By Candice Georgiadis, social media influencer and founder of Digital Day Inc, a social media and marketing agency in California.
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If you’re a thought leader, then you know that it takes time to build up your brand and become an authority in your industry. You may have heard that there are different types of thought leaders—but what does this mean? Why is being a thought leader important? And how do you become a thought leader in your industry? Read on for tips for becoming a thought leader in any field.
Educate others.
To become a thought leader, you need to educate others. You can educate them about your industry and product, or you can teach them about your service or company mission. When it comes to educating people on what you do and why you do it, there are plenty of ways in which you can go about doing so!
A good way to go about doing this is to start a blog and post regular content about your industry and product.
Create a personal brand.
Once you’re ready to take your business to the next level, it’s important to create a personal brand. This can be challenging for anyone who is just starting out—especially if you don’t have much experience in marketing or public speaking. However, as long as you focus on being yourself and building relationships with others who share your values and beliefs, then building a personal brand can be easy!
Your goal is not only to become an expert in your industry but also to build an audience around yourself so people know who they should follow online or offline. Make sure that everyone knows where they can find more information about whatever topic interests them most.
Establish social proof.
Social proof is a measure of how much other people like your content. It can be gained by having a strong social media presence or by having a large number of followers, likes, shares and comments on your posts.
When someone sees that other people are talking about you in their newsfeeds or see that you’re verified on Facebook or Twitter, they will be more likely to feel compelled to do one of three things:
• Believe what you say
• Give you money
• Buy from you
Publish regularly.
You should publish at least one piece of content per week. If you can, publish more often. The more frequently you share your thoughts and ideas with the world, the better—and this is true even if it’s just a tweet or status update on Facebook.
Publishing regularly helps you establish yourself as an authority in your field; it also helps build trust with potential clients who may want to hire or do business with you in the future. It’s important not only to share relevant information but also what topic areas are trending within industries so people know what topics are worth discussing at any given time.
Be active on social media.
Share your content on social media. This is one of the most important things you can do as a thought leader, and it’s also something that many people overlook. You should share your content with as many people as possible so they can see what you have to offer, but don’t spam them by posting everything from every angle of your business or industry (unless it’s relevant). Instead, focus on sharing only what would interest others in your niche—for example: If you’re an SEO expert who creates websites for businesses and their clients, then maybe share some tips about how to improve their ranking in search engines.
Engage with other thought leaders in your industry via social media channels like Twitter or Facebook groups where they often hang out together online. This can help build relationships between yourself and other industry leaders who might want advice from someone respected within their field; they’ll likely return the favor by contributing back when appropriate.
Make your content easy to share.
One of the most important things you can do to become a thought leader is to make your content easy to share. You want people who don’t know you or your company to be able to share what they read with their friends and followers, so make sure that it’s easy for them to do so.
This means using a call to action, such as “Share on Facebook!” or “Tweet this!” It also means making sure the text is easy-to-read and doesn’t have unnecessary clutter in it—think bullet points instead of full paragraphs, use short sentences, etc.
A few other tips:
• Make sure all your images are high quality so they look professional when posted online.
• Don’t use excessive text size (this makes certain parts of your content hard for some people’s browsers).
• Use subheadings where appropriate so readers can easily find what they’re looking for without having too much extra information overwhelm them while browsing through pages full of content.
Have a point of view and be an authority in your industry.
If you want to become a thought leader, you need to have a point of view and be an authority in your industry. You could be the first person to come up with an idea or the most popular person who has contributed something new.
You should also be unique and controversial, but in a good way—not offensive or hurtful.
You can become a thought leader in your industry by being an expert on a particular topic or subject. You can also do this by sharing your knowledge and experiences with others, creating content that is easy to share and having a point of view that is unique from others in your field. Put all these together and you are on your way to becoming a thought leader in your industry.
