Embracing Marketing Mistakes

The 1 B2B Thought Leadership Strategy You're NOT Using in 2025

• Prohibition PR

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Only 26 percent of B2B brands see real results from thought leadership, even though 80% are actively producing it. In this episode, we explore why most strategies are falling short in a time when trust in media and corporations is at just 33 per cent in the UK. The biggest missed opportunity is clear. Employee-shared content delivers 561% more reach, is reshared 24 times more often, and drives eight times more engagement than corporate channels.

We share a practical roadmap for turning employees into influential voices. Learn how to create strong LinkedIn profiles, develop consistent content, and use nano-influencers to boost visibility without chasing massive audiences. We cover how to overcome executive resistance, measure success, and keep programs focused using a simple one-page strategy. You’ll also hear how friendly internal competition can accelerate adoption and results. If your thought leadership isn’t working, this episode shows how your people can turn it around.

Is your marketing strategy ready for 2025? Book a free 15-min discovery call with Chris to get tailored insights to boost your brand’s growth.

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Chris Norton:

80% of B2B companies are producing thought leadership content, yet only a quarter say it's delivering real impact. In other words, 3 out of 4 brands are churning out reports, articles and webinars, but with very little to show for it. Imagine putting in all that work, all that budget, and realising your audience simply doesn't believe a word you say. That's the uncomfortable reality many senior marketers are facing right now. Welcome to Embracing Marketing Mistakes the podcast that helps you grow your brand faster by learning from the missteps of the world's top marketers. I'm Chris Norton and my mission is simple to help you, the senior marketer, cut through the noise, build authority and turn mistakes into powerful growth strategies. Today, we're unpacking why so much B2B thought leadership falls flat and the single most effective strategy you've probably not using in 2025. This episode is taken from our bespoke sold-out webinar we held last month, where we worked with leading B2B brands like Equans, key Group, hathaway International and Keystone. Together, we explored why trust in media and brands is at record lows, why organic reach is shrinking and why your people, not just your company page, are the key to rebuilding influence online. In this episode, you'll learn how to unlock employee-led influence, why LinkedIn remains the best platform for genuine B2B impact and the practical steps to supercharge your team's online presence. So, as always, sit back, relax and let's uncover the B2B thought leadership strategy you're not using in 2025-2026. Enjoy, yeah.

Chris Norton:

So let's first of all start off with who we are. My name is Chris Norton. I'm the founder and innovation lead of Prohibition PR. We are the North's well, basically in Leeds, yorkshire's number one PR agency. We've been going about 14 years. We specialize in public relations, social media, video content and B2B content. We do tons and tons of training as well. So for those of you that have been before, you'll know all about us. So that's me, william.

Will Ockenden:

Yeah, you'll probably recognize me my name's Will. I look after a lot of the B2B and the strategy work within the agency and, interestingly enough, what we're about to talk you through is a really kind of growing area when it comes to B2B marketing and I think that the smart companies are the ones looking at how they can leverage. Well, I don't want to give it away. Actually, the smart companies are using the strategies we're about to talk you through to get cut through, because you know, when it comes to thought leadership, it's a old market out there and and brands do need to kind of cut through. So it's going to be super practical and, um, yeah, hopefully super useful for you okay.

Chris Norton:

So, yeah, your situation then this is your situation as we. We've guessed it. Um, you're already. You already published traditional thought leadership content, but it's having a limited impact, and you want to make your senior team more influential online, but don't know how, what you will get from this session. We'll sort of started to elaborate on what we're going to cover, but this will give you what we're going to be covering. So we're going to look at all you need to build a case for growing you or your team's online influence. We've done it for loads and loads of brands.

Chris Norton:

So, whether that's b2b and b2c but this is b2b session um, we're going to look at insight into what the best in class are doing. Then we're going to look at practical steps. Will's going to walk you through how you can do that, so how to get started and what you can do. Doesn't it's not expensive, um, and you can. You can get it done yourself the challenges you can face and then the final bit. We've got one slide on. If you want, you want um us to help you. There's a bit on that as well. So, um, prohibition as I've said, we're we're one of the top uh pr agencies in the north of the uk. We're based in leed city center, right on the river um, but we worked for everybody and anybody, from businesses of all shapes and sizes, from Barbara, the University of Oxford, transport for the North, b2b stuff for right through to B2C stuff like Watches of Switzerland, goldsmiths we do all of Yorkshire Waters online content and we'd work for tons and tons of universities as well because they love the training content and we'd work for tons and tons of universities as well because they love the training. So, um, let's first get some context then um, about what this means. So what is thought leadership? Well, um, original viewpoints and opinions backed up by data, and we often say to our academics that we work with that's why they're perfect for it because academics have usually got tons of data they've done themselves and they've got an opinion and they just need to put it out there online rather than just in the traditional sense, traditionally delivered via public relations. That's what we would normally help with online or via real-world events. So you know whether that's speaking at, you know, webinars or speaking at actual real-life events, conferences an important part of a brand's marketing and comms efforts. So, thought leadership, though.

Chris Norton:

This is from Kerry Parker of Content Engine. She said, thought leadership is soft power, quietly building up valuable reserves of trust, influence and awareness, which is kind of like if you think about today. So today is we've been doing. For those of you if this is your first Prohibition webinar, we've been doing these since before the pandemic. We weren't the ones that did pandemic events. We've done events since we started the business, because I used to do training and then we've done training face-to-face and then we do. The only thing that changed during the pandemic is we moved our, our events program straight online and it made it a lot easier. There's now an argument of whether we should do some face-to-face and see you guys, because I think I feel that real world events are good as well.

Chris Norton:

But what this this point here is saying is that if you're sharing good content, like a webinar, like an event, you're building up the trust, your influence and people will be aware of you, because I've got people that have been to our events eight, nine years ago in the real world and they go. I used to come to them all the time and in fact, thanks to somebody in the chat Ade has said, I've been to every one of Prohibition's webinars. So thanks for that and that's the sort of thing you're building up trust and hopefully and we know for a fact, right, most of you out there aren't going to go, oh, we need a new pr agency or a new social media agency, or we need to. We need someone to do our videos, a different company to do our videos, because you've probably got someone. But hopefully, and you know to, you know if you do have a problem or something in two or three years time, you'd then think think, oh, who do I know who does good PR campaigns or whatever. And exactly that we built trust with you because you've been to our events.

Chris Norton:

So how does Google Trends look at it? This is like Google Trends is how people are searching for thought leadership and if you look at this, this goes from 2010, january, the 1st 2010, to the middle of July sorry, 2023. And you can see it's absolutely. It's like tripled, basically that people are looking for thought leadership, whether that's online thought leadership or thought leadership in the traditional sense. So what is the state, then, of thought leadership in 2025? Well, I've got some stats 80% of B2B companies produce some form of thought leadership content as part of their marketing. So eight in 10, amazing, but more than half plan to produce even more in 2025, according to the latest statistics. And then, however, only 26% so a quarter of people actually consider their current program very successful, and three well, two thirds say it is only moderately successful. So that's quite a big drop off that only 26% consider it very successful and two thirds moderately successful. So very successful is what we're aiming for, isn't it? And two-thirds moderately successful. So very successful is what we're aiming for, isn't it?

Chris Norton:

And on the backdrop of that, there's a massive decline in trust in the media. We've seen this on and on and on. So this data on the right-hand side let's just stick to the right-hand side for now is Edelman's Trust Barometer, which basically measures trust levels in the media. It's by a PR agency called Edelman that we know well. We've actually interviewed a couple of the guys on our podcast and you can see here that trust is at an all-time low, and we've put here at the top. Uk has one of the lowest levels of trust in the media. It's now at 32,. 33% of people trust the media. It's really really, really, really low now, and so trust is at record lows in the uk, especially in corporations, so in businesses and the media.

Chris Norton:

However, this is the interesting stuff. Gen z is a bit different as well, but 95 percent almost everyone which is bizarre trust recommendations from others, even if they're strangers, over branded advertising content, because most people see that as your broke. As you know, I'm old enough to remember corporate brochures and stuff like that. Almost everyone trusts recommendations from other people, even if they're strangers, while trust in ceos and business leaders is also down. Trust in regular employees is reporting huge increases. So people will might not believe what me or Will are saying, but they'll believe what one of our team are saying. It's quite interesting that and Gen Z are much more into believing what strangers, influencers and other opinions are saying over traditional media. Basically because a lot of them don't watch as much traditional media as the older generations, but basically because a lot of them don't watch as much traditional media as the older generations. And yeah, I mean this is not good when you run a social media agency, but declining social.

Chris Norton:

When we say social performance, we're talking about organic social performance.

Chris Norton:

So we started Prohibition 14 years ago and it was called the Facebook and Facebook then had 100 reach. You put you those of you that are as old as me will remember, you put a post out. It had you know you might have had a thousand followers, thousand page fans or whatever, and it would go to a thousand people. Today it's at 0.03, so it's really really low and organic reach of social media is going to drop drastically in 2025, unless you use your data now. It's the latest headline and then you see articles like this all the time. Are the days of organic social media reach over? Look at what Musk's done to X for those B2B. We were literally talking about it this morning because I use Blue Sky, but I've been on Twitter since that started as well and it is a social media ghost town at the moment, unless you've got the blue tick. So we've seen a massive drop off on all Twitter accounts, for unless you pay for the blue tick, which then gives you reach beyond your organic following base.

Will Ockenden:

And just to point on here actually we talk about kind of declining organic reach. Bear in mind, we're talking about brand pages rather than individuals' pages. So keep that in your mind, because we're going to kind of explore what that means later on.

