those situations where somebody’s having a really great media interview and they’re being quoted extensively… and they don’t mention the survey results that you just published—that they’re even quoting from—or, they do mention them, but they don’t say ‘can I send it to you?’ to the journalist after; it just breaks my heart. Because nine times out of 10, if it is really good content and it’s not gated, you can get a link to it, which is so valuable.”—Erika Heald
Host cross-team meetings to discuss campaigns and share resources.
“It’s important for everybody to be on the same page, for there to be cross-functional conversations happening about who’s doing what.”—Mike Petchenik
Have comms and content representatives join thought leadership calls together.
“Especially if you’re in an organization where you’re trying to pin down that thought leader, why not do the interview together? Why not be in the room at the same time or virtually so that everybody is hearing the same thing at the same time so that then you can divide and conquer? What do you need? What do I need? How can we work together?”—Mike Petchenik
Finding the best thought leadership channels
LinkedIn is a great thought leadership channel. We highlight eight LinkedIn profile edits every thought leader should make to ensure you’re building from a solid foundation.
“LinkedIn is still number one in my book. I think the opportunity to share your ideas and connect with others in the business world is incredible. And if you’re not there, you’re missing out.”—Mike Petchenik
“A brief anecdote: One of the thought leaders who I’ve been working with at a company, we got an earned media placement for him to do a pretty in-depth interview about his unique story. He came here from another country at a young age, overcame a lot of obstacles to become the first person in his family to go to college, and he is now in a leadership role at a large corporation. He posted the piece on his LinkedIn page with a quote from it and some sort of nice perspective on how the piece went in his life. And a prospect he had been trying to get in front of forever saw the piece on his LinkedIn page and sent him a message, ‘Hey, I saw this piece, what a wonderful story. So inspiring. I know we’ve been trying to connect let’s get a coffee on the calendar.’”—Mike Petchenik
Owned content channels like a blog are essential for developing thought leadership.
“One of my clients asked me to put together a best practices for dealing with the media, so that they could share it with their clients when a reporter comes calling. And I was like, this would actually make for a pretty good blog post. So I turned it into that, and I put it out there and earned like 1,000 impressions, which is pretty good for me being a small business owner. It just means people are watching. It’s proof in the pudding that you gotta put it out there, because you never know who is going to listen to it.”—Mike Petchenik
Consider how you can create video content to use across channels.
“As a former TV guy, I’m certainly partial to video. It can showcase your thought leaders in a way that the written word simply can’t. It shows personality, it allows the viewers to connect with them on a personal level. And it allows them to answer really important questions around a topic and be maybe even more impactful than if it were just a blog or a white paper or something like that.”—Mike Petchenik
“I’ve had a few VC clients and had the privilege of being invited to their founder’s day events or their big portfolio company events. We always get a room near the ballroom where we’re having all of the stuff for the day. I would have my topics in advance, and I would get to interview CEOs on camera about a range of topics. Then, we would take all of that different footage and cut it up. Sometimes, we’d have two of them in the same video on the same topic or have three of them whenever we found stuff that really fit well together. It made for great social content, because it was people from companies that people wanted to hear from, and it was short and to the point. And then we would have 15 different pieces of content minimum come out of that kind of a session.”—Erika Heald
Pitching Thought Leaders to Top-Tier Media
Breaking through to top-tier media requires a hyper-tailored pitch that speaks precisely to the reporter and what their readers care about.
“It’s called earned media for a reason—because you’ve earned the privilege to be included in that coverage. It doesn’t just happen, right? The journalists don’t owe you anything. Speaking from my perspective over 20 plus years in news, the number of just horrible pitches I would get in my inbox every day from well-meaning PR people who clearly didn’t do their homework and had no idea what my newsroom covered.”—Mike Petchenik
“I worked at the ABC News affiliate in Atlanta, a very hard news station. I covered a lot of crime and courts and cops and all that. But I got a pitch in my inbox one day asking me if I ever wondered what it would be like to be a sugar daddy. And it was for some company that was a matchmaking website for people. And, of course, my answer was no, not really. Thanks, but no thanks. The reason I tell that story is because I think it illustrates the importance of doing your homework if you’re trying to pitch yourself to a media outlet, to understand what they cover. We would have never in a million years covered that story.”—Mike Petchenik
“When you’re trying to pitch yourself to any media outlet, whether it’s the Wall Street Journal, or CNN, or Insurance Business America, or any number of other fantastic trades—by the way, in the B2B space, that really should be your focus in addition to top tier media—it’s all about understanding what they cover, who covers it, why should they care what you have to say, and when you’re pitching them. It’s not the marketing message. It’s not the sales message. It’s what is your unique point of view, what is newsworthy that you can share that will ultimately be interesting to the audience of that media outlet?”—Mike Petchenik
“How are you helping solve this problem? Where do you fall within society? All these questions that the reporters are trying to answer, you need to put that hat on and think about that when you’re pitching the story. And so that way, when you do pitch it, you have a much higher success rate, because you’re actually speaking their language, you’re respecting their time, you’re respecting what they do.”—Mike Petchenik
“Even if it’s not a story they’re working on now, they might hold on to it for five, six months down the road. And you might get an email saying, ‘Hey, you sent me something a while back. I wasn’t working on it then, but now I’m interested. Can we have your CEO on as a guest?’”—Mike Petchenik
Prepare sample video or audio segments—even if no one airs them—so the reporter can get a feel for how your thought leader comes across on camera.
“When we share our thought leaders with various media outlets, I always love to include a link to a podcast interview they’ve done or if they’ve been on TV before. Because then it illustrates to that reporter or that producer this person knows what they’re doing. They’re not going to be bumbling through an interview with the anchor or whoever.”—Mike Petchenik
Thoroughly prepare your thought leader for interviews. Practice makes perfect.
“If you’re going to pitch your thought leaders for visual or audio interviews, prepare them ahead of time. Media train them. I cannot stress that enough; they need to go through the reps, you cannot just throw them to the wolves and expect they’re going to come across in a way that you’d want them to come across without having practiced.”—Mike Petchenik
“They need to be prepared to answer questions that we believe they’re going to be asked. And by the way, a lot of reporters will not send you their questions ahead of time. They’ll just tell you this is the subject or the theme we’re going to talk about. You can ask, but they’re not going to. I never did, because I felt like it would elicit the most spontaneous response if I didn’t tell them ahead of time.”—Mike Petchenik
“Have your key messages ready to go. Think of them in terms of soundbites, seven to 10 seconds tops. And then bridge back to those key points every chance you get.”—Mike Petchenik
Overcoming Thought Leadership Challenges
Ensure your chosen thought leaders can provide ongoing time to support thought leadership.
“I’ve seen instances where a company will put somebody up as a thought leader, but then they run into that issue of scheduling. Their time is so precious that they aren’t able to have buy-in to that program. And then when you don’t have buy-in, and you don’t have that collaborative spirit, because they’re just so busy doing other things, then it’s not successful.”—Mike Petchenik
Define your procedure for responding to thought leadership opportunities. Reinforce the importance of acting quickly to maximize your likelihood of success for high-value opportunities.
“It just starts with the buy-in at the beginning and level setting with the thought leader and the team—whether it’s the comms team or the content team, everybody—what the expectations are and what the standard operating procedure is going to be when opportunities present themselves. I think the number one issue is getting everybody on the same page and understanding the gravity of the situation in some cases, and why urgency wins the day, why you can’t drag your feet and be non-responsive.”—Mike Petchenik
Thought leaders should actively provide insights to fuel the thought leadership program.
“Sometimes people think that the thought leadership program and figuring out who are the right people, what they should be talking about, etc., they feel like they can just outsource that to their PR agency. While I think PR agencies certainly have their finger on the pulse of what they’re hearing from journalists, what they’ve been seeing placed across clients, I don’t know that you can have the expectation that they’re mind readers and that they can somehow intuit what formats are going to work for your thought leaders and what topics they are going to be able to have those great anecdotes and the supporting experience for.”—Erika Heald
“When you have those quick turn kinds of requests for feedback or an interview, et cetera, even if it’s something that could be done asynchronously… while you can have someone on your team draft those answers—because they know you well enough, they’ve been in all those meetings, they’ve sat through millions of these interviews with you—you still as the thought leader have to have time to review and add something that the person writing it couldn’t possibly know.”—Erika Heald
Explain to thought leaders why it is essential for them to engage with the brand’s social media content.
“If more people had the conversation with their thought leaders about how when they don’t engage with their owned content, they’re training the algorithm that people who look like them— people in their roles and people in their network—are not interested in anything they have to say. Once people realize that they’re training the algorithm to ignore their content, they go, ‘Oh, gosh, I guess I do actually need to be out there.’”—Erika Heald
“If you have a thought leader who’s not engaging, have them use [ChatGPT or Perplexity] and ask the tool who they are and what they’re known for. And if it can’t find out anything, it’s gonna tell you that. And you’re gonna feel bad about it, because then you can go [search] their biggest competitor from a content standpoint and ask [the AI] who that person is and what they’re known for. And then they’ll see that person [has] all these citations from all of these different places, because they’re actually getting out there and engaging.”—Erika Heald
