Becoming a thought leader in your field allows you to have considerable influence in your business, your industry, and with potential customers and clients who may come your way. Unfortunately, becoming a thought leader isn’t always as easy as it seems. It’s not only about having original ideas and sharing original content, though that is certainly at the top of the thought leader’s list. It’s also about sharing your content and expertise in ways that allow you to expand your reach and make people take note.
Step One: Define Thought Leadership
Thought leaders typically have strong opinions, creative problem-solving skills and significant experience in their industry. They are powerful, confident communicators. However, Before you can start developing a thought leadership strategy, it’s important to clearly define thought leadership for yourself and for your business. What are you hoping to accomplish through your thought leadership efforts? Do you want to reach out to a wider customer pool? Create change within your industry? Make yourself more employable, or establish your brand as the go-to in your field?
What thought leadership means for your brand may depend on your industry and what it has to offer. It could include:
- Educational content designed to answer key questions about specific industry issues or concerns that customers or others within your industry may have Editorial content that lays out your thought leader’s opinions of industry norms, advancements, trends and more
- Content designed to drive change within the industry
- Original research within the industry
Consider what thought leadership looks like for your brand and what type of content you want to offer your followers. By clearly laying out your goals, you can ensure that you craft content that is designed to meet them.
Step Two: Create Your Online Presence
A key part of becoming a thought leader in your industry is establishing a strong online presence that allows interested people to find you. Regularly publishing thought leadership content is a great way to stand out from the masses. However, it shouldn’t be your only strategy. You also need:
- Clear branding that establishes who you are and why people should trust you. If you’re trying to establish thought leadership for yourself as an individual, focus on your personal branding efforts. If your goal is to establish a thought leadership presence for your business, focus on expanding your business’s overall branding.
- A social media presence that focuses on the audience you’re planning to reach. Consider who your audience is and where they will be most likely to follow you. Do they use Facebook? Instagram? TikTok? Make sure you know where your followers are and how to connect with them.
- A part in the conversation surrounding your industry. If you want customers, potential employers or others in your field to recognize your thought leadership efforts, you need to be part of the conversation. Participate in online discussions. Create content about the latest changes or challenges in your industry. As you engage in conversation and create your own content, you’ll find that it’s easier to boost your reach.
Your online presence is critical to your place in your industry. It helps show who you are and provide content that is genuinely beneficial to your readers or customers. A strong online presence can help establish you as an authority in your field.
Quick Reminder: Know Your Audience
As a communicator, it’s always important to consider who you are attempting to reach and craft your content around your intended audience. As a thought leader, you may want your content to resonate with audiences such as potential customers, other leaders in your industry, possible employers or another segment. Always clearly define your audience ahead of crafting your content so that you know what platform, assets and messaging you need to make the most impact.
Step Three: Encourage Innovation and Creativity
If you’re trying to create a thought leadership platform for yourself, you may want to look into strategies that can encourage daily innovation and creativity. If you’re hoping to establish your brand as a thought leader, you may need to encourage innovation and leadership within your employees. Take a page out of these thought leaders’ books as you work to create a company culture where sharing new ideas and taking risks is encouraged. Employees who are encouraged to participate in company culture and contribute to change are generally more likely to become leaders in their fields.
Step Four: Create a Content Strategy
Part of a well-planned thought leadership strategy is a content creation plan. You should plan for:
- What type of content you want to create
- Who will be creating that content
- How you plan to promote and distribute your content
- When you will publish your content
A quick note on planning who will craft your thought leadership content. Sometimes, it can mean creating it yourself, or having other thought leaders or relevant individuals (someone in your communications department, for example) within your organization do the crafting. In other cases, you or your employees may create content outlines , but have a contractor draft material for you to review and approve.
Step Five: Track Trends in Your Industry
In order to establish yourself or your brand as a thought leader, you must know what is going on within your industry. Pay attention to current trends: what other people are posting about, the conversations that are taking place, and the buzz around hot topics. Sign up for newsletters, spend some time on social media and read the news and industry trades. You need to be aware of what is relevant to your industry and its audiences to inform engaging content that is genuinely thought provoking or beneficial.
Thought leaders have the unique ability to provide deeper insights into your industry, your customers, and how to create change within areas most impacted by your brand. While becoming a thought leader requires considerable investment into your content and your creativity, the time and effort is worth it because thought leaders have an immense opportunity to make a difference for your industry as well as your business’ bottom line.
