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Thought leadership is important for any person and brand wanting to establish themselves as a leader in a particular industry, niche, specific topic, trade or practice.

Thought leadership is beneficial for both brands and humans. For brands it can help increase brand equity, brand affinity, grow community and establish brand leadership. It can even help generate leads, speed up the sales cycle and increase sales. For people building personal brands, it can do the same plus help them advance in their career or even move into a new field.

Building thought leadership takes time. You must start with a servant heart, plant seeds and watch them grow. You will reap what you sow. Click To Tweet

Social media and digital marketing present phenomenal ways for brands and people to establish thought leadership far better than traditional methods. Decades ago it would take brands years to establish thought leadership.

With social media we have an opportunity to not only BE the media, but also we can use our reach to serve business organizations and the humans within them who we want to build relationships with.

For me, it’s about impact and action.  The greatest benefit in serving my audience and community both offline and online is helping people grow. I love making people think different and inspiring them to try something they before would have never done and empowering them to accomplish what they dream of in life and business.

In episode 155 of the Social Zoom Factor Podcast we dug into the definition of thought leadership, the benefits and foundational strategies. If you are unfamiliar with thought leadership you should also listen to episode 155.

Today, in episode 223 I thought we could instead dig into specific tactics and strategies for how you can establish thought leadership using social media and digital marketing without bragging about yourself 24/7. 

Thought leadership tends to get a bad rap as it’s very much an over hyped term by many marketers. Many marketers and business leaders jumping onto the social web want to establish themselves as a leader without much thought.

Thought leadership is not as easy as growing your Twitter following and tweeting some wise 140 character tweets on a consistent basis.

The key to success in building thought leadership is to have a plan and know what audience you are serving, how you can help them and how you can differentiate yourself and your brand from the noise and status quo.

Becoming a thought leader shouldn't be a goal you have that isn't attached to a WHY. Why do you want to be a thought leader? Click To Tweet

Why do you want to server others? What do you hope they achieve by listening, learning and truly being served by you? How can you change thought? How can you drive action.

When establishing thought leadership, the question shouldn't be how can I get more Twitter followers. Click To Tweet

I don’t believe anyone can be a true thought leader without first changing thought or driving action.

Establishing true thought leadership for your business and for your own personal brand can bring much benefit to you personally and professionally. This is important for both B2B and B2C businesses but incredibly important in B2B due to the longer and more complicated buying processes.

Answer these questions…

• Would you like to be seen as a trusted resources for your target customers to help them learn and grow?
• Would you like to be a leading authority of information in your industry or niche?
• Would you like to be the “go to” person for people wanting to learn about what you know and offer as a business?
• Would you like to establish authentic relationships more easily built on trust and authority?
• Would you like to increase brand awareness and equity simply by being an authority?
• Would you like to increase brand affinity as people are more organically attracted to your brand?
• If you answer no to this question, would you like to be?
• Would you like to become part of the natural conversation earlier in the customer research and buying process?

If you answer yes to these questions, then you need to take the time to understand how you can establish thought leadership as a leader in your industry.

Take a listen to episode 223 of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn 7 easy ways to build thought leadership by utilizing social media and digital marketing. 

Be sure to subscribe to our entire digital and social marketing series on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud!

In this 20 minute podcast you will learn: 

• 7 Easy ways to establish thought leadership in your industry or niche
• How to make sure you are not seen as self serving and bragging about yourself 24/7
• How to establish thought leadership by serving your audience true value consistently
• How to create signature content pieces you can use to create massive amounts of ongoing content
• Using online and offline events to establish thought leadership
• How to build thought leadership by sharing and curating 3rd party content with your audience
• The importance of taking people on your journey and sharing the good, bad and ugly
• Why you should not be afraid to leverage automation to keep your social channels pumped with value consistently

Supporting Resources:

• Thought Leadership in a Nutshell 
• It Only Takes a Seed: 7 Fundamental Steps to Build Your Personal Brand
• Are You as Influential as You Think? (episode 98)
• 3 Things You Must Know to Be Successful as a Social Media Marketer 
• 10 Tips to Be a Social Media and Digital Marketing Rebel
• How to Prioritize Your Social Networks for Business
• 10 Habits Highly Effective Social Media Marketing Leaders
• Content Editorial Calendar (12 month editorial content marketing calendar template)
• “Social Profit Factor” Training Program for Social Media Marketers

Free webinars: We are also launching a series of webinars and training opportunities to dig even deeper. Sign up here-> You are the Media – Building Your Media Foundation

How to Subscribe to Social Zoom Factor Podcast 

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