Cultivate Internal Thought Leaders to Promote Your Brand

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Your B2B business likely has a bench of talented leaders who are experts at what they do.

They may already spend a portion of their time sharing their knowledge directly with prospective and existing clients.

But are you encouraging them also to share that expertise as a part of your marketing strategy? Have you given them time to build their personal brand and grow their influence?

Helping subject-matter experts package and distribute their content will allow them to promote their personal brands as your very own go-to thought leaders. And, in the process, they will help elevate the corporate brand.

Most organizations already make use of content marketing, whether it’s with newsletters, corporate social media pages, or perhaps an occasional piece that goes out under the CEO’s name. And all that is great, of course.

But people in other leadership or key roles within the company also have wisdom and relevant information they can share that will draw even more attention to your brand. They are experts in financial matters, HR policies, communications, corporate culture, or any number of other areas.

By tapping into such a rich reserve of talent within your organization, you can assemble a cadre of internal thought leaders who will build an audience and contribute to your brand’s stature as they produce content through which they give advice or offer insight about topics related to their expertise.

That content can live on your website, on social media, and in earned media, such as mainstream news sites or trade publications.

Thought Leadership and Trust

So why have people within your company become thought leaders to the world at large?

Among the top reasons: Cultivating internal thought leaders helps build trust in your business and your brand.

And what about the concern that you will help build their brand only for them to eventually leave the company and take with them the authority you helped them develop?

That’s a valid concern. However, the business and brand strategy must be built to be sustained beyond one individual, beyond the CEO who may be getting a lot or all of the thought leader “share of voice” in the company today. And, ultimately diversifying the voice of thought leadership at the company can be a very wise decision for the sustainability of the brand.

People are distrustful these days. They probably have always been, but that distrust is amplified in the Internet Age, where information (and disinformation) travels so fast. People don’t trust the government. They don’t trust medical professionals. They don’t trust the media. The list goes on.

But here is something else that is true: Trust is important in business. A recent PwC survey found that 93% of business executives agree that building and maintaining trust improves the bottom line.

And that’s where developing thought leaders within your organization comes into play. An excellent way to build trust is for your in-house experts to become recognized as experts who provide something of value to those who are reading a trade publication or a New York Times article, or visiting the blog on your company website.

Over time (and it won’t happen overnight), thought leaders can make a connection with a large audience and leave an imprint in the digital world. Search results from their efforts that will accelerate trust could include articles and earned media placements that are housed on reputable outlets, links to content that implies endorsement from powerful brands, or a shared podcast with a respected influencer in your industry.

And the power of that content lingers long after it is created and shared with the world. Just as an example: one of the internal experts at my company wrote an article on how to make use of newsjacking in public relations. Five months after that article was shