Measuring Thought Leadership

Thought Leadership Times Blog (Oct 4 2009)

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   Sounds ridiculous, and in some respects, it is.  It’s different than measuring market leadership, or the leadership of a division in Major League Baseball.  You can’t really quantify how much thought leadership you have in a given industry like you do market share or wins and losses.  Thought leadership is nebulous, it’s soft.  The phrase “you can’t manage what you can’t measure” is difficult to apply.  But you have to try.  You’re running a business, and no matter how hard it is, you have to try to manage – and measure  - how much you’re getting out of your thought leadership strategy.

   There’s nothing earth shattering here, but this is how I think about it.

   How many people are listening?

   There are a number of ways to measure this, including: site visitors, newsletter subscribers, site users and twitter followers.  The first three fall into more of a traditional conversion funnel with visitors at the top.  You’re doing well if you have lots of people visiting your site, but you’re doing even better if you can convert a high percentage of those people into subscribers of your content.  Sending them a newsletter at some periodic interval not only gives you an excuse to insert your ideas (and brand) into their inbox, but it also validates that they care about that message.  If they choose to become a full fledged user of the site, then they’ve given you even more information about who they are, and it shows that they want to become an active participant in the community that you’re spearheading thought leadership in.  Twitter followers are a bit of a different animal, but the concept is the same.  I think of twitter as a gigantic room where everyone is shouting something different.  When you enter this room, you can only listen to so much, so you have to show discretion when you decide to follow someone.  The people who have chosen to follow you want to hear your message.  They’ve singled you out as one of the people in this huge room whose message is worth listening to.  I’ll get back to that thought in a moment, but for now, keep in mind that your twitter followers are a very important group.

   The best part of all of those constituencies is that they’re all measureable, and therefore manageable.

   Are those listeners sticking around?

   So now you’ve gotten yourself a nice big number of visitors, subscribers, users, & followers.  You’ve achieved the measureable part.  The next question is: how do you manage them?  Are they sticking around?  How often are they coming back to the site?  Are you giving them reason to?  How are you managing it?  Much of that is up to you, the thought leader.  This is where you have to give your opinion, and provide them with a resource that they can rely on.  They don’t have to agree with you all the time, but they have to know that they can come to you for an answer if they need it.  Some things to keep an eye on, and again, not rocket science: Are the visitor numbers trending up? Are you adding new subscribers & users at a good clip (and not losing any at the same time)?  What does your twitter follower stream look like?  You’ll know if your message is resonating if the answers to those questions are positive.

   Are they participating in the conversation?

   The final piece of the puzzle is the most important.  How vibrant is this community that you’ve taken such time to cultivate?  Are users commenting on your blog posts?  Are you engaging them when they do?  Are you leading discussion around recent industry trends?   A large monthly user base is one thing, but keeping them engaged is a whole different ball game.  This is where the rubber hits the road, and it’s also the most difficult thing to do.  When someone mentions you or your brand on twitter, do you take the time to follow them back?  Do you listen to what they’re saying and let it shape your opinion?  Following them (and implicitly asking them to reciprocate) will show them that you care about their thoughts, and that you want them to come and be a part of the conversation that you’re having on your site.  If they choose to follow you back (or they’re already following you), as I mentioned before, they’ve decided that your message is something that is important to them.  They’ve picked you out of that room of millions.   At that point, it’s much easier for you to bring them to your site and get them into that conversion funnel where they can be measured.

   Yes, it’s tough to measure thought leadership, but there are ways to get a good idea of whether your message is having an effect.  Hard metrics like the ones mentioned above are a good way to get going down that path, and it’s nothing new: bring ‘em in, convert them, and engage them.  Simple as that.  Yeah right.

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