Thought leaders are created through persistent leaning into critical issues with a distinct point of view and expertise. Here are our guidelines for positioning yourself as a thought leader using blogging and social media:

Goals

• Build your personal or institutional reputation as a thought leader in your core expertise.
• Create a readership that engages with your passion for your expertise by delivering insightful, practical, dependable and valuable content.

Personal Brand

• Curate and manage your personal profiles on your organization’s website, your personal LinkedIn account, and other social channels.
• Grow and cultivate your personal network comprised of practitioners, peers, collaborators and perhaps most importantly influencers.

Target Audience

• Speak to practitioners, peers, collaborators and influencers.
• Lead the believers in your cause. Persuade the receptive. Ignore the rest.

Keyword Focus

• Think of the keyword or phrase you would like your blog post to be ranked for.
• Search Google to see who else appears on page 1 of Google for that phrase.
• Tie content to a single keyword or phrase.

Content with a Point-of-View

• Write about research, studies, best practices, and policy issues.
• Quote other authoritative peers and aspirational brands. They lend you credibility.
• Provide authoritative perspective on your expertise and related topics.
• Risk yourself. Lean into controversy.
• Share lessons learned.
• Where possible, tie it back to the institutional offerings.

Voice

• Be positive, real, helpful, accessible, insightful, professional and knowledgeable.
• Avoid jargon.
• Democratize knowledge (think TED talks).
• Communicate effectively and efficiently.

Length

• Limit the length of blog post to less than 500 words.
• Build topic authority by creating a series of small blog posts instead of packing everything into a long one.

Engagement

• Encourage questions and comments on the blog.
• Share your blog on your personal social networks as well as on your organization’s official social media channels.
• Respond to comments on the blog and social media.

Measurement

• Measure the number of shares and likes.
• Measure blog post views with Google Analytics.
• Monitor Google rankings for your keyword or phrase.

I welcome you to share your guidelines with us.

Wishing you a great journey ahead.