Chris Norton:

So, basically, what we're saying is it's the perfect storm, less organic reach. What we're saying is it's the perfect storm, less organic reach, tons more noise. People 80 percent of people sharing content and then people just don't believe what corporations are saying. So they don't believe your social, your corporate social channels as much as you you want them to, or what all your, your adverts that you're putting out. There's a decline in trust. Um, and the solution may lie with your own people, and that's what we mean. When we started out, we said that this doesn't have to be expensive. This is about empowering people that work for you. So growing their online influence can do the following thing. So, if we look at the people that you've got, we can restore the lack of audience trust. We can beat the algorithms, because each of the algorithms, as Will's just said there we're talking about company pages, but we're also talking about individuals' LinkedIn pages. You can beat the algorithms because individuals' LinkedIn pages do better than company pages. So content that's shared by an individual does much better than content that's shared by the company pages. Amplify your existing marketing efforts Authentically promote your business If it's authentic. That's a key thing in PR and what we do, and on social media. Any sort of content you do needs to be authentic, because people just see through it. If it's an advert, they see through it. You can use it to directly recruit staff and to fuel your pipeline or convert prospects, you know. So, yeah, online influence can do that and it can make your content supercharged. So, compared to content shared by company channels and this is what I was just saying so, compared to content shared by company channels and this is what I was just saying content shared by employees get this. So content shared by employees gets 561% more reach. It's reshared 24 times, or X if you're in America 24X more frequently, and it receives eight times more engagement. So content from individuals or employees is the way to go. I know some people might be worried to give the power of social media to their employees, but there is a way to do. It. Are people the future of B2B social is what we're asking.

Chris Norton:

So, brand page social on the left here you've got one. So, on your brand page social media, whether that's LinkedIn, whether so on your brand page social media, whether that's linkedin, whether it's your twitter, whatever, whether it's your youtube channel, you've got one brand voice. You've got top line insights and topics and you've got a company messaging and tone, whereas on staff social it's the person, and people prefer hearing stories from people. It's just the way it goes. If you think about any anybody that you follow on various channels, it's usually the individuals you follow. You get deeper insights. The individuals have an opinion, which does scare some brands because you can't control people's opinions. But also often individuals are much more authentic, much more authentic than the company pages, and basically what we're saying is there's a new model for influential people online, and this is the bit where I show the graphics. I love this bit. When I do this to academics, about 80% of the people can name the guy on the left. Let's see if Will can remember who is that, will?

Will Ockenden:

That's Socrates, chris, that's correct the ancient Greek philosopher.

Chris Norton:

Yeah, I always thought it was Aristotle, but I mean, who knew what either of them looked like? So, yeah, from back in the day, the Greek philosopher, influential, had his own opinions, did a lot of discussions in the Greek, what would you say? The Greek democracy I don't know how to describe that and very, very influential traditional space, influencing people back in those times, whereas in the modern world we've got. On the right-hand side, stephen Bartlett, podcaster, diary of a CEO and now a dragon on Dragon's Den, has literally just moved to America, actually to grow his podcast even further, which is crazy. So what we're saying here is the influence has changed. It's digitally. It can change. Sorry, are you going to say something? Will?

Will Ockenden:

No, carry on Sorry.

Chris Norton:

You went you're going to say something amazing. Traditional model then, then is um, yeah. So the traditional model was creating impact through publications. So working with someone like us, like a pr agency, um, or going out, networking um, or going to like real world conferences and speaking at events that was the traditional form of influence. If you want to get people, if you wanted to influence people back in the 90s that's that's when I started out in PR in the early 2000s that's what we used to do, whereas the new model now is creating impact through online channels. It doesn't have to be all online channels. You might pick one that you really want to get your influence sphere on, but that is how it's done. The spot is to be, yeah, right in between both. So you, you're getting media exposure in the traditional publications, you're featuring a speaker, events, but also you're getting quite good engagement and profile um on your, on your content online, and what we're saying is there's been a rise of niche and networked. So niche and networked what we mean by that.

Chris Norton:

Let's look at the three types of influencers we've got. When we talk about influencers, we're not talking about the Kardashians and things like that, but if you are talking about the Kardashians. They'd be above macro, because macro is large influencers with a following of between 100,000 and 1 million. Stephen Bartlett, I think he's like 4 million now, so he'd be even bigger than that. Stephen Bartlett's, I think, is like 4 million now, so he'd be even bigger than that sort of celebrity status. But we're talking about B2B, so they have a very broad audience, a macro, but they're much bigger. They're up to a million around there anyway.

Chris Norton:

Then you've got micro, who have a following between 5,000 and 100,000. And they have a more niche, targeted audience. So maybe that's, you know, much more niche. So that would be where my sphere is. I'm sort of in terms of Twitter or LinkedIn. I'm in that area of influencing some sort of public relations, social media and crisis management, and then those people tend to be respected in their fields. And then you've got nano, which we've highlighted here, which is influencers who have got under 5,000 followers but they get great engagement rate because it's much more personal, authentic, because it's smaller, but they're great for niche, strong content, very loyal audience, and so get niche. Basically, it can be really, really powerful for the individual.

