The 5 Stages of Becoming a Successful Thought Leader
The idea of becoming a thought leader is a nebulous and confusing concept to grasp. Every leader's approach is different, and there's no secret formula to success.
Becoming a thought leader doesn't happen overnight. It takes time — not to mention a willingness to share the "secrets" of your success — and the right mindset to master. But once you understand that it's not about your ego or selling people on your company, you can start to unlock its true value.
To put the cycle of successful thought leadership in perspective, here are five distinct phases that need to happen:
1. Strategy development and deployment: To build your thought leadership, you need a specific plan to focus your efforts and achieve the reputation you want. If you blindly write about everything that comes to mind, readers will catch the disconnect. Start by gauging your competition and evaluating the industry landscape to determine exactly how you can provide value to others and differentiate yourself. In other words, what's your angle?
The goal of your efforts should be to educate prospects with your unique industry know-how and lead the industry conversation. Help people maneuver past their pain points, and offer solutions to their problems. With a strategic publishing plan in place, you'll build trust and nurture meaningful relationships with the right audience.
2. Increased visibility: As you develop and share content consistently, your reach will naturally expand. Not only are you getting your name out there and gaining exposure for your business, but you're also bolstering your SEO. You can improve your Google ranking, show up more frequently in search results, and draw more traffic to your site, improving the likelihood of consumers finding your company.
As an added bonus, you can send these articles to prospects as part of an email marketing campaign, or your sales team can use them to educate leads.
3. Community engagement: The best leaders are full-time learners, which means they're actively seeking advice, best practices, and thoughtful commentary on the future of their industries. If you can enlighten them with insights from your specific vantage point, you're no longer just a part of the conversation; you're directing it. The more educational articles you publish, the more others will look to your content for guidance.
Take the LinkedIn influencer J.T. O'Donnell, for example. With 18 years of experience in human resources development, she has a wealth of knowledge to share with others. After publishing more than 200 articles surrounding HR and workplace issues, she's attracted more than 900,000 LinkedIn followers and earns massive engagement with each of her posts.
4. Industry validation: People want to work with the best companies, and each piece of content you publish will add to your body of work and lend credibility to your company. When others consistently see articles you publish, it will validate your knowledge and make them feel more comfortable and confident in working with your company.
5. Access to new opportunities: Once you've established yourself as an industry expert, you get exposed to opportunities and relationships that probably wouldn't have materialized otherwise. When you want to speak at a major conference, you can point back to your published work to prove your expertise. And with time, others might start reaching out to you for speaking engagements and awards.
Armed with a well-defined strategy, your thought leadership articles will begin to open doors to professional opportunities you never thought possible. One article builds on the next, and with strategic deployment in mind, the combined force will impact nearly every aspect of your company. It's a basic concept in theory, but the credibility and opportunities that'll arise make it one of the most powerful business tools you have.
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