Thought Leadership Survey ask

Has anyone ever given you advice, like coming on screen like that, that just didn't feel right for you and who you are and the people you're trying to serve? Yeah, there's a reason for that. And today I am asking you to help me find out more about it. That gap is especially important if, like me, you're somebody who is trying to change how people think about something that you deeply care about, which frankly, yeah, includes me, but I also think it includes a A lot of people, but it's why I care about this as much as I do. And 6 years ago, I found a research study that helped me understand why sometimes that advice and my approach just didn't seem to fit. What is this magical study? It's called the ROI of Thought Leadership. It was run by my friend and market researcher Susan Byer of Audience Audit, and she was running it for her client Predictive ROI. Given my interest in sensegiving, in helping make new information make sense to other people, I asked Susan if that study had ever been rerun. Answer, no. I asked, would you run it again? She said yes. She asked Predictive ROI. They said yes. Woohoo! We have a new study to run. Now, what's important to understand is that the first study was launched in 2019, and that is the last clear picture of this dataset that we have about the audiences before COVID before generative AI, before the rise and dominance of short-form video like TikToks and YouTube Shorts. In other words, the landscape has changed quite a bit. And my question, has the audience for thought leadership changed along with it? Now, why would I care? Back to my first point, obviously things have changed, but part of the reason why I wanted to run it again is because the previous findings were so valuable to me personally, but also to all of those other folks that I work with. The big finding, there is no one-size-fits-all audience. For thought leadership. I'm going to say it again. There is no one-size-fits-all audience for thought leadership. In fact, what Susan found in the data was that there are 4 different groups of people who thought about thought leadership in 4 different ways. I'm not going to tell you what those are right now because I don't want to bias the sample. These attitudes towards thought leadership showed up across age, gender, industry, organization size, job level. The groups differed in how they looked at publishing, whether or not someone speaks, whether or not someone posts on social media, and if they do, what they post, how big somebody's following was, whether or not they were on social at all. The only thing that they were all united on was what was useful. All of those different formats and styles of writing, of promotion, of sharing your thought leadership land differently depending on which of those groups you are talking to. So one person's advice of, hey, put yourself on Instagram, may actually work against you with the audience whose respect you most want to earn. Okay. So what is it? A survey. Why? Because super useful information, not only so you can self-identify as to which group you are, but also if you're one of these thought leaders, or as you know, I like to call them thinking leaders, who are the kinds of people that are out there so that you can decide, A, which of those audiences is the one you're trying for, and B, making sure that your approach to getting your thought leadership out there aligns. Now you might be saying, yeah, okay, Tamsen, you are studying some of this, aren't you? Is this part of your research? Yeah, but it's not part of my dissertation research. I'm just super curious. Also to know, I added 3 sets of questions. So Susan, Hannah at Predictive ROI, and I all looked at the survey as it was given in 2019. We added some questions to ask about authenticity. I added some questions close to my heart about to what extent, if any, Thought leadership has changed how people think about something, not just what they do. And as well, what are the behaviors of experts, perceived or otherwise, that these different groups respond to? Are there even different groups? Don't know. So yes, I am a doctoral candidate at Columbia studying what about ideas gets people to change their minds suddenly. But this is Susan's studies, not mine. I just contributed some of the questions and I am trying to get people to take it. So hey, that's where this ask comes in. The ask is simple and 2 parts. Number one, take the study. The link is in the description and in the post attached to this. It should take about 15 minutes, which I know isn't nothing, but oh, it would be so useful to me, to us, and frankly to all of you who are trying to get your ideas out there in the world. So even though the survey doesn't close until October 31st, I would really love for you to take this right now. Even more, I'd love for you to share this link with your own audiences if you have them. The more people we can get to take the survey, the more data we will get, and hopefully the richer the answers will be. The survey is anonymous, but everyone who takes the survey goes into a drawing for a $250 cash card. That'll buy some paid ads, and your answers will remain anonymous. Not only that, we will publish a free executive summary, and you can rely on the fact that I will be here to break down the results once we get them. Speaking of those results, for the academics or methodologically driven among you, we are using a convenience and snowball sampling method to build on 2019's approach. The 2019 study was mostly a purchased panel and had about 200 to 300 respondents. We're hoping to do much better than that, but the fact that this one is running through our personal networks will shift the nature of the data a little bit. We recognize that as a limitation of the potential transferability and generalizability of the data. Susan Baer, an audience audit will do the analysis of the data. Neither the number of the segments nor their attitudes are going to be set in advance. We're going to run it as if it were a brand new study and then afterwards compare the results with the 2019 study. Predictive ROI is a co-sponsor. I'm just here to help share, but we actually need 300 responses in order for the data to be valid at all. So again, please take it, please share it. Side note, if you're one of those people who wants to share the link, If you have an audience that's big enough for us to be able to break out your audience's responses separately, email me and I will send you a specific link for your specific use so we can look at that data separately later. How much detail you get back from that link and how much it matters will depend on the audience size. So again, if you're interested in that, please just let me know. And that's it. I am so excited that Susan and Predictive and I are running this study again. Cannot wait to see the updated answers. Thank you in advance for taking the survey and sharing it with others. I'm so excited to find out what this new data says, and I am so excited to share those results, whatever they are, with you when they're ready.