Offering thought leadership is crucial for engaging, retaining, and growing association membership. In this post we explain how podcasting is a valuable tool for capturing and communicating though leadership content.
Everyone’s a thought leader these days.
Or, at least, everyone wants to be a thought leader. And for good reason. Thought leadership can pay great dividends, insofar as organizations that are seen as genuine thought leaders attract the best employees and dues-paying members and wield considerable influence in their industry.
But what is thought leadership, really? Too often, what passes for thought leadership on your typical blog or in the average white paper is really just common sense or unoriginal ideas repackaged to seem original and new.
Authentic Thought Leadership
So, what constitutes authentic thought leadership? At the very least, it includes the following attributes:
- Original insights based on data and on a kaleidoscopic knowledge of industry trends
- Foresight concerning future challenges and how to prepare for them
- An ability to communicate original insights clearly and compellingly
Now, if achieving genuine thought leadership sounds difficult, that’s because it is! Original ideas and insights are so valuable because they’re rare and hard to come by. And even if you do possess a wealth of original ideas, getting people to pay attention to them poses another formidable challenge in our age of information overload. Oh, and you need to come across as authentic, too. Even the best ideas will fall flat if you’re perceived as being condescending or trying too hard to sound authoritative.
So, yeah. Establishing your organization as an authentic thought leader is not a simple proposition. It doesn’t just happen. You have to make it happen.
The Podcast Solution: Capture and Broadcast Your Tribal knowledge
The good news is that you already have access to a treasure trove of compelling insights and ideas: namely, the knowledge, experience, and expertise possessed by your leaders, employees, and customers and/or members. Capturing and communicating that “tribal knowledge” is key to achieving genuine thought leadership.
Which is where podcasting plays an important role. Less expensive and time-consuming than producing high-end video or maintaining a blog, podcasting is uniquely well-suited to capturing and broadcasting your organization’s tribal knowledge. A podcast featuring your people sharing insights and best practices for thriving in your industry has the double advantage of helping to disseminate knowledge that would otherwise remain inaccessible and making your people feel valued and appreciated.
To be clear, starting a podcast is not a silver bullet solution; even the best podcast won’t solve all your problems or magically propel your organization to the upper echelons of thought leadership stardom. But podcasting is a valuable and effective way to diversify your communication strategy and, by tapping into your community’s hard-earned knowledge and experience, to generate the sort of compelling, authentic content that, over time, will earn your organization the status of a true thought leader.
If you’re interested in establishing your association as a thought leader, contact Tribal Knowledge Podcasting for a free consultation.