Thought leadership is the process of giving out professional facts, innovative and powerful ideas about a specific topic, field, theory, or model that is generally accepted as reliable and wanted.

A thought leader can grow his or her follower base which consists of people who inquire about a topic and needs someone with extensive knowledge about that field. By communicating confidently to people in your industry about your perception of trends, problems, solutions, and methods, you and your employees will be held in high esteem.

You can build your audience through employee advocacy. When your employees share brand messages, articles about industry topics, podcasts, and many more, they will gain more followers in the long run. Share contents about your work experience and what others in a similar field can gain from your experience.

Sharing your personal experience and life lessons will make people in situations akin to yours reach out to connect with you. Thought leadership is important because your followers gain more knowledge and understanding but sharing genuine and reliable information will grow the audience.

Authenticity is a pre-requisite for trust. A product or service recommended by a thought leader will be gladly accepted because you are genuine and trustworthy.

Becoming a thought leader is not a herculean task. You need to be real and share your knowledge consistently on various social platforms. Be diverse in your choice of content and explore different social media with engaging content that will make people connect with you.

Benefits of thought leadership tactic

Thought leadership will make people see you as a genuine and reliable source of information that people can connect with to improve in their field. Your credibility as a thought leader will attract people to your posts.

1) Displays brand confidence

Employee advocacy will make your employee become the face of your brand. When they share insightful content and display their expertise and that shows you have professionals in your company.

Furthermore, include your employees in your content. Let them be real and position themselves as professionals on social media. By so doing, you display brand confidence and your real identity. Also, that will make them personable, open, and acknowledged.

Managing those who work for you this way steer your brand to success. It is a win-win situation because it will improve your brand and employee capacity. Besides, it will influence your employee engagement strategy.

2) Connects with your audience

When an employee becomes a thought leader, they do not only communicate to the audience but engage them. Engage your audience during a conversation, which will make it easier to understand their challenges and proffer solutions. Besides, it will make people see you as a reliable person they can inquire from.

Endeavor to be engaging and personable. Address people at meet-ups, give room for one-on-one conversation and let them know that they can reach out to you through the mail and social platforms.

Leverage the power of social media to promote yourself, respond to inquiries, and stir up conversations. You can also post your views or videos about your opinion on a topic on LinkedIn. By so doing, you are uplifting yourself as a thought leader using an employee advocacy strategy to engage people in your industry. The same thing is expected from your employees and you should support them to boost their online presence.

You should help them strengthen their online presence through an employee advocacy tool such as MarketBeam. This tool will create suitable posts and other activities your employees can do on social media.

3) Shows you have relevant ideas

A thought leader should support his or her idea with evidence of credibility. When a novel product or service becomes the talk of the industry, you need to elucidate how it relates to your recent posts. Besides, talking about trends, a thought leader should share life lessons, tried and tested principles too.

4) Builds trust and promotes brand’s integrity

As stated earlier, authenticity is the pre-requisite for trust. As a thought leader, you need to be an authentic storyteller. Sharing honest opinions, challenges, life lessons and the impact they made in your career success will make people connect with you, hold you in high esteem, and ultimately trust you. Also, you can earn people’s trust when they see you as resourceful.

5) Leadership with a steady voice

With the current trend where conversations can be recorded and broadcasted on digital platforms, it is essential to speak to people with a steady voice. Business managers need to face the audience and address their concerns during trouble times. Thought leaders are the voice of your brand even when there is downtime and can provide a way out. They should not only address the audience during a crisis but engage them consistently with insightful content about the industry.

Adding thought leadership to a marketing plan

An efficient thought leadership marketing plan for your brand is about using your employees to promote and be the face of your brand in public.

To apply thought leadership to your marketing plan you need to do the following;

• Build trust in your employees.
• Engage your employee through advocacy tools like MarketBeam.
• Help them build their online presence and they will ultimately promote your brand.

Steps to a successful thought leadership campaign

• Build trust.
• Encourage your employees to sign up as advocates for your brand.
• Communicate the empowerment plan.
• Measure their level of engagement and focus on those that are actively engaged and unengaged employees.
• Guide them to become thought leaders through employee advocacy.

MarketBeam helps organizations activate employees on social media to build thought leadership; increase corporate social media reach and elevate authentic branding