Value of Awards and Speaking Opportunities

A couple other common components of thought leadership programs are awards and speaking opportunities, which both provide outside validation of the brand at hand.

To win an award, a person or company presumably meets certain qualifications and either attains a high score of some kind or beats out other candidates. Think about it, there’s a reason why Nobel Prizes are understood to be prestigious, or another example, if you see one of those best place to work logos for a company you’re applying to, that little badge tells you a whole lot because it’s an endorsement of the workplace by a vast majority of employees.

Now, when we say speaking opportunities, in this context we don’t mean podium presentations at academic meetings. Instead, we’re talking about invited keynotes or panel participation. There’s a difference between being a headliner at a highly regarded medical meeting or summit sponsored by a known news outlet, and giving a talk at the first annual symposium of … fill in the blank here.

Of course, be wary of so-called “pay-for-play opportunities.” There’s nothing inherently wrong with these, as long as you know what you’re getting into and understand that these are usually, essentially advertisements or sponsored placements.

Tell us, do you include award applications or speaking opportunities in your thought leadership plans?

What are your winning strategies for landing an award, a spot on a coveted list, or an invitation to a star-studded event?

Come back next week as we continue our journey exploring the ins and outs of thought leadership.

Modern-Day Commentary Ops

Last week we shared an overview of how we think about thought leadership as an overarching topic.

One of the pillars of an effective program is commentary and op-ed.

A concept that’s really resonated with us is the modern-day definition of op-eds, thinking about them more holistically, as any kind of opinion piece.

Like most other media, opinion pieces fall into three categories: Earned, paid and owned…

Each with own merits:

A more traditional op-ed, whether in a mainstream or trade publication, arguably “earns” some element of legitimacy.

More advertorial-type opportunities have popped up recently, such as certain columns in Forbes,

Entrepreneur, Fast Company and Newsweek. While these are paid placements, they do still have a massive reach and can help boost your message.

And then of course, there are so many ways to self-publish owned media nowadays – anything from books to blogs and social media posts, like this one. This type of content allows for full editorial control on your own time.

The bottom line is that there’s more than one way to think about op-eds nowadays.

Our questions for the T2B community this week are:

Where does commentary like this have a place in a broader comms strategy?

What are the considerations to determine which type of op-ed is appropriate and when?

We’ll be back next week.

Defining Thought Leadership

Ticket to Biotech’s February focus area is thought leadership – sometimes a nebulous term.

We define it as proactively yet opportunistically positioning a brand, whether that’s a company or a person, as a foremost expert in a given field among predefined audiences to create influence.

This week we’re sharing in broad strokes how we think about it:

Get to know the person or entity – what are they all about? Program should be related to what they’re good at or what they’re passionate about.

Platform, what you stand for or what you want to be known for?

Gauge what your guardrails are – are you working with a CEO who’s never been on social media and doesn’t want to start, or the opposite, someone who’s a loose cannon. Be realistic about what you’re working with.

Now that you have all these inputs, it’s time to determine the outputs.

Look at priority social media platforms and content cadence.

Volunteering and community involvement – whether in a professional or medical society or in a local organization.

Awards – what better way to demonstrate expertise than to get a third-party stamp of approval.

Bylined articles and op-eds in outlets that are important to your predetermined key audiences.

Organic media engagement – appropriate to incorporate the platform into your broader corp affairs strategy?

Don’t forget about the internal aspect with colleagues too – is there a plug and play opp like an ERG or culture group, or is there value in creating a new forum?

Make sure you have both quantitative and qualitative measurement mechanisms in place for the long term, and don’t necessarily expect quick wins. Sample considerations could be related to business goal achievement, more inbound speaking opportunities, increased engagement on social media or even with employees.

Tell us how you think about thought leadership and what your must-haves are for creating influence.