If Everything Is Thought Leadership, Nothing Is

What to Aim for Instead

By: LaNae Riviere, FMK Agency

Let’s just call it: “Thought leadership” has been stretched, twisted, and memed into irrelevance. What used to signal original thinking now gets slapped on almost anything. Founder quotes in a carousel. Recycled opinions in a LinkedIn post. Content with just enough polish to sound authoritative without actually saying anything.

We didn’t mean for it to get this way. But here we are, drowning in branded platitudes pretending to be bold ideas. The term has been so overused and diluted that it doesn’t actually mean anything anymore. And if everything qualifies, then nothing really does.

The irony? We use thought leadership content as a credibility shortcut. It’s meant to signal originality and vision, but what we often end up publishing feels more like following a trend than contributing to one. In marketing strategy terms, it's noise without purpose.

And while your audience may scroll past politely, what they’re really looking for is much simpler: clear, honest answers to their problems.

Stop Mistaking Opinion for Insight

We’ve confused having an opinion with having something to offer. But your audience isn’t looking for hot takes. They’re looking for clarity. They want to understand what works, what doesn’t, and why a solution might be worth their time. Real insight doesn’t come from saying “this matters.” It comes from showing how it matters.

Instead of vague posts like “Remote work is here to stay,” say,“Our client service team shifted to in-flight project updates, reducing meeting time by 40%. Here’s how.”That kind of detail helps someone else see what’s possible in their own world.

You don’t need to reinvent the wheel to be insightful. Use what’s already at your fingertips—customer feedback, campaign data, test results—and break it down in a way that’s easy to follow. Show your work. Help people understand the thinking behind it. That’s what makes content valuable.

If It’s Been Said a Thousand Times, Maybe Don’t Say It Again

Your audience is busy. They're not craving more content—they’re craving relevance. If your content reads like a list of quotes from a marketing conference, you’re not helping them do anything differently. You’re just adding to the noise.

Marketing phrases like “Content is king” or “Sell the story, not the product” might have meant something once, but now they just signal a lack of originality. If you’re going to talk about why storytelling matters, back it up with your own version of the story. Show the moment you shifted tactics and what happened because of it.

For example:“Here’s how we used two blog posts and one client testimonial to shorten our sales cycle by a week.”That’s something your audience can try. Something they can talk to their team about. Something that helps.

That’s the difference. Don’t just echo what’s popular. Say something useful (and say it your way).

Aim to Be Useful, Not Impressive

Most people reading your content aren’t looking to be wowed. They’re looking for an answer, an example, a step forward. So stop trying to sound clever, and focus on helping someone do their job better. Whether you’re speaking to marketing managers, founders, or a small creative team juggling five roles, they need things that work.

Want to sound strategic? Show the playbook.“Here’s how we turned a high-impression, low-click social post into a 3-email lead gen funnel.”That’s content that earns trust—and gets bookmarked.

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Start by asking: What are the real questions your audience has today?

How do I keep leads warm without bombarding them?
What kind of content actually converts for a B2B service?
How do I report value to a skeptical exec team?

Then answer them with examples, templates, numbers, or lessons. That’s how you stop sounding like every other brand, and start becoming one they come back to.

Get Out of the Branding Trap

You don’t build credibility by sounding important. You build it by being clear. Jargon might feel safe or “on brand,” but it rarely tells your audience what you actually do or how it helps them.

They don’t need to hear that your platform is “empowering.” They need to know:Can this help me onboard clients faster? Reduce churn? Hit my KPIs without hiring another person?

So tell them:“We helped a mid-size SaaS company reduce churn by 22% in six months by fixing onboarding gaps.”

Skip “cutting-edge.” Skip “transformational.” Show the result. Show the fix. If a feature or update matters, explain why.“This new dashboard lets account managers track contract renewals two weeks earlier, so they’re not scrambling at the last minute.”

Specificity is your advantage. Most brands won’t bother. If you do, your audience will notice, and they’ll trust you more because of it.

What to Do Instead

If we agree that “thought leadership” is tired, then what replaces it? Honest content that actually helps your audience do something better. That’s it. Here are five ways to get there (and build a stronger content marketing strategy while you’re at it):

1. Teach What You’ve Actually Done

Skip hypotheticals. Focus on what really happened. Share how your team launched a product without a big budget, or how you cleaned up a messy campaign. Being transparent about the process makes your experience more relatable—and a lot more useful.

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Say this:“We had $500, no ad spend, and still built six months of pipeline. Here's what we did, step by step.”

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Not this:“Our innovative launch strategy drove exceptional results.”(Reads like a slide from a deck no one asked for.)

2. Ask Sharper Questions

Good content doesn't just answer questions, it asks better ones. The kind that make your reader pause, rethink what they're doing, and maybe try something different.

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Say this: “What if we stopped creating content for channels and started building it around outcomes?”or“Are we still gating eBooks because they work, or because we haven’t updated the playbook in five years?”

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Not this:“We believe in challenging the status quo.”(So does every keynote speaker. Say something real.)

3. Show People How to Think, Not What to Think

Don’t just deliver a conclusion—walk people through your thinking. What did you try? What didn’t go as planned? What did you learn? That kind of openness teaches people how to approach their own challenges.

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Say this:“We launched a campaign that flopped, did a quick post-mortem, and rebuilt the next version around what actually clicked with our audience. Here’s the before and after.”

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Not this:“Failure is a learning opportunity.”(And? What did you learn? What should I take away?)

4. Write for Your Peers, Not Your Persona

Speak like someone who does the work—not like someone who’s trying to sell to someone who does the work. Use real examples, tools, and timeframes. Give people things they can actually take back to their team.

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Say this: “Here’s the Notion board we use to track content status across marketing, design, and approvals. It cut our back-and-forth time in half.”

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Not this: “Our tools streamline collaboration across teams.”(Sounds like a sentence from a product one-pager, not a person who’s dealt with deadline chaos.)

Your misses are just as useful as your wins. Maybe even more so. When you share what didn’t land, you help your audience avoid the same traps, and that’s valuable.

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Say this:“We thought this lead magnet would crush. We spent 20 hours on it, and it got 3 downloads. Here’s what we learned, and what we’re trying next.”

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Not this:“We always put the customer first.”(That’s not a story. That’s a brochure.)

Your audience doesn’t want perfection. They want perspective.

Let’s Stop Feeding the Content Graveyard

Filler content is dead. The internet is already drowning in meaningless, regurgitated, machine-spun marketing gibberish. No one needs another blog post that says nothing in 800 words. No one needs another “thought leader” stating the obvious in carousel format.

As creators and marketers, we have a responsibility: to our audience, our clients, and honestly, to each other. Our job is to be useful. To inspire. To inform. To challenge. To entertain. Even if the people reading are just like us.

That doesn’t begin and end with leadership titles or publishing schedules. It starts with choosing to say something real, to show our work, and to respect the time and intelligence of the people we’re speaking to.

We don’t need more jargon.We don’t need more fluff.We need people willing to make content that actually helps.

That’s not a trend. That’s the job.Let’s do it better.