The perils of social media storms have been prominent this week.

At the inconsequential celeb end of the news, Coleen Rooney's implicating fellow Wag Rebekah Vardy in allegedly leaking of stories from Coleen's "private" Instagram made it onto this morning's BBC Today programme and most of the nationals.

As always, the quality media sneer at the tabloids... and then happily sink to their level when they want to. The moral of the story... even private social media aren't that private when you are in the eye of the media.

Thought leadership is all about having interesting and attention-grabbing insights on the big problems facing your customers.

You could be using these insights in interesting articles and blogs, well-argued reports and white papers, and also delivering them in videos, LinkedIn posts and of course face-to-face in meetings and when speaking at events.

But is there research out there showing it brings commercial benefits for B2B businesses?

Yes, there's plenty!

Standing out as an expert on the important commercial problems facing your clients and prospects is a powerful position.