Social Sharing: What You Can (and Can't) Outsource in Your Thought Leadership

For most of the early years of McEwen Media I had a social media team. I worked with a strategist, someone who I could bounce ideas off of and guide my creative decisions in the right direction. And I hired a junior creative to work on my ideas.

This year I fired them both and my thought leadership improved instantly.

The reason why might surprise you.

It has nothing to do with the skill level or expertise of the people who helped me in the beginning. In fact I continue to refer them to clients and hire them on a project-by-project basis. No, the problem I had with the social media team was me.

I had created a system and messaging based on my early understanding of who I serve and how I serve them: I get people on TV. My early messaging and service offerings were solely focused on the pitch process.

But there was a new idea, a bigger concept, I had yet to explore. The idea that my approach to media training and communication could help people beyond getting booked on TV.

The idea never left me. It was always present waiting to be explored. And I never got around to it.

The system of outsourcing my social media and creativity also kept me from exploring this new idea. My team tried to help, but they could only operate based on the content I supplied and the direction I gave.

I needed to explore this on my own. So I started from scratch. I found new ways to create more efficiently and simply took action on new thought leadership as it appeared.

When I prioritized the act of creation. When I explored this new idea from start to finish, that's where I hit a new level of understanding of what I do and how I serve.

This was the environment where the Full-Circle Media Strategy began. Leaning into what I've learned about creating content for my business lead me to develop a coaching framework where clients establish their expertise on social media and then leverage this to bigger opportunities.

This is the new way I get clients on TV. And I wouldn't have discovered it if I kept my thought leadership at arms length; if I kept outsourcing the creative expression.

Now I have a new approach to what I outsource. I have an EA who schedules the content. Soon she'll start adding videos to templates. At some point I may train someone to pull clips. And one day I'll have a full agency to take over the whole thing.

But the source material, my actual specialized knowledge, that is something I continue to expand and grow. That isn't something I can outsource. It is what I coach.