What if I told you that you can actually build your influence and become a thought leader, using your social media platform?
Would you be surprised?
What if I mentioned that a handful of successful thought leaders started out on the social media, would that get your attention?
Well, just like you, a lot of aspiring thought leaders have planned to build their influence and become a thought leader on the social media…
Because, it is very rewarding!
And becoming a thought leader on the social media can serve as your stepping stone to many other achievements.
Talk about free publicity, increased followers, brand visibility and even business opportunities.
As a social media thought leader, you can achieve the unimaginable! Yes.
And now, I’m saying this from experience.
Because, as someone whose social media platform has served as the catalyst for my first published book, first international interview, first business deal, award winning blog and much more…
I can tell you for free, becoming a social media thought leader could be one of the biggest moves for your personal brand.
Sadly, notwithstanding the promises it holds, everyone cannot become social media thought leaders.
The few who manage to build social media thought leadership are those who understand the secrets.
And most of these guys keep these secrets close to their hearts. Just so you don’t get to find out.
But you know what? Today, I’m going to share the secrets to becoming a social media celebrity with you.
And I’ll be doing that right in the following sub headings below…
Choose a Platform
Table of Contents
To become a social media thought leader you need to choose a platform.
Reason is because there are so many social media platforms out there.
And you really can’t function effectively on all the platforms at the same time.
So, you need to choose one or two out of all the platforms and get started with that.
Things to consider while choosing a social media platform:
Your Audience
Consider the audience you want to attract or identify with your brand.
Find out, who are they and what social media platform do they hang out?
Content
Most social media platforms are optimized for specific kind of content.
For example, YouTube and Tiktok are both optimized for video content, Instagram for Picture content, Facebook and Twitter for text content among others.
You want to Identify the kind of content you’d want to create based on your skills and resources and then identify the platform that will help you to create that.
Your Goal
At this point, you need to answer the question, “what do I want to achieve with my status as a social media thought leader?
The second question you want to answer is; which of the social media platforms can help me to achieve this goal?
When this is sorted, you can move over to the next step.
Build a Brand
Now the next step to become a social media thought leader is to build a brand.
Start with identifying the kind of brand you want to represent.
If this is too much for you, you can check up the personal brands you admire most on social media.
Find out what makes them thick. And the other things you can adopt from their own brand.
As soon as you’ve figured out your brand, you need to do the following:
Choose a Picture
As a social media thought leader, you want your picture to represent your brand and the aura you want to project effectively.
For this reason, you must pay attention to the pictures you use as profile and cover pictures.
Make sure these pictures are high quality pictures and are well captured to project the brand you represent.
Optimize your Profile
Your social media description is one of the first thing a visitor sees on your profile.
On LinkedIn for instance, your profile description tag shows up on your search engine results.
You want to update this the right way. Use the right keywords and adjectives that will appeal to your target audience.
Update your Profile and Bio
Populate the profile and bio tabs on your social media with the right information that is in line with the brand you’re building.
Include specific skills, expertise and certifications that’s related to the niche you’re building your thought leadership.
This will boost your credibility.
Create & Share Content
Now that you’ve created your brand, it’s time to create and share content with your audience.
Since you already know your audience, who they are at this point, you need to go out there and create that content.
Before you create your content, you need to identify the other thought leaders in your niche.
Head over to their page, analyze their content, audience and the way the audience react to their content.
This will give you an idea on what kind of content you should create since you share similar audience.
As soon as this is sorted out, you’ll have to step out and create the content.
Promote your Brand
Promotion is very important on social media.
On social media platforms, people will get to respect you as a social media thought leader, based on who you associate with or your popularity on the internet.
Now, the following are some measures you can use to boost your social media thought leadership brand:
Get a Website or Blog
Besides your social media platforms, you need to be visible on the web.
Beyond that, you also need to control the narrative about your brand on the internet.
And one of the ways to get this kind of control and visibility is to build a brand on the web.
So, you need a website…
A well optimized website that will serve both as a portfolio and a tool to build and engage your followers, outside your social media.
Head over here to get your free website quotation.
Write a Book
The sentiments about authors is that books are written by experts who are well knowledgeable in their field.
Writing down your thought into a book that’ll be useful to your audience will not only boost your credibility…
It’ll cement your place as a thought leader that should be listened to. Especially, before your target audience.
As much as possible, you need to work on writing your own book.
Share your experiences and valuable lessons and have them put together as a book that’ll add value to your audience.
This will also help your brand.
Write for Others
Do not just limit your content to your social media platform and websites…
Write, share your content and Guest Posts on other websites, platforms and offline platforms.
This will expose your brand to a new audience.
It’ll also reward you with a number of new followers etc.
Collaborate with others
Connecting and collaborating with other thought leaders is one of the gold mine of thought leadership.
As a social media thought leader, you want to build your thought leadership by collaborating with other thought leaders in your niche.
This is very important.
Your collaboration could be in the form of co-hosting events, co-writing books, white papers etc.
Whatever it is, collaborating with the right brand will not just expose you to a new audience, it’ll raise your perception.
PS: While doing this, be very choosy about the brands you collaborate with. This is very important.
Engage
Building a brand is great.
But, building an engaging brand is what’ll take you from a thought leader to a social media influencer.
And this is how it should be.
As much as possible, you want to engage with your audience.
Create engaging content. And reply to social media comments from your audience.
Doing this will encourage your audience to drop their comments.
It’ll also have it’s effect in expanding your reach and visibility via social media algorithms.
Share your take
A thought leader is a person whose opinion is well known and respected.
As a social media thought leader, you’re not only going to echo the opinion of others, you’ll need to have your opinion.
Follow topical issues in your niche and put forward your opinion.
Make it in such a way that your opinion should be striking and noticeable.
Do not be afraid to stand alone. Or put forward the unpopular opinion.
This alone has a way of making you peculiar.
Show Consistency
Consistency is very important when it comes to thought leadership anywhere. And even more on the social media.
The more your audience sees you and your content, the more they become aware of your brand.
To stay consistent create your own content calendar.
Choose a certain number of days or hours in a day to create content. And share it with your audience.
Over time, they will get to expect your content at this period. Be sure to deliver.
While doing this, be sure you’re not over posting or creating too many content at a time.
Keep it to one or two posts in a day. If you want to make it more, consider using different content forms from the others.
Remember that the social media algorithms also has a way of rewarding you with better visibility when you post consistently.
Review, Rinse & Repeat
Becoming a social media thought leader does not happen by following a single strategy or staying consistent with a strategy that’s not working.
That’s one mistake that’s frustrated a lot of aspiring thought leaders on social media.
To keep things working, from time to time, you need to examine your expected outcomes and review your strategy.
Find out what’s working. And what’s not.
Rinse and repeat all strategies that’s showing positive results.
Identify why the other strategies did not get you the expected outcome.
And if possible remove them entirely why trying out new ones.
Final Words
Following these secret strategies does not mean you’ll become a social media celebrity over night.
But, these are your sure stepping stone to social media stardom if you’re going to let it happen.
Remember, even after reading this today, everything still relies on you. You’re the one that’ll make this dream come true by taking the steps listed here.
Like I mentioned in the last step above, always remember to measure your outcomes.
From time to time, review and evaluate the strategies you used. By doing this, you’ll save yourself a lot of time and energy.
So, there you have the secret strategies to build your thought leadership using the social media.
Need a more personal guide on how to become a social media thought leader? Reach out to us here.
Now, it’s over to you! What’s your biggest challenge as an aspiring thought leader?
Let’s hear you👇
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