thought leadership

Thought Leadership is a phrase you would have heard of! What’s this fuss about and why does it seem like a cult following? Let’s jump straight in.

The idea of becoming a thought leader initiated in the world of PR and Communications that would typically be in the form of a quote in a leading publication or an opinion piece. The dependency on a topic or a publication was paramount. That has changed over time with the digital age.

Now thought leadership is a two-way, open-ended medium that’s about building profile authority on your own using digital channels. The route to this is to be actively engaging with relevant peers from the industry and sharing content that’s useful and valuable. Here of course there are no boundaries, you are free to explore as many channels or industries as you like.

Build Trust: When you share valuable information over a period, you make a trusted community who will follow your channel. Besides this, it’s far easier to connect and engage in a dialogue with C level executives or other influencers.
Open doors for potential business opportunities: When you approach industry leaders, business managers, founders, co-founders on LinkedIn, your profile and content authority have the potential to open profitable conversations. In this process, don’t forget to engage with your existing connections on LinkedIn ?

Tips for the new ones on the block:

Learn how to juggle with content and network hand in hand
Don’t let the word ‘content’ scare you, it is not a herculean task. You can start with sharing already published news articles, share your knowledge as a comment on articles or posts from people in your network or your opinion on topical news. This is a good beginning.
Once you get comfortable with this activity and begin to see the merits of it, you can publish your own original piece of content.
Remember to keep it relevant, keep it real. Experiment with post formats to see what works best for which piece of content.

Understanding the different digital channels:

While LinkedIn is the most relevant channel and the trending one too, it is good to be aware of other generic platforms like Quora, Medium, Reddit, Google Groups, Meetup and of course Twitter to build your digital thought leadership portfolio on.
This apart, there are industry specific platforms too such as Good Reads for authors and readers, Stack overflow for IT geeks, Reverbnation for musicians.