How Personal Presence on LinkedIn Helps You Become a Thought Leader
When you hear someone talk about having a personal brand or showing up with personal presence on social media, you might think that it means the content is all about you, your experiences and your expertise.
If you’ve ever thought that, just know that it makes total sense! This is a big misconception that people have about personal brand and it’s because the whole concept can be a little vague, especially if you’re in the beginning stages of developing your personal brand or presence.
This is why I created a 3 part series here on the blog really breaking down:
why it matters and
When you understand each of these pieces, you can clearly see that personal brand or personal presence on social media, specifically LinkedIn, has way more to do with your audience than it does about you!
So, if you’ve been hesitant to show up in this way for fear that you’re going to make things all about you, I want you to know that that’s not the case.
As an executive, having a personal presence helps you and your brand or business in critical areas that you may not even realize. I like to call these The Four Pillars: recruitment, retention, brand awareness (personal or company) and sales.
(Side note: if you want weekly tips for how to navigate each of these areas as a leader in your inbox each week, make sure you’ve joined The Weekly Huddle - this is your corner of the internet for LinkedIn tips and strategies to expand your network, generate leads, build a personal presence and much more!)
One of the biggest things that having a personal presence does is that it helps you become a thought leader in your industry.
Just like the personal brand concept itself, the idea of being a thought leader is something that has exploded recently and you probably see a lot of people talking about it.
What you might not see as much of is someone defining what a thought leader actually is and even further helping you navigate how to really become one in your industry.
Because I believe that thought leadership is a huge opportunity for executives, I want to help you fully understand the concept and realize how creating a personal presence can help you achieve that.
What Is Thought Leadership?
First things first, what does thought leadership even mean?
Put simply, thought leadership is expressing your thoughts, ideas and expertise around a particular field, area of study or industry as a whole.
A thought leader is someone who has a ton of product knowledge and command over their subject, in addition to an extreme passion for sharing and teaching it to others so they can benefit as well.
People who are considered thought leaders are often viewed as trusted authority figures in their industry, innovative thinkers and key influencers for their audience.
Thought leadership is not solely business driven, meaning the goal of someone showing up as a thought leader isn’t necessarily to make a sale or push toward a business goal.
Instead, it’s truly to be viewed as an expert and go-to source that their audience trusts and people desire to learn more from.
As thought leaders develop their personal brand overtime, they often become people who are highly sought after for keynote speeches at conferences, graduations and other events for various audiences and industries.
Why Thought Leadership Is Important
Now that you know what exactly thought leadership is, you might be wondering why it matters.
As mentioned, when someone is striving to be a thought leader, they aren’t necessarily doing it with any monetary goal or business result in mind.
It’s really something that’s more heart driven and is approached with the goal to truly inspire, motivate and educate others.
The interesting part about this is that even though the initial goal isn’t to drive a sale, it’s been reported that 75% of buyers say that thought leadership content is what helps them buy.
So even though more sales isn’t the overall goal of thought leadership, there is a clear connection between the two!
In addition to that, 8 out of 10 consumers say that thought leadership content is what helps them determine who they want to learn from.
And beyond that, ~50% of business decision makers say that thought leadership content is what helps them decide who they want to do business with.
So it’s very clear that thought leadership directly impacts how someone interacts with your business or brand.
Knowing this, the question becomes how does your personal presence as an executive play into this?
How Personal Presence Helps You Become a Thought Leader
Your personal presence on LinkedIn is more than just what you’ve accomplished or who you work for.
It’s more about how you intentionally show up in your daily life and how you work to make an impact for those around you.
When you create content with your personal brand in mind, it gives direct insight to who you are, how you got to where you are and creates genuine connection with like-minded people who value similar things as you.
For example, if you were to only post about your company's accomplishments or highlight a cool achievement that you recently experienced on LinkedIn each week, it wouldn’t really matter to anyone on a deep level.
Sure, you might get a few “congrats!” comments, but beyond that people are going to scroll right past.
But if you approach your LinkedIn content each week in a way that provides someone with a key takeaway, helps them see a life lesson through a story or sparks conversation in the comments, the way someone views you is going to be way different.
They’re likely going to remember you, possibly want to connect with you further and they’ll probably even want to come back and learn from you in the future.
And that ⤴️ is how thought leadership starts to happen!
The cool part is that it can all start to happen when you build your personal presence and commit to showing up in this way daily.
But the only way this can happen is if you simply START.
I’m willing to bet that you already have plenty of life stories, experiences and insights that your audience would love to learn from, so stop holding those back for fear of your content being about you.
It’s content like this that will really set you apart and cultivate connection with more of the right people.
This is waiting for you on the other side of showing up, so START today. You’ll be surprised at how quickly this can compound!
While you’re at it, make sure you connect with me here so I can see everything in action.
