Latest news with #thoughtleadership


Entrepreneur
2 days ago
- Business
- Entrepreneur
Your Competitors Are Winning with PR — You Just Don't See It Yet
While PR might not generate immediate clicks or sales, it builds something far more enduring. Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. The pursuit of a return on investment drives nearly every strategic business decision. However, when it comes to PR campaigns, short-term ROI proves notoriously tricky to measure. This does not mean that PR's ROI is immeasurable, and it certainly does not mean PR is not worth the investment. Unlike advertising, PR is rooted in earned — not paid — exposure. It's about building credibility, shaping perception and creating longterm visibility. That's also what makes measuring its return on investment (ROI) uniquely complex. A single feature in a respected publication can have a far longer-lasting impact than a paid advertisement. While advertising aims to maximize exposure through financial investment, PR builds trust through third-party validation. Consumers often view ads with skepticism, but earned media offers credibility that money can't buy. Related: The 5 Answers You Need Before Hiring a PR Agency How PR influences sales PR doesn't drive immediate sales in the same way that direct-response ads do. Its influence is subtle, cumulative and embedded in every stage of the sales funnel. Effective PR efforts — press releases, media outreach, thought leadership — are often a customer's first point of contact with a brand. These touchpoints shape perception and plant the seeds of trust. Case studies, customer success stories and founder features help potential buyers evaluate the brand before a sales rep even enters the picture. And while sales teams close deals, PR often lays the groundwork. It establishes brand awareness, communicates core values and nurtures longterm loyalty. Even post-purchase, PR plays a role — supporting customer retention and encouraging advocacy through ongoing storytelling. Key metrics for measuring PR ROI To quantify PR's impact, brands must look beyond immediate conversions. Here are some useful ways to assess ROI: Media mentions : Track how often your brand is featured in online, print or broadcast media. More mentions generally signal growing visibility. : Track how often your brand is featured in online, print or broadcast media. More mentions generally signal growing visibility. Reach and impressions : Use tools to estimate the size of the audience exposed to each media placement. : Use tools to estimate the size of the audience exposed to each media placement. Share of voice : Compare your media presence with competitors to gauge relative influence. : Compare your media presence with competitors to gauge relative influence. Website traffic : Monitor spikes in site visits following major press coverage. : Monitor spikes in site visits following major press coverage. Engagement metrics : Dwell time, social shares, and comments can reflect how well your messaging is resonating. : Dwell time, social shares, and comments can reflect how well your messaging is resonating. Lead attribution : Track leads coming through PR-driven sources like press releases, interviews, or speaking events. : Track leads coming through PR-driven sources like press releases, interviews, or speaking events. Sentiment analysis : Use media monitoring tools to understand how people feel about your brand across channels. : Use media monitoring tools to understand how people feel about your brand across channels. Conversion tracking: Connect PR-generated traffic to outcomes like demo requests, purchases, or sign-ups using analytics and CRM tools. Tools to support measurement Today's media monitoring platforms allow publicists to track earned media mentions, sentiment and overall reach. Social listening tools offer real-time insight into trends and audience perception. Web analytics reveal where visitors come from, what content they engage with, and how they convert. CRM systems tie PR-generated leads back to revenue. Combined, these tools help paint a fuller picture of how PR efforts move the needle. 4 PR Campaigns That Prove ROI 1. Airbnb — "Live There" Designed to promote local, authentic experiences over traditional tourism, this campaign leveraged user-generated content and social media. The results? A 9% boost in brand awareness, 15% increase in social media engagement, and a 20% spike in booking conversions. 2. Dove — "Real Beauty" Challenging conventional beauty standards, Dove featured diverse women to reflect real-world audiences. The campaign grew sales by $2.5 to $4 billion over ten years and made Dove bars the top-selling soap in the U.S. 3. Red Bull — Extreme Branding Red Bull aligned itself with extreme sports through high-impact content like documentaries and events. Its most iconic moment? The Felix Baumgartner space jump. The brand now holds 75% of the U.S. energy drink market, a direct result of its PR-powered brand storytelling. 4. IHOP — "IHOb" Stunt Temporarily rebranding as the International House of Burgers sparked a media frenzy. The result: burger sales quadrupled, 20,000 news articles were published, and 36 billion social media impressions were generated. Related: 3 Metrics That Matter When Measuring the Success of Your PR Campaigns The long game of PR Yes, PR ROI can be measured — but it requires patience, the right tools and a broader definition of impact. While PR may not deliver instant clicks or purchases, it builds something even more valuable: brand equity, trust and long-term influence. So, before dismissing PR as intangible, ask yourself: What is the value of credibility? If your answer is "priceless," then PR is not an expense — it's an investment.


Forbes
28-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Why Thought Leaders And Companies Need Journalistic Fact-Checking
Businessman Reading Contract Details Before Signing Companies and thought leaders—those who publish knowledge-based content in service of strategy, influence, and authority—must step onto the front lines of fact-checking and information integrity and regularly do journalistic fact-checking. As Angie Holan, Director of the International Fact-Checking Network, told me in a recent interview, 'The business and marketing worlds should have a particular interest, because so much of commerce and business depends on accurate information and trust.' Holan's words come as a warning. When the public square is overrun with misleading claims, companies suffer—whether they're targets of disinformation campaigns or collateral damage in a credibility crisis. And when public officials knowingly spread falsehoods, the ripple effects distort public discourse, corrode institutions, and undermine every brand that operates in the same space. In this reality, truth becomes less about objective absolutes and more about process. Who checks? Who corrects? Who can be trusted to revise when wrong? For those of us working in thought leadership—helping experts, executives, and enterprises communicate their best thinking or doing it themselves—these questions can no longer be considered out of scope. They must be woven into our editorial ethics, our publishing practices, and our cultural values. What do I mean by fact-checking? It's not just catching typos or verifying dates. In its highest form, fact-checking is a journalistic discipline. It means interrogating the accuracy, sourcing, and framing of every claim you publish. It also means calling out others errors and being willing to make corrections if needed. Thought leadership content—whether it's a white paper on blockchain risks, a LinkedIn post about workplace culture, or a keynote on sustainable supply chains—frequently makes factual claims. Many of these claims are drawn from internal data, third-party research, or expert interviews. But that doesn't make them immune to error. As Holan told me, 'There's always the chance that the ghostwriter or whoever in the company picks up something wrong. And companies don't benefit from disinformation either.' In my experience coaching subject-matter experts on their writing, I've seen facts and figures taken from second-hand sources or a general lack of verification of claims. In smaller companies, sometimes there's not a structured editorial review of a text that is published. This is a missed opportunity—and a risk. The solution isn't to paralyze creation but to elevate the standards of fact checking and verification. Much standard setting needs to be done within organizations. In addition, the Global Thought Leadership Institute (GTLI), founded by APQC, the American Productivity & Quality Center, a not-for-profit, is working with thought-leadership producers to set standards for content quality. In publishing or broadcasting, one of the greatest signs of integrity is the willingness and interest in correcting something when you get it wrong. 'The people who attack us give zero credit for self-correction,' Holan said. 'But self-correction is the essence of progressing human knowledge. We should be proud of our corrections and promote them.' This is a vital lesson for thought leadership. Companies fear admitting error. Leaders fear losing face. But owning your corrections—and making them visible—builds trust. Whether you're a data-driven CEO or a solopreneur with a publishing platform, a published correction tells your audience: 'We take accuracy seriously. We're human. And we improve.' That humility is more persuasive than false certainty. It's also what can separate thought leadership from other types of content in which persuasion is more important than accuracy. The stakes are not just reputational—they can be existential. Holan described the Wayfair child trafficking hoax as one of the most notorious cases of a campaign of disinformation against a company. 'It was a very high-profile example, and companies can get sucked into a story that's not really about them,' she explained. This kind of viral distortion doesn't require malice. It only requires momentum. A manipulated image. A rogue post. A story with just enough detail to seem plausible. Suddenly a brand finds itself caught in the gears of a conspiracy, and it's difficult for readers to understand the actual the truth. That's why Holan advises every company to have what she calls 'informational readiness.' 'Make sure all your research is in order,' she said. 'If you are being subject to an Internet hoax, you want to be able to get to the information you need quickly.' This readiness is editorial and strategic. Have a vetted corporate description. Have your research and claims annotated. Know who in your organization is responsible for issuing clarifications. And above all, be willing to respond—not with deflection, but with clarity. What does this mean for people who guide and create thought leadership? It means we have to build what I call a journalistic backbone into the process of thought-leadership publishing. This is editorial rigor and accountability to truth. This doesn't mean thought leaders can't be bold. It means their boldness must be anchored in transparent logic and sourced claims. It doesn't mean brands can't publish provocative content. It means they should be ready to explain their reasoning, correct missteps, and clarify their position in good faith, if needed. And if they are attacked by disinformation—whether targeted campaigns or random verbal attacks—companies and thought leaders need to know how to respond: quickly, confidently, and with traceable truth. This mindset aligns with Holan's core message: 'We all suffer when mis- and disinformation aren't countered. It's a deterrent to business, a danger to trust, and a drag on public life.' One of the most fascinating parts of my conversation with Holan was her acknowledgment that truth is a tricky word in the fact-checking community. Not because facts are up for debate, but because belief systems can shape interpretation. Some people spreading disinformation genuinely think they're right. 'There's a real 'through the looking glass' quality to it,' she said. This is why systems of fact checking matter. Companies and creators who want to lead must invest in processes and structures that support accuracy and correct errors. That's how we build the future of trustworthy content. Don't forget that you're not just competing on expertise. You're competing on credibility. And credibility is earned not just by what you say—but by how you prove it, and if you're willing to revise it if proven wrong during a journalistic fact-checking process.


Forbes
26-05-2025
- Forbes
AI, Writing, And The Importance Of Story Architecture
Generative AI is flooding the content landscape with polished, plausible-sounding prose, and this is changing how people value and assess the ability to write. With this change, good writing may begin to be defined as the ability to assess, structure, and guide writing: the ability to see the 'bones' of a story, to understand where it collapses and where it could really take off. Good writing may soon be seen as the ability to build a story, like an architect designs and constructs a building. There was a time when being a strong writer meant starting with a blank page and shaping your thoughts into something that made sense. That time hasn't exactly passed—but it's no longer the whole job. Today, AI gives us the scaffolding. You type a prompt, and the screen populates with paragraphs. Maybe they sound coherent. Maybe they're even on message. But more often than not, they're missing something essential: purpose, clarity, tension, meaning. The piece may 'read well,' but if you dig beneath the surface, the structure is off. It doesn't build. It doesn't land. And if you're not trained to recognize these flaws, you'll mistake filler for substance. This is where story architecture comes in. It's the discipline of seeing structure—of recognizing narrative principles and applying them to non-fiction in a systematic way. And it's the skill that will differentiate real thought leadership from AI-generated noise. We've long accepted that fiction writers need structure. They talk about plot arcs, character turns, narrative tension. They spend months mapping stories on whiteboards. But in nonfiction—especially in business writing—we've treated structure as an afterthought. We assume clarity will emerge from smart sentences or that a list of bullet points equals a framework. It doesn't. If anything, those tactics often mask weak thinking. Nonfiction needs structure just as much as fiction does. In fact, when the ideas are complex—when you're trying to argue for a new paradigm or dismantle a broken one—structure is essential. It's what gives your insight form. It's what allows the reader to follow your thinking and experience a transformation of their own. And the best thought-leadership writing—whether it's a McKinsey article, a keynote, or an op-ed—borrows from fiction in subtle but powerful ways. It sets up tension. It reveals stakes. It builds to a shift. It ends with clarity. That's strong story architecture. So what do I mean when I talk about story architecture in the context of thought leadership? I'm talking about design principles that give a piece structural integrity—principles that an AI, no matter how advanced, doesn't intuitively understand. These include: These elements mirror the classic three-act structure from film and fiction: beginning, middle, end. But in nonfiction, they translate into something like: context, challenge, change. The most powerful thought leadership doesn't just present facts—it tells the story of an idea, from problem to possibility. If your piece doesn't do that, no amount of polish will save it. In traditional publishing, editors were the keepers of structure. They helped writers see the flaws they couldn't see themselves: buried leads, logical fallacies, abrupt shifts in tone, missing stakes. They weren't just checking grammar—they were asking: Does this piece hold together? That editorial mindset is now essential for anyone using AI. AI doesn't know when it's faking. It doesn't know when its transitions are weak or its conclusions unearned. It produces language, not logic. And if you don't have a trained eye, you won't catch the difference. This is why I am now arguing that in the age of generative content, the most important writing skill has become editing. I don't mean surface-level editing, but deep structure editing. You need to be able to look at a piece and say: This doesn't work, and here's why. Story architects see the flaw before the reader feels it. And they know how to fix it. Another crucial shift: It's not enough to think like an editor—you have to speak like one, too, especially when you're directing an AI. Saying 'Make this clearer' won't help so much. But saying 'Here I'm missing a turning point. I wanted to say XYZ' will. If you can articulate what's missing structurally, AI can help you build it. That's the difference between a passive use of generative AI and turning it into a strategic writing collaborator. Too many emerging thought leaders today are using AI to generate 'content.' But content without architecture is just word count. What you want is resonance. For that, you need to guide the AI—not just feed it prompts. If you're building a business around your thinking, this isn't optional. You need a steady stream of unique ideas. You need to craft arguments that persuade. You need narratives that stick. You need pieces that scale your impact without diluting your insight. That's what story architecture enables. It also gives you a powerful filter. When you have architectural awareness, you can look at a draft—AI-generated or otherwise—and immediately assess: Without this lens, you're guessing. If you have the ability to see the story at its bones, you have the chance to build. If this sounds daunting, well, it can be. But don't worry. If you're willing to shift your mindset, you can get there. One place to start is to reverse engineer great articles to understand their architecture. It also means practicing. One way I help thought leaders build this skill is by teaching them to visualize their own thinking before they write. I help them build conceptual blueprints often by list-making or chartifying. What is the status quo thinking in your area vs. what is the counter-intuitive narrative? What's the central shift in understanding that this piece will create? How does it get there? When you design first, writing becomes clearer. In the coming years, we'll see more content than ever before. AI is accelerating that flood. But the pieces that matter—the ones that lead, influence, and endure—will come from people who know how to structure a story. The good news? You can be one of them. You don't need to be a screenwriter. But you do need to think like one. Understand arcs. Study structure. Learn to see the story behind the sentences. Speak the language of editors, and teach your AI to speak it with you. Story architecture is a skill. It may be the one skill that keeps your writing unmistakably, powerfully human.


Forbes
25-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
7 Ways To Use AI To Amplify Your Influence And Fast-Track Your Career
Photo credit When many people think about building their brand, they think about the exciting stuff—building thought leadership, publishing content, or delivering presentations at professional conferences. But before you go big, you have got to go deep. That means you need to spend time clarifying your values, your point of view, and the problem only you can solve. Once you have brand clarity, it's time to grow your brand so you can increase your success and achieve your career goals. The GROW phase of the personal branding process is where your personal brand shifts into action mode. It's where you build connections and momentum so you can show up regularly, deliver value to your network, and become known for your unique ideas. The great news is that AI makes growing your visibility faster and easier, without losing your authentic voice. If you're not actively growing your visibility and credibility, you diminish your career growth potential. Remember, growth doesn't mean going viral. It means becoming known in your niche, earning trust, and unlocking new opportunities. You want your name to come up in rooms you're not even in yet. That starts with intentional visibility. Of course, before you start interacting with AI on your thought leadership plan, you need to apply AI best practices to help your preferred platform know who you are, what's important to you, and what helps you stand out from others who do what you do. Then, AI will produce on-brand content that sounds like you and supports your mission. Here are seven ways AI can be your biggest asset in the GROW phase of personal branding: Use AI to brainstorm topics for articles or videos that your audience wants, and ask AI to come up with article titles or video scripts to help get you started. Feed it some of your best work and ask for content that's aligned with your message. You can even ask it to adapt your ideas for different audiences, platforms, or tones. Consider prompts like this: 'I am writing an article about the five trends tech executives need to focus on when it comes to cybersecurity. Here's the outline I created [paste]. Please provide approximately two paragraphs for each of the five trends.' AI lets you make the most of the work you have already done. When you feed it previously created content and ask it to update it, AI lets you maximize your previous work. Just feed it your content and ask it to update it with current examples, new data, or a fresh tone. Remember to ask it to cite all sources of data and to provide links so you can verify its accuracy. In addition to updating content, you can ask AI to turn one piece of content into many, reducing the time it takes to develop new material. For example, you could take an article that you published and ask AI to create several smaller articles, a script for a 2-minute video, an infographic, and a series of tweets. Here's a prompt to try: 'Please take this blog post and turn it into a LinkedIn carousel script with slide titles and one-line captions. Then, create a 30-minute presentation from the carousel.' AI can help you plan and schedule your content calendar, making it easier to have a consistent presence. You can ask it to suggest content themes for each week/month, create copy for recurring newsletter sections, and recommend the best times to post based on your content and audience type. For example: 'Please build a 3-month content calendar on hybrid learning strategies for CLOs and other learning professionals. Include weekly themes, trending topics, and content ideas tailored to different generational learning styles." Whether you're commenting on others' posts, responding to messages, or following up after an event, AI can help. It lets you draft thoughtful comments that reflect your expertise, craft customized thank-you notes and LinkedIn connection requests, and summarize key takeaways from events and webinars. Try this: 'Craft a personalized comment on this post about remote leadership that aligns with my brand as an executive coach focused on hybrid workplace culture." Whether you're pitching yourself for new business, applying for a job, or explaining why you're the best partner for a project, AI can help you make your case. When you get your preferred AI tool up-to-speed on who you are and what's important to you, you can make a compelling case. Consider this prompt: 'Please write a warm, concise outreach email to a podcast host who focuses on new managers, introducing me as a guest stress management expert for emerging leaders." AI tools can also be used to review the performance of your posts, engagement trends, and recurring themes. You can ask it to analyze your last 10 LinkedIn posts for tone, engagement, and clarity, or identify the most resonant messages you have written and published. A prompt to try: 'Analyze these 10 LinkedIn posts for engagement and tone. Suggest what worked best, what to tweak, and how to better reflect my brand voice going forward. Thanks." Your personal brand is not a one-and-done project. It's alive, evolving, and strengthened by every interaction you have with others and the content you share. With AI, you don't have to pick between consistency and creativity. You get both. Use it strategically in the GROW phase and you'll enhance your visibility, increase your influence and open doors to new opportunities. That will help you build a personal brand that delivers on the three Cs of branding: Clarity, Consistency, and Constancy. William Arruda is a keynote speaker, author, and personal branding pioneer. Join him as he discusses clever strategies for using AI to express and expand your brand in Maven's free Lightning Lesson. If you can't attend live, register to receive the replay.


Forbes
22-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
20 Reasons Authentic Thought Leadership Is So Important In B2B
In B2B, purchasing decisions are rarely made on product specs alone. Buyers want to know who they're learning from, who they can trust and who can make sense of where the industry is headed. Engaging in authentic thought leadership without promoting one's services or products gives B2B leaders the perfect opportunity to prove they're not just participants in the industry—they're shaping it. When the insight is real and the voice is clear, people pay attention. Below, Forbes Agency Council members share why true thought leadership matters more than ever. Read on to learn how and why it helps B2B leaders rise above the noise rather than blend into it. True thought leadership positions B2B leaders as trusted experts, not just sellers. By sharing valuable, forward-thinking insights, they build credibility, nurture relationships and stand out in a crowded market. In my opinion, LinkedIn is ideal for this. It enables sharing content with a targeted audience, boosting engagement and authority. - John Readman, ASK BOSCO B2B leaders can leverage and amplify their influence when they center thought leadership on insights that share strategic learnings and keys to unblocking success. The goals are twofold: Showcase your particular methodology or point of view while helping others succeed. - Talie Smith, Smith & Connors True thought leadership differentiates genuine industry experts from superficial content creators, positioning B2B leaders as authentic voices worth following. A powerful but overlooked medium is podcasting, providing a personal, engaging way to regularly deliver deep insights directly to professionals seeking trusted expertise. - George Arabian, NVISION A bylined article in a respected trade publication is one of the most effective ways B2B leaders can reach their audience with credible, useful insights. It's targeted, searchable and often picked up by AI tools. Thought leadership isn't about promotion—it's about building trust by showing you truly understand the challenges your audience faces. - Christine Wetzler, Pietryla PR & Marketing Forbes Agency Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify? B2B thought leadership needs to be thoughtful and compelling to position your brand at the center of industry conversations. By creating what I call a 'company you keep campaign,' leaders establish credibility beyond self-promotion. A branded interview series allows you to curate influential guests, shape discussions around mutual expertise and own the conversation while expanding reach. - Kathleen Lucente, Red Fan Communications In B2B, people buy trust as much as they buy solutions. Thought leadership shows that you get their world—and have ideas worth stealing. It builds your credibility before the sales pitch begins. One killer medium? LinkedIn posts are short, sharp, personal wins—no fluff, no jargon, just real insights that spark conversation. - Justin Belmont, Prose Thought leadership has always been important for brand building, but it is now absolutely critical for earning inclusion in large language model AI answers and gaining mindshare with potential customers. The most effective way to do that is by creating entity associations via schema markup that tie your unique perspectives across media properties to your brand. - Toren Ajk, TAC Marketing Group Most B2B 'thought leadership' is recycled best practices—safe, shallow and already done. Old ideas repackaged as clickbait. Real leaders help others navigate a rapidly changing world with clarity and a panoramic perspective. The medium will—and should—vary by industry and end goal. Where you show up depends on what you're trying to shift, spark or solve. But the mandate remains: Lead what's next. - Shanna Apitz, Hunt Adkins People don't trust logos, they trust people. Thought leadership gives leaders a way to build credibility, not by selling, but by showing up with a perspective. LinkedIn remains incredibly powerful for this. It's not about perfectly produced posts; it's about showing your point of view consistently. When done right, it builds a magnetic personal brand that benefits the entire organization. - Jacquelyn LaMar Berney, VI Marketing and Branding Thought leadership is crucial because it positions you as a go-to source of knowledge, helping you stand out. It's better to be micro-famous than anonymous! A great way to achieve this is through guest posting, guest writing and appearing on podcasts or public platforms with large, broad audiences. This strategy helps you reach your target B2B audience with valuable, non-promotional insights. - Austin Irabor, NETFLY Thought leadership positions B2B leaders as credible and forward-thinking people who drive change and set trends. Besides traditional approaches like publications and events, LinkedIn influencer marketing is an effective approach to reach out to an engaged and interested B2B audience. Influencers speak in a personal and authentic manner that catches the audience's attention. - Michael Kuzminov, HypeFactory True thought leadership builds trust, authority and long-term relationships—key drivers in B2B decisions. Publishing insightful articles on LinkedIn is an effective way to share valuable, non-promotional knowledge and consistently reach and influence target audiences. - Boris Dzhingarov, ESBO Ltd B2B leaders who engage in authentic thought leadership build trust, credibility and influence in their industry. They attract and engage decision-makers by sharing insights and expertise, not just promotions. One medium that continues to be effective is LinkedIn, where long-form posts, articles and videos can reach ideal personas, spark discussions and position leaders as authorities. - Elyse Flynn Meyer, Prism Global Marketing Solutions Thought leadership is the cornerstone of a strong PR program, positioning your company and its executives and subject matter experts as the authorities in your space. This approach increases awareness of—and respect for—your brand. LinkedIn is the place to be when it comes to building thought leadership—posts that crowdsource, videos and polls are especially engaging and algorithm-friendly. - Jodi Amendola, Amendola Communications Op-eds, podcasts and speaking gigs are great outlets for non-promotional thought leadership. What matters is choosing the one that reaches your target audience in the best way. When you think of a company like Google or Salesforce, you always know who the CEO is behind it. That's because building your leadership as an expert in your field is the surest way to create credibility for your company. - Ayelet Noff, SlicedBrand B2B leaders must lead with insight to build trust, shape perception and stay top of mind in long sales cycles. True thought leadership drives credibility, not clicks. YouTube is a strategic channel as it blends global reach, SEO and engaging video to deliver expert content that educates, connects and converts over time. - Amy Packard Berry, Sparkpr Many see thought leadership as a way to position themselves or their brand as an industry expert. What's often forgotten is how it gives direct insight into the audience's reactions. Since it often challenges industry norms or competitors, you might want to know how customers respond. LinkedIn is a great place to connect with like-minded individuals and gauge their views. - Nataliya Andreychuk, Viseven Thought leadership in B2B is critical for the simple reason that people still need (and want) to partner with people—actual humans. Behind every successful B2B organization is someone leading the charge. In the AI age, when businesses can seemingly pop up overnight, being able to put a face to a B2B entity helps build trust faster than any volume of content or social media posting ever could. - Bernard May, National Positions Aligning with the buyer's committee has always been a critical stage in a B2B sale. LinkedIn remains the best platform for thought leaders to engage with B2B decision-makers. A combination of videos, posts, articles and polls, along with engaging discussions with B2B decision-makers at virtual events, plays an important role in building a community around a B2B product. - Oksana Matviichuk, OM Strategic Forecasting If you're focused on price, service or capabilities, you're just speaking to buyers, not other leaders. Leaders engage with ideas that help them improve their business, understand their markets and think about what is possible for the future. Smart leaders know that there is no single medium to focus on to share their thought leadership. They need to be active everywhere in our multichannel world. - Thomas Faust, Stanton