Welcome to this week’s Thursday Thought Leadership Roundup. On the agenda today: digital trend predictions from industry thought leaders; tweet-sized descriptions of what thought leadership really means; and a discussion from the healthcare industry surrounding why we might need to rethink how we identify and map influencers going forward.
2014 Digital Trends And Predictions From Marketing Thought Leaders
From Forbes:
“Competition in the digital space continues to grow as marketers seek out real-time opportunities and intensify their speed of interacting in “the moment.” The key disruptive digital trends we’ve seen successfully join the forces of mobile and social together to reach audiences at the heart of their digital usage. Images and videos have become the go-to viral tactic, and will continue to expand as brands can use visuals to interact with their consumers and the newest group of influencers–visual influencers. Just announced, Instagram is joining the playing field, alongside other messaging apps like Snapchat and WhatsApp, to compete for the main communication channel for consumers to share personable moments. Social networks are hungry for challenges and eager to disrupt the current trends to start a new innovation.”
Suzanne Fanning, President of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA)
Our take: A worthy read, to be sure, that includes several other great insights in addition to the one above. To maintain competitive advantage and drive growth, it’s critical that companies look to industry experts for direction and inspiration.
Thought Leader Mapping: Do We Need a Radical Rethink?
From Phramafile:
“The effectiveness of healthcare communications is often more reliant on who’s delivering the message than the content of the message itself. This is because we give more weight to information from what we perceive as ‘credible’ sources…Therefore, it is critical for companies to understand and engage with the key sources and shapers of thought leadership in their given therapy areas. The ultimate success of any medicine is highly dependent on the views of thought leaders.
Thought leader — or influencer — mapping is a well-established process for identifying and ranking the key sources of information for healthcare professionals. The basic process hasn’t really changed for at least 20 years…[and], thought leader mapping is not value-adding in itself, it is what’s done with the data that really makes an impact and adds value for all parties. Specifically, how partnerships with thought leaders are formed to support medical education activities that positively impact clinical practice.
There are three key developments that I believe are radically changing thought leader mapping to enable the delivery of more impactful medical education activities.”
Our take: The author brings up some incredibly valid points about why it’s possible that industries everywhere might need to revamp the way they identify, track, and connect with influencers in their space. They also provide excellent tips for leveraging your thought leadership network for enhanced business success, even if your company has nothing to do with healthcare.
34 Tweet-Sized Thought Leadership Definitions
From TL Strategy:
“Welcome to 2014s tweet-sized definitions of thought leadership. These were sent to me by numerous twitter followers towards the end of last year. Here are 34 tweet-sized definitions of thought leadership:
José Luis Puccini @PucciniJose
an art =)
Becky Tumidolsky @becky_writes
Hi Craig! Here’s my first offering: Thought leadership is battling industry inertia and enlisting consumers to join the fight.
SalesMessage 2.0 @SalesMessage20
Thought leadership is a vision which is part of a MARKETING strategy; and is often misused and misunderstood term. Have a nice day! Ronald
Melissa Kvitko @melissamandel
Thanks Craig! IMO: Thought leadership is about having the ability to persuade and move the conversation in a new direction.“
Our take: There’s nothing like fresh perspectives to help shape our own way of looking at things, especially when it comes to a buzzword like ‘thought leadership’. There are some really unique ones in this piece. Do you have your own way of defining the term? Tell us about it in the comments!
The post Thursday Thought Leadership Roundup: Digital Predictions, Mapping Influencers, and Tweet-Sized Definitions appeared first on Conspire: Innovation | Collaboration | Mindjet.