What is thought leadership?
What sets apart a thought leader from other experienced or skilled people, websites and companies in an industry is the perception that they have a deeper understanding of the market place and the needs of its customers. Whether they actually do is almost irrelevant, it is enough that people believe they do!
Why become a thought leader?
The great thing about being a thought leader is that it honestly doesn’t matter how big you are! You can be a one man band running your website out of your bedroom or a company with a multi-million pound turnover; websites will link to you, quote you, ask for your opinion and generally hold you up as an authority to be consulted. All this leads to more traffic which in turn means more sales or the ability to charge higher advertising rates depending on your revenue model.
Becoming a thought leader
As much as I wish you could (being an online marketer at heart), a strong reputation cannot be built on advertising. Advertising will help raise awareness but to develop trust and build up your reputation you need to create positive word of mouth.
Put a name and face to your website: A cold faceless website is harder for people to associate with than a person and if you want to become known, it makes sense that people need to know who you are to start with! Stu Nicholls does a good of this at www.cssplay.co.uk and even uses his name in the <title> tag.
Set up a blog to share your opinions: A blog is the perfect outlet for sharing your thoughts, initiating discussions (that are under your control) and creating an industry hub for people to visit and interact with each other. Aaron Wall has used his blog at www.seobook.com/blog to position himself as one the leading SEO experts.
Be a trusted source of information & commentary: Becoming an authority on a topic is a major part of developing thought leadership. Being seen within your industry as either a news source or a commentator on the news is a major aid to positioning yourself in this way. www.techrunch.com and www.mashable.com have used this approach successfully (and are in constant competition to get a story out first).
Commissioning original research: Commissioning original research and sharing it totally free kills a lot of birds with one stone. It puts you at the centre of the news, it shows you are helping advance understanding in your industry, it creates content people want to read and content they will link to.
Go to exhibitions: Every industry has its core group that knows each other and reference each other on their websites etc. Going along to exhibitions and events and creating personal relationships with others in your industry brings you closer to this group and eventually maybe even becoming part of it.
Speak at exhibitions & seminars: Obviously this takes a lot of confidence and you may have to start small and work your way up e.g. approach local “business link” events before pitching to talk at the major exhibitions in Las Vegas! Search executives from www.bigmouthmedia.com speak regularly at econsultancy seminars which positions them as an expert search agency.
Tags: marketing
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