A Guide to Get Started on Thought Leadership Ahead of the 2024 European Elections
Don't waste time and get your organisation seen on the political landscape before the European elections.
With the European elections taking place in June 2024, you have less than six months to impact the political agenda before the new Commission starts preparing its priorities.
Should you and your organisation want to have a say in the political debate leading to the next European legislature, you have to prepare and act now. Luckily, there is a tool that, if used well, can help you shape the political landscape to your advantage.
Today, let’s dive into the fantastic world of Thought Leadership.
The benefits of thought leadership
Let’s review the advantages that thought leadership can have for your organisation or the cause you defend.
Increase Visibility and Brand Recognition: Wouldn’t your job be much easier if policymakers could immediately identify your organisation as “the leading voice on topic X”?
Establish Credibility and Trust: In the EU bubble, credibility and trust are everything. Thought leadership can help you build both.
Influence Policy and Decision-Making: Greater influence & Recognition + Visibility = Influence.
Position yourself as the go-to Expert: Stop chasing stakeholders for meetings, and let them come to you for insights.
Clarify your ideas and positions: A surprising effect of thought leadership is that it helps you clarify your position, and expand your knowledge and understanding of your topic of interest.
Networking Opportunities: I can’t count the amazing new connections I’ve made since I started working on The Beubble. I wouldn’t have that if I hadn’t started writing online a year ago. Let’s have a chat?
Professional advancement: The advantages for your career are immense too. I’m certain you know someone who has already successfully implemented thought leadership tactics. Why not you?
And the good thing is that thought Leadership does not even require extensive skills to start. You probably know already more than you think, and you will develop the skills you lack in no time.
Convinced about the importance of developing thought leadership for you and your organisation?
I’m putting together a complete course on thought leadership for public affairs. You can register your interest below, or find more information at the end of this article.
What you need for successful thought leadership
Consistency and qualitative content
One of the first elements of strong thought leadership is consistency.
It takes time to be seen as an expert and refine one’s craft. So play for the long term. In a recent video, productivity expert Ali Abdaal explained that growing a personal brand is a combination of “Patience and Faith”. Patience because it is foolish to expect results after a few weeks or months of activity, and Faith because one still must trust that his endeavour will pay off.
That’s the mindset someone wanting to develop his or her thought leadership should develop.
On top of consistency, content must be qualitative.
That’s perhaps the hardest part of the effort of building a successful thought leadership strategy. Keep an hear on your target audience, use data to see which type of content is most appreciated, etc.
A strong personal brand
This is something you can develop alongside your thought leadership activities.
By consistently delivering high-quality content, crafting your narrative, and offering advice and insightful content, you will be able to build a strong personal (or organisational) brand, which, in turn, will feed into your thought leadership successes.
The development of a strong personal brand has other advantages: better visibility and positioning, networking and career opportunities, etc. These are worth building in themselves.
A strong narrative
Your organisation defends a cause.
This cause is backed by a narrative. And your job is to understand this narrative and deliver it as much as you can in your content.
A strong narrative starts with a vision of the world as it is, with growing problems, risks, and perils. And if nothing changes, how it will look in 10, 20, or 50 years if nothing is done?
Enters your solution. Describe the world after your proposal is implemented. Why is your solution the best? Don’t also forget to point out the issues associated with your solution, and offer solutions or minimise their impact.
This narrative should find its place in every communication that you do, guide your content strategy. We’ll explore this in-depth in a later piece.
Start now: find your topics of expertise
Here is a super-easy method to identify the topics to talk about.
In the book The Art and Business of Online Writing, thought leadership adviser Nicolas Cole explains that he asks his clients to define three “content buckets”. The first is targeted at the General Audience, the second at the Industry Audience, and the third at the Niche Audience.
Let’s consider them one by one:
General Audience: these are topics that interest everyone, for instance:
Productivity
Money and Investment
Career advice
Industry Audience: these are the topics that the people in your industry are interested in:
EU politics
Public Affairs
Green policies
Niche Audience: addresses a very limited segment. They are your clients or your peers. Topics can include:
Marketing for EU affairs
Thought leadership
The intricacies of EU policymaking
Now it’s your turn…
Find, as I did before, at least three topics per audience.
These are the issues you can talk about. Then, depending on the reception from your audience, the data from your social media posts, and the questions people will ask you, you will be able to refine what you should focus on.
I’m putting together a complete course on thought leadership for public affairs.
If you are interested in developing this skill for yourself or your organisation, I would appreciate it if you could express your interest by signing up for this form.
This course will teach you how to:
Influence the political agenda before the Commission starts working on it,
Be perceived as an organisation or person of interest to policymakers,
Gather support from stakeholders, including policymakers and the general public,
Put the expertise within your organisation to good use,
Reduce the risk of being sidelined in the political debate,
Increase collaboration, and meeting opportunities with all stakeholders.
As a thank-you gift for answering the form, I will offer you the first module of the course when it is published.
