Establishing yourself as an online expert can help you achieve more awareness in your field, develop your network, and lead to additional career prospects. It can also help if you want to know how to grow LinkedIn followers. If you’re an entrepreneur looking to build brand awareness or trust for your business, publishing industry-related ideas, advice, or material will demonstrate to your audience that you’re a competent expert in your field who works for a reputable company. Thought leadership and creating connections on LinkedIn may make firms you work for appear fantastic even if you aren’t the CEO. Furthermore, prospective employers may view you as an authority in your industry as a result of your contributions to your online community if you leave a company.
Thought leaders come in all shapes and sizes, from all walks of life and communities, and can be of any age, gender, or ethnicity. However, not everyone has the potential to be a thinking leader. Thought leadership takes time (often years), knowledge and skill in a specific sector, a certain amount of devotion, and a willingness to go against the grain. If you’ve previously established a terrific product, service, program, initiative, or organization, becoming a thought leader is a lot easier because you’ll have a natural community and something to talk about. Having said that, we’ve worked with people who have a specialty but haven’t yet built something they can call their own. You can still become a thought leader in your niche if you are ready to put in the effort to codify what you know and have the patience and courage to develop momentum over time.
There are some dangers: you will be in the spotlight, which means you may be subjected to some particularly severe arrows. Aside from the external arrows, moving from leader to thought leader involves an internal discussion – one that frequently necessitates some soul searching and the willingness to ‘put your “I” on the line,’ as I call it – step into the spotlight as the person who is ready to lead the way.
How to grow LinkedIn followers by being a thought leader
1. Optimize Your Linkedin Profile So People In Your Industry Can Find You.
You’ve most likely built a LinkedIn profile by now. If you want to be a thought leader with a significant following, however, simply creating an account will not guarantee that you will be viewed by people in your business. You’ll need to refine and optimize your LinkedIn page to guarantee that you appear in search results relevant to your skillsets or feeds of folks in your industry.
A wonderful example of a fully optimized LinkedIn header can be found below. As you can see, Virgin Group CEO Richard Branson has placed his title in the headline box, while his basic information includes his geographic location, firm, and school. In the About section, he also gives a thorough, yet keyword-heavy, description of himself. This description, together with a complete profile, will make it much easier for those looking for thought leaders in industries such as “leisure” or “financial services” to locate him.
Aside from the header area, you’ll want to go into detail in the Work and Academic Experience sections. While thought leadership is ultimately about the material and ideas you share, this section will serve as proof that you are as trustworthy as you claim. If possible, share your daily responsibilities, notable wins, and links to projects from each role. Consider it a combination of a CV and an online portfolio.
2. Use Skills, Endorsements, And Recommendations To Validate Your Expertise
People may want to double-check that you’re an actual expert in your field before following your advice if they read your insights, data you’ve documented, or consume your thought leadership content. While skills, endorsements, and recommendations aren’t directly tied to thought leadership material, they can assist you to ensure that your expert ideas are taken seriously.
When you list items in the Skills & Endorsements area, you’ll be able to highlight your knowledge while also improving your profile’s visibility in search results connected to your industry or keywords connecting to certain skills. Aside from making your profile more searchable by individuals in your business, recommendations from previous coworkers can also vouch for the fact that you possess the abilities you’ve listed. Viewers of your profile will see visible endorsements or recommendations, indicating that you are trustworthy and have a proven track record as an employee and thought leader. Although you should still develop valuable LinkedIn material to market yourself as a thought leader, skills, endorsements, and recommendations are strong proof that you have acquired a particular degree of industry experience.
3. Connect With Other Experts.
Connecting with colleagues and other industry professionals will help you expand your network and increase your connections. It will, however, allow you to keep track of what they’re doing and benefit from their experiences. Don’t be concerned if your following is small. All you have to do is set aside time each day to network with other users on the platform.
4. Use Linkedin Groups Or Comment Threads To Interact With Your Following.
LinkedIn Groups is a service that allows professionals to establish, administer, and post on topic-specific group pages. In these communities, you may see both industry beginners and professionals asking questions and giving tips. When someone uploads something interesting, people will start threads to discuss it or offer suggestions.
Communicating in these threads or creating your post inside a group linked to your industry might help you connect with others who could be interested in your ideas and, as a result, gain additional followers or connections.
Don’t know which groups to join or how to participate in them? This list of LinkedIn Groups that every marketer should join is a great place to start.
If you’re too busy to find the perfect Group for you, you may make your updates and articles more interactive by ending them with a question and a call to action. If you’re writing an update or a LinkedIn piece about technology or a new management approach, for example, you could end it by asking, “How do you inspire innovation at your company?” You might be able to start a deeper debate by asking your followers a question or giving them a call to action, which you can then continue to participate in to demonstrate your expertise and trustworthiness on the subject.
5. Post Updates About Your Achievements Or Re-Share Insights Related To Your Brand Or Industry.
While Facebook users may be uninterested in professionalism or professional accomplishments, LinkedIn readers are eager to hear about them. Your audience can stay up with you, see how credible you are, and watch you grow as an expert in your industry when you share a professional achievement or insights on a project your brand has launched.
6. Publish Longer-Form Insights Or Thoughts Related To Your Career Or Industry.
You can’t forget about the most important component of thinking leadership: sharing your thoughts. Aside from showcasing your talents, successes, and smaller career updates, you can’t forget about the most important aspect of thought leadership: sharing your thoughts.
Because your suggestions, thoughts, and big ideas won’t always fit into a tiny article or update, make sure to include blog pieces on your profile regarding industry-related issues. You can use LinkedIn’s Publish function to publish a blog post, or you can create and share a blog post from your site or Medium.
7. Experiment With Posting Photos Or Videos On Linkedin.
Like Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn isn’t just a place to post your résumé and short text updates; it’s also an emerging social network that’s starting to embrace and emphasize live videos, posted videos, and images in its feeds.
So, if you’re going to make a status update about your work or company, consider including a photo alongside the text. Consider posting a video if you want to give long-form guidance. Here’s an illustration: Use LinkedIn’s new Live Video feature to produce content where you take questions from your audience or interview another thought leader in your sector to get even more engaging with your audience.
8. Create Cross-Promotional Content With Other Thought Leaders.
Consider generating content with other LinkedIn thought leaders or businesses and tagging each other in your articles if you work with or have formed a relationship with them. These cross-promotional methods will not only help you network and create contacts, but they will also help the audience of the other person or company learn about you while you inform your audience about their work.
9. Embrace Your Other Social Media Platforms.
Promote your other social platforms, such as Twitter or YouTube, if you want to branch out and become a thought leader on more than just LinkedIn. This will help you build a diverse audience across all media.
Here are a few ways you can grow on a business social media platform:
- When you join a new platform, announce it, post your profile, and tell others what to expect from this social network.
- Share links to content from other social media, such as YouTube videos or blog articles.
- Consider authoring and posting blog pieces on your marketing techniques on other platforms, such as Medium, so that your audience can see your insights while also knowing you’re there.
- Be careful to publish LinkedIn articles and your profile link on your other social media platforms, in addition to marketing your other social media platforms and developing an overall web presence, so that your audiences there will join your LinkedIn follower base.
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