Author: Josh Mallard

In a previous post, we covered what Thought Leadership is and why it is important for your business. Now, we’d like to dive in a little deeper here and give you a few tips on how you can build your reputation as a Thought Leader using your personal or company blog.

1. Answer the Questions Your Audience is Asking

In the most basic sense, someone is a thought leader because they have answers. They have experience that a specific audience is seeking to learn from.

When looking to create content for an audience, you need to first determine who your audience is and what their interests may be. Even further, if you can determine the daily, small pain points this audience experiences, you can focus your content on addressing those pain points.

One of our long term clients shares their immense collective experience in retained search on their blog. They try to anticipate the questions their clients might have and then write a helpful post to provide the answer.

Tip: You can learn the exact information your audience is looking for by tracking the search queries made on your site.

2. Give Your Audience an Opportunity to Engage

It’s an easy temptation to allow your blog to become a one way form of communication. We can sometimes rest on a feeling of safety and security by imagining we’re just dumping our content into the world for our readers to just consume as-is.

However, we must give our audience an opportunity to engage.

Thought Leaders use their content as a starting point for further engagement with their audience. The ability to actually bring experience to a conversation is key to building thought leadership – not just the ability to scream facts from your own soapbox.

A couple of ways to pursue engagement with your audience:

Give visitors the opportunity to comment on your blog posts.

For me, the best part of most informational posts is an active comment section. Many times, your post alone isn’t enough to answer the questions someone may be searching for. However, if the comments are active, it is likely someone else has engaged with you to pull more valuable information out of the topic.

Ultimately, your blog posts can be considered a way to begin initiate the conversation with your audience and the comments, your greatest opportunities to let your expertise shine.

Actively engage on Social Media

Active engagement on social media gives you an outlet for your content. It allows you to build up a community in a more personal way and engage with your audience where they are.

Also, like the considerations above for the comments sections, sharing your blog posts on social media can be a great conversation starter. And conversation and engagement is the best way to build yourself as a thought leader.

We’d love to hear from you and about your journey of thought leadership. Comment below if you like or send us a message.

What is “thought leadership”? Blake alluded to this concept when discussing finding your industry heroes. Let’s take a deeper dive into what “thought leadership” means and why it is important to you.

Thought leaders are the informed opinion leaders and the go-to people in their field of expertise. They are trusted sources who move and inspire people…

Denise Brosseau

This is an excellent definition of “thought leadership”. I love the above quote from Denise Brosseau of the Thought Leadership Lab. It not only defines what a thought leader is, it also shows why being considered a thought leader in your industry is a huge asset for your business.

Becoming a Thought Leader to Build Trust

“They are a trusted source…”

If people like you they’ll listen to you, but if they trust you they’ll do business with you.

Zig Ziglar

Thought leaders have earned the trust of their target audience. They’ve taken their existing assets of wisdom, time, and experience and transformed them into one of the most valuable assets you can have in the sales process and business relationships – trust.

Becoming a Thought Leader to Drive Action

“They are trusted sources who move and inspire people”

Selling can sometimes feel like the dirty part of doing business. We’ve gotten into our industries and built our businesses because we truly believe in what we’re providing – we know we have value to bring to the table. The core of selling is communicating that value.

By becoming a thought leader, you organically create the desire for your solution within your target audience. You become the driver for informing your audience on what they need. In turn, they trust your opinion and judgment. They trust your opinions on your own products or services but ancillary aspects of your industry.

How Does One Become a Thought Leader?

At this point, you may be thinking “That’s great! But how does that help me and my business. I’m not a thought leader”

This is where I get to be a bit of a buzzkill. There isn’t a guaranteed process or a checklist that you can complete to make you successful.

However, there are actionable steps you can start taking today that will help in building your reputation within your industry and help you in the pursuit of becoming a thought leader.

1. Create Content

The greatest thing you can do is to create content that specifically addresses the problems and pain your target audience is experiencing. This can be done via your own blog, guest posts on popular sites within your industry, writing e-books or publishing a traditional book – the list goes on.

This is also not just limited to written content. You can create videos or your own podcasts to allow your audience to digest the wisdom you’re sharing in the way that is most convenient for them.

2. Participate on Social Media

Even if you think your industry is boring, there is still a target audience for your voice on most Social Media networks. Don’t just generate and share your own brilliant thoughts but generously re-share other people who are contributing great thinking.

3. Public Speaking

Are there any industry conferences that you could speak at? Are there opportunities to speak to groups of your industry peers? These can be great opportunities to get your name out there and establish yourself as an authority within your industry.

4. Be Generous with Your Expertise

There is a counterintuitive reality that those who give generously are usually rewarded generously. Don’t be stingy with your counsel. There are appropriate times to charge for your expertise but adopt a position of freely sharing the wisdom you’ve gained.

We love seeing real-world examples. Share with us your “thought leadership” niche in the comments.