# [[Module 1 - Foundation]] Course:: [[How to Write Thought Leadership Content]] ## Summary > [!abstract] Summary > Thought leadership is about sharing *earned secrets*: things you know that are not obvious to all. Thought leadership content can consist of your personal experiences, your process for solving a *hard* problem, an observation about your industry that only someone experienced could make, or a contrarian position to a well-known "best practice". > > Being a thought leader is about presenting compeling arguments, but it's also about being authentic and saying things you can defend. It's not shitposting. ## Log Thought Leadership Content Creation is the hardest part of content marketing because: - We don't have shared language when talking about content creation. - Putting yourself in the spotlight is uncomfortable. - There are some incredibly successful content creators to compare yourself against. - Content marketing often starts with just a list of keywords, which isn't useful. - It's applied critical thinking, which is hard! ### Shared language about content creation > Thought leadership is the sharing of earned secrets. That means we're writing *novel* ideas based on our own *experiences*. Aka: > You did something in your past to solve a *hard problem* and learned something about the world that *not a lot of other people know*. - Ben Horowitz, a16z Earned secrets: - Useful personal experience - Your process for solving a hard problem - An observation about your industry - A contrarian (but defensible) opinion ### Why should you do it? This is really about persuading, which is useful for a lot of different contexts. - *It builds trust and credibility.*: Set yourself apart from "easy" marketing. - *It's great for reaching skeptical people.*: Developers are the most marketing-allergic people of all. You need something that feels different from marketing. - *It unlocks new distribution channels and traffic sources.*: Hacker News, email newsletters. - *It builds your personal brand.* (while being great for your company.) - *It makes you smarter.* It's critical thinking. - *It's fun*. ### The Jerk Problem Being a thought leader != being a jerk. - Don't be mean. - Don't share intentionally contradictory opinions. (This makes you seem insincere, like you're just trying to do whatever you can to generate interest.) - Only share things that have value to the wider world. - Don't call yourself a thought leader. ### 5 traits of good thought leadership - **Personal.** It should come from your experiences. - **Credible.** Why should people believe you? - **Persuasive.** Making compelling arguments for new ideas. - **Helpful.** Your ideas are useful to real people in the real world. - **Defensible.** You can and will stand by your ideas! ## Processed into: - [[Thought Leadership Content]] - [[Creativity]] - [[Content Creation]] - [[Idea Generation]] - [[Anti-marketing]] ![[earned-secrets]]