Will Ockenden:

Yeah, and then really this you know this, the opportunity. If you're looking at kind of building the online influence of your staff, of your c-suite, you know it is really the nano, you know the nano area, which is the opportunity. You know, realistically you're not going to turn your CEO unless they're extraordinary into a macro influencer overnight, but there's plenty to be gained from positioning them as a nano influencer, ie a strong, engaged following and influence within their particular field.

Chris Norton:

So that really, from our view, that's, that's that's the opportunity, or the initial opportunity at least um, just while we're here and just to remind everyone, on the right hand side there's polls and we're going to look at the polls. There's two or three polls. If you could just tick the bit that you think we're going to look at those in a minute to see what people have said. So if you could just do that, that would be great, and I just need to find where I am on my slides. That's the right one, isn't it Right? So who can be a thought leader? Then? Okay, well, you, and that's the right one, isn't it Right? So who can be a thought leader? Then? Okay, well, you've got different things here. So we've got three. We've broken it down to make it nice and logical. So you've got CEOs and senior leadership. So Will and I, for instance and probably you guys as well which can be one-to-one approach, bespoke plan and coaching approach bespoke plan and coaching. So we work with them. You know, we might work with a senior CEO and help them, coach them through how to use their content marketing to get a result. And then we've got subject matter experts. And then we've got right over here on the third piece of the pie regular staff, which is one to many.

Chris Norton:

And you can do that. You can train those one-to-many. So, instead of bespoke training with just CEOs and senior leadership, you can do one-to-many by playbooks. So, like a content marketing playbook, you can draw it up to do. These are the things you can talk about. These are the things we'd like you to talk about, but you can give them a bit of a free reign. It's like a framework of how you can work in it and it can make it really, really simple. Less is more here. You don't have to give war and peace and some sort of training. You know this is a snapshot into what we can do, but if you had some training, you give training to the people that you staff on how to maximize their influence online and it will help your brand overall, which brings us how the hell do you do that? So, william, do you want?

Will Ockenden:

to take over. Yeah, and I think you know. Just jumping back to here, I mean, I think the point is, you know anyone, you, anyone within your organization can become more influential online. We just need a slightly different approach depending on that individual. And Chris mentioned earlier. You know there is this kind of fear that everyone's going to go rogue and everybody's going to start talking about your business in the wrong way or using your company logo in a way that isn't approved and things like that. And I think you know you've got to be, to a degree, comfortable with that. You know people will always talk about your company. It's just they weren't always doing it online. They were probably advocating or complaining about you in the pub or at home. So it's just about kind of inspiring them and giving them the tools to do that online without being overly prescriptive, because the moment you're too prescriptive, people are going to feel like they're being forced to do it and it won't be authentic.

Will Ockenden:

So, looking at where we need to start, then we've we've kind of broken this process down into three areas, which I'm going to go through in a bit more detail. So, when it comes to building online influence, first of all we need to look the part. So we've called it an influencer profile. So if you, if you or your you know your senior people in your business want to become more influential online, their shop window needs to look the part. And that's about polishing a profile. It's about having appropriate imagery, it's about positioning yourself in the right way. You know and it's still amazing the number of chief execs that you find on LinkedIn, for example, that don't even have a profile image. They've just got that kind of gray silhouette. Um, so the bar's not that high, the bar's not been set that that high. Um, then what we need to do is position ourselves as an expert, and we do that through content. So we need to decide what we're talking about and how we're saying it, and we need to be kind of regular with with that content, so we can't just post one thing and hope we become an influencer. We need to almost have a bit of a kind of a content plan and publish relevant and engaging content across our channels. And then the third part is the social bit. So a lot of people actually forget that social media should be social. You know, it's not just a broadcasting medium, not just a one way broadcasting medium. It should be about kind of two way dialogue medium. It should be about kind of two-way dialogue. So the third part is actually becoming active when it comes to engagement and becoming part of the conversation, whether that's engaging in other people's conversations or indeed starting your own and if you get those three parts right, you will start to build your online influence.

Will Ockenden:

Something worth thinking about is which channels should we be on? Now, there's there's no right answer here. Necessarily, you know if and we would always say, be guided by your audience. So if you want to recruit, for example, um, school leavers, um, you know, and that's your sole objective, then probably TikTok or Snapchat or something like that is absolutely perfect as a platform. Equally, if you want to engage with senior buyers or other chief execs or whoever it is, then probably LinkedIn is the platform. So, always be guided by your audience, but really we wouldn't want to limit this to one channel.

Will Ockenden:

That said, what we're about to talk you through is all about LinkedIn, just because it tends to be the kind of de facto platform for thought leadership in B2B. It's a great platform. I'm sure most of you are on it. It's constantly investing in new features. The organic reach is really really good on it. So we are going to talk about LinkedIn, but the principles apply to any channel.

Will Ockenden:

So I mentioned looking the part. I mean it's not rocket science really, but really we need a really slick looking, polished profile that kind of lays out what we call our elevator pitch, ie what value we're bringing other people very, very succinctly. And the better your profile, or the better your senior people's profiles, the more engagement they're going to get, the more eyeballs they're going to get, the more people that are going to follow them. So, first and foremost, professional headshots. Linkedin actually allows video profile headshots now, which are quite cool.

Will Ockenden:

I'm a big fan of the kind of the banner image as well. So most social networks, linkedin included, give you the opportunity for a banner image that sits behind your profile shot. So that's a good chance for um either a great image or um. You know, typically you can promote any kind of campaigns or marketing activities that your, your brand, is currently um engaged in. So chris and I, for example, um, have been promoting the um the prohibition, promoting the Prohibition podcast using the banner image, and equally, when we're running events, we might change the banner image to promote the events for premium users of LinkedIn.

Chris Norton:

Just recently, in about the last two months, linkedin have introduced a slideshow of up to five images on your banner to make your banner to rotate, to make it a bit more funky and cool, if you wanted that. So yeah, that's a little feature they've added recently.

Will Ockenden:

Yeah, and then on LinkedIn, there's a couple of points on the right that are really really important. I mean, linkedin actually gives you a percentage complete for your profile, so it gives you a percentage score, so that's a really handy way of seeing if your profile is up to speed. But it's really important to tag your company, of course, any kind of accolades or associations that you're part of if you're, you know, a member of an industry body or something like that, that will just drive visibility around yourself and allow people to find you. And then think about your LinkedIn in particular and other social networks to a lesser degree. You get the chance for a headline and you get the chance for like a kind of an about me section and that's what I talked about, an elevated pitch. That's your chance to convey the value that you're likely to bring somebody. So if you work in sales, for example, you might say I help connect companies with X and Y and this is the value I bring and ultimately this is kind of people will read that and will make a judgment on whether you're worth connecting with. So think about how you kind of communicate yourself and ultimately, what value are you going to bring people in connecting with them. Linkedin, in particular, the biography and about section, is indexable by Google as well. So think about the kind of the keywords that you use, whether that's your company name, your sector, your specialism, and the more keywords in there, the more likely you are to show up in the LinkedIn search and in broader Google search as well. And then, final point on this, linkedin's got a feature called a creator profile, and that's for people that consider themselves influencers or creators, and it basically makes your content more visible and it changes your. It allows people to follow you as well as connect with you, so people can just follow you to see your content. So that's worth thinking about as well. And it's literally one click. Yeah, so our profiles, or our senior team's profiles, look the part.

Will Ockenden:

We now need to understand what we're going to say. That isn't just um, endlessly self-serving posts about getting up at 5 am and um, going to the gym and journaling and doing yoga and all things that the silicon valley uh tech, um tech bros tend to post about. So, first of all, um, it's worth looking at what makes an effective subject matter expert. So this is a poll of senior marketing people, um, and it's worth looking at what makes an effective subject matter expert. So this is a poll of senior marketing people and it asked them what they think makes an effective subject matter expert or thought leader. This is from a Nielsen study.

Will Ockenden:

Now what we're interested in is the kind of the pale, purple, the mauve line, which is essential. So the first and top is they are easy to understand, which is fascinating, because I think a lot of people approach thought leadership thinking right. We need to batter people with our knowledge. We need to be super, super technical. We need to show people how clever and intelligent that we are. Actually, it's about breaking down complex subject matters and presenting them in ways that are really easy to understand and that's, you know, that is the most important factor. Secondly, they challenge the way I think, which is really important.

Will Ockenden:

Again, there's enough noise online and on social media. You know we don't want to be saying the same thing that everybody's saying. Ideally, we need to challenge the status quo, or challenge the way people think, and that's where the thought leadership, the leadership bit comes out. If we are challenging the way people think, they publish data to validate their position. So it's not just anecdotal evidence or speculation. It's backed up by data. Even better if it's backed up by your company data and they say something new. Right at the bottom is to say things that are unpopular or controversial. So again, the misconception is we need to go online and we need to go on social media and upset people and say things that are unpopular. You don't need to do that. Actually, it's about presenting new, interesting things in ways that are easy to understand and challenge the way people think.

Will Ockenden:

Understanding what your niche is is really really important as well, and again I made the point that you know we don't want to be saying what everybody else is saying. You know there's no point in doing that. You're just going to be another voice in the already busy world of the internet. So let's think about our angle, or our senior people's angle, and you can sit down with your C-suite or your chief exec and you can actually kind of work out what soapbox issues they've got to talk about and then you can qualify them and you can think are they new? Are they different?

Will Ockenden:

Expert insight is key, and this is where subject matter experts come in, and you'd hope the typical CEO would have expert insight into certain areas and think about how we present that insight. So we need to add value and we need new perspectives on that topic. And don't try and spread yourselves too thin, you know. Don't try and talk about 10 different issues, because that's going to put too much pressure on you, especially if you're the one writing the content for your chief exec, and it's going to put too much pressure on you if, especially if, you're the one writing the content for for your chief exec, um, and it's going to confuse your audience. So, initially, why don't focus on two or three big issues and and give them six months and give them time to kind of bed in um? And really, when it comes to kind of media and this is where your marketing team, um, you know where the marketing team can help ideally we need to be thinking in terms of rich media, not least because shooting a video with a chief exec for two hours can give you 20 snippets, which is a really, really effective and efficient use of time, and most social networks now prioritize rich media content in some capacity over kind of plain text. So video and micro, micro video is a really good thing to do. When we say micro video, that's typically video under 30 seconds.

Will Ockenden:

Linkedin's got some great features now. It's got an articles function, which is essentially an in-platform blogging. Chris, do you mind muting a sec? Thanks, linkedin articles, which is basically an in-platform blogging. Chris, do you mind muting a sec? Thanks, linkedin articles, which is basically an in-platform blogging platform to keep users within LinkedIn. Linkedin is prioritizing engagement around that. You can do cool things on LinkedIn, like you'd have seen these document posts. So basically you upload a PDF and you can basically scroll through it and it's a way to present quite complex information, whether it's a white paper, whether it's analysis, whether it's research. In a way, that's and again, linkedin's really kind of prioritizing engagement around that.

Will Ockenden:

And, of course, high quality imagery. Try and avoid using stock imagery. You know, even if you shoot something on your iPhone, that's, that's good enough. So, yeah, think like a brand really when it comes to an individual's social profile. But really, like I said, video probably is just going to think that's too much time, but actually you can put a camera in their face for an hour and just get them talking and you could probably edit 20 or 30 snippets from that, understanding your why.

Will Ockenden:

Now, essentially, this is your objectives for doing this, or the individual's objectives for doing this, and what we'd always say is, if your people in your business, or especially your senior people, are starting this journey, try and really get to the heart of what it is you want to get out of it, and we would recommend being as specific as possible and probably selecting one or two key objectives and this will just keep you super focused in terms of everything you do, the engagements you have, the content you publish. If you're not clear on your why, you'll never know what to measure, you won't know whether you're succeeding or not and you're kind of super unfocused with your content. So the type of objectives you know and these are based on conversations we have you know some senior people will say look, I want. You know, ultimately it's about sales. I want to grow my pipeline, I want to sell more products, I want to set up meetings with prospects. A lot of individuals will use it to support their company's recruitment efforts and they'll talk about the employer brand in an authentic way and they'll talk about new positions and things like that and it can be a really good way to kind of prop up your recruitment efforts. Equally, and you know, you might say, look, actually I just want to get more media opportunities and I want to get more speaking engagements, and that's absolutely fine. But the point is, think deeply about why it is you want to do this and ideally you know these could dovetail. These objectives could and should dovetail with your company's marketing objectives as well.

Will Ockenden:

Now we talked about kind of making the most of time you know, and if you are investing a degree of time and effort in training your senior people, you might even be writing content plans, you might be checking their posts. You know that's quite a lot of potentially quite a lot of time, and we would say you know always think a lot of potentially quite a lot of time, um, and we would say you know always think in terms of kind of integrated comms for maximum benefit. So let's say you write a um, you know an opinion piece that's put on linkedin articles um and published um. You know 600 word opinion piece, thousand word opinion piece. You can actually get more value for that piece rather than just living on LinkedIn. You could potentially segment it into five or six wall posts with an image. You could use it as the basis for a paid campaign. You could also use it on your website and pull out sections on your website. You might want to shoot a video and actually talk about some of the issues identified in the paper in more detail. But the point is, all the effort goes into drafting that piece in the first place. There's actually the opportunity to sweat it a bit harder, and the more integrated you are, the more benefit you're going to get from that and the more bang for buck you're going to get.

Will Ockenden:

A quick example we work with a brewing group called Keystone Brewing. We work with a brewing group called Keystone Brewing. They own all sorts of breweries around the country, including things like Big Drop, which is a low and no brand black sheep brewery. They've just acquired UK distribution license for Hoffmeister that some of you might remember, which is a kind of a classic 80s and 90s lager which Heineken owned. So we made this big announcement that Keystone had won the distribution deal. You can't read this, but you'll see this around. So Matthew, their marketing director, group marketing director we basically crafted a post for him with an image about what the Hoffmeister deal meant for the group, why it was such great news. This was then sequenced with public relations, so we then did a PR story around it, which landed at around the same time as the LinkedIn post. Each news article was then subsequently shared or retweeted or kind of commented on by Matthew. So straight away you're starting to see the amplification. A summary of what he'd written was included on the Keystone website.

Will Ockenden:

So there was then continuity on the brand website and then, following the announcement, we then, via internal comm comms, created a number of suggested posts for stakeholders and staff to start sharing about the deal, each um containing key messaging linking to the website, and then um that led to things like this, which was um lots of other people within the business talking about the deal in an authentic way. So this just shows how it can be really, really joined up. And the other things we looked at doing. There was an internal comms exercise. There was an email taking this content to prospects and to customers. We're looking at doing a short video series talking about the deal and what it means for Keystone, but the point is, rather than just one LinkedIn post, we're then sweating it through lots and lots of different channels.

Will Ockenden:

So if you're going to embark on this and this is a bit of a whistle-stop tour about how to do it and where to get started the key thing and these are conversations you need to be having with your senior people if they are interested. First of all is how much time can they dedicate to it? So the worst thing is to kind of overstretch yourself and you might get a sales director or an ops director or a CEO thinking, yeah, this is great, I'm going to spend loads of time on this, but the reality is they're incredibly busy and they might only be able to dedicate 15, 20 minutes a week to it. So we need to be realistic and we need to work within the parameters of how much time can they realistically spend doing it? Do you need to support them? Do you need to handhold? Do you need to coach them? Do you need to help them with content, ideas? Are they committed as well? You know, and ultimately this comes down to making a persuasive case for why they should do it and the statistics, like the declining trust in the media, the fact that individuals can amplify a brand's message all of those can become quite compelling. So it's about how you position it, and if they're not committed, then I would suggest it's probably not something they want to do, unless you want to fully outsource it, which is an option, but obviously there's a cost associated with that. So it's much better to have that conversation in the first instance, rather than somebody goes hell for leather for three months on social media and then just goes quiet for the remainder of the year.

Will Ockenden:

We talked about objectives, so be really clear on what you as an organization, as a marketing team and the individual themselves want to get out of it, and the more clearly you can articulate those objectives the better because, like I said, it will keep you focused and it will show you what you need to measure. Have a think about what resources you might need in order to succeed and we talked about rich media. You know, ultimately there is going to be a need for some video content, some quality images, that kind of thing, if you want to cut through, and you know so it made me that you need some marketing resources or some agency resources in order to capture that content. Ultimately, you know, let's say, you've got a cohort of five to 10 senior people in the business who are going to do this. You want to be better and more interesting than their peers, and that's the challenge. So we need to do a little bit of competitor analysis. We need to make sure that the soapbox issues we talk about are bang on and are interesting and do offer a new perspective, and then have a think about what support you are going to potentially need to provide, or external agency support. I think with the best will in the world, we would train up a senior team and then they would just get on with it. But the reality is they will need help with content, they will need help with ideas, they want to know how to measure the success. So there will be some resourcing issues from a marketing team perspective. But these are all really really important kind of issues to address before you do the process.

Will Ockenden:

Basically. So what we've done, I think you know, once you've kind of trained and brought on board a number of people that are interested and willing and see the value in doing this, it's really important to have what we call a strategy on a page Rather than overcomplicating it. We need to have a really succinct strategy that kind of reminds them of why they're doing it and what they want to get out of it. So to kind of bring it all together, we've put together this mini strategy and it's deliberately brief. I think there's a danger with strategies that sometimes they're 40 or 50 pages long and they look very impressive and they hit the desk with a loud thunk, but actually nobody ever reads it and nobody ever understands it. So the point is, in this case at least, a really brief, succinct strategy is the way to go. Now you can kind of switch out some of these areas, but the types of things and literally we would say, print this out and stick it on your desk, you know. And next time you know somebody wants to do a social post, they will look at this and they'll be okay, fine, I get what it is I'm doing.

Will Ockenden:

So define your key objectives first of all, and, like we said, one or two key objectives is about right. List out those challenges and considerations you're likely to face. So, is it hyper-competitive market? Is it that your audience aren't very engaged in the week? Is it that you've not got good images? And this will just kind of, uh, yeah, keep your eyes open to, to the challenges you're likely to face, trying to find who your audience is as well. Um, and, and you know is, is it? And again, be really, really specific here. So, is it fmcg, senior fmcg buyers? Um in the uk? Um, you know, and the more you can, it's almost creating a persona for your audience and that will just help you post content that's relevant and lands and and and answers your audience's problems.

Will Ockenden:

Um, list out which channels are best suited to you. Um, again, don't spread yourself too thin. Don't be on blue sky, tiktok x, linkedin youtube all at once, because all you'll do, or all your people will do, is spend all and spend your entire time trying to manage channels. So work back from where your audience are. So if it is, as I said, senior FMCG buyers, then perhaps LinkedIn is the right approach. If it's Gen Z school, gen Alpha, gen Z school leavers, then probably TikTok or Snapchat is the right channel. List out your tone of voice as well. Then probably TikTok or Snapchat is the right channel. List out your tone of voice as well.

Will Ockenden:

And I think one of the challenges people have when it comes to social media and being more influential online is that they're very enthused about the whole thing, but the moment they start typing they sound very robotic and they sound very formulaic. So try and think about the way you want to come across and kind of use that as a bit of a sense check for everything you publish. They sound very formulaic. So try and think about the, the way you want to come across and then kind of use that as a bit of a sense check for everything you publish. So do you want to be approachable, technical, friendly irreverence, whatever it might be, and but, by the way, on tone of voice, over time you will get it. So don't try and force it. You know, you. It may be that you feel a bit robotic and a bit, um, contrived in the first instance, but more you do it, the better you'll get at it.

Will Ockenden:

Um, what niches can you own? So up to three is about right to start with. And remember, you know, it's fine to cover niches that other people talk about, but you need to have a new angle on it or you need to have a new perspective on it. Um, I wouldn't suggest over complicating content planning, but it's always worth thinking about the upcoming quarter. What news events, research activities, speaking engagements, whatever it might be, product launches, what have you got coming up in the next three months that you could potentially talk about? And, typically, what's happening in the economy, what's happening with the government, anything like that is good to list in. And I mean the worst thing is, if you think right, I want to talk about the you know, the spring statement, and then two days later you forget the spring statements actually happened and you've missed it. You know you need to be organized with this stuff and you know, ideally, you know the more topical you are with an individual's content, the better it will do.

Will Ockenden:

And then final point is think about and this is where marketing can come in you know what Everyday content can be used to supplement the bigger activity. So you know, let's let's take a chief exec's example. You know 40, 50 percent of their content would probably be what we call created. So that's original content, original viewpoints that they will post, and that might be them at an event. It might be they're pontificating about a big topical issue, but actually there's a lot of content they could repurpose. So it might just be a case of resharing content from your brand page. It might be linking to blog articles on the website, it might be sharing partner content and this can really help with the overall content machine. And actually what we want is people sharing brand page content, because that's then going to amplify what we're doing from a company page as well.

Will Ockenden:

So final point um, you know, never plain sailing when you do this and, as a few people indicated, senior teams are too busy, they don't see the value in it. There's always a lot of challenges and these are the kind of challenges, without trying to be too negative, with just being realistic, these are the type of challenges you're likely to face if you're trying to engage your senior team, your c-suite, in becoming online thought leaders or becoming more influential online. So cynicism or apathy is quite common. I think social media, believe it or not, even though social media the value of it has been proved many times over there still feels like there's a bit of cynicism to social media. It's not a proper medium, it's not worth my time.

Will Ockenden:

Demonstrating impact from what you're doing can be a challenge. Somebody might do lots and lots of posts, lots and lots of content. They might even get lots of engagement from it. But what does it actually mean? Is it, you know, is it making the phone ring? Is it driving leads? That's a whole separate session actually on measuring impact, which we can deliver strategically planning out content topics. You know so, and that's the important of importance of the strategy on the page. You know we need to be strategic about what we talk about, otherwise we'll just run out of things to say after two weeks.

Will Ockenden:

Um teaching core skills beyond basic social media use. So you know, basically posting on linked is easy, but actually being really good at it does require a bit of effort. So, you know, you think about Instagram or channels like TikTok. Some people are just brilliant at them and they're really intuitive in the way they use them and they can shoot pieces to camera and they can shoot reels and things like that. Some people just aren't that good and we need to kind of encourage that more advanced social use.

Will Ockenden:

And the final point is getting it to stick. So it's easy to get people engaged in the short term, but really we need to get them engaged in the medium to long term. Otherwise it's just a big waste of time and actually a bit of a pro tip here and we've learned this from training numerous academics and CEOs If you as a marketer can make it a little bit competitive, it's amazing how it motivates people. So you might have an influencer league table. So let's say we did this process of prohibition. Five people are going to become more influential online. Why don't you list how many engagements they're getting every month and how many new followers they're getting? And suddenly it becomes like a fantasy football league and suddenly everyone's committed to it. Everyone wants to become number one. You'll have to do that very subtly because people will spot what you're doing. But, yeah, getting it to stick is an issue. So that was a whistle-stop tour.

Will Ockenden:

Like I say, chris and I we deliver this as an ongoing coaching program that takes many days. We actually offer a package around this and it's called our B2B Influence Package and there's lots of different phases of it. I mean, the first thing we do is basically work with a company's marketing teams and we look at who those potential subject matter experts and thought leaders are within an organization in the context of your marketing objectives, and typically you'll have people that speak at events. You know they're open to writing papers, they've got really deep knowledge in certain areas. That's got a kind of a more of a mainstream appeal and we will identify who those potential people are. We will then deliver a training program where we basically train them on a one-to-many basis. If there's lots of them, typically that's for mid management, middle middle management and above, or more of a kind of bespoke one-on-one basis for for the really senior team, and that's more of a kind of a coaching program, and as part of that we will also develop a playbook. So we will. We will give your team those kind of loose parameters.

Will Ockenden:

So, if you're talking about the company, this is how you do it. This is where you link. This is correct logo usage. This is the type of language you use. This is what we've coming up that over the next year that might inspire you. And then the final point is measuring impact. So we and we typically do this for the more senior people we would basically benchmark their influence and then re-look at that every three months and typically what we see after the coaching is people's online influence just increases exponentially and they'll start to get phone calls and they'll start to get emails and they'll start to get meetings and media inquiries and things like that. So, as you can see, it's a really involved process. But if you're serious about kind of boosting your existing thought leadership profile or program, this is the way to go, and the smart companies are looking at how they can use their people, as well as their brand accounts in the context of doing this. So thank you very much.

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Chris Norton

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Will Ockenden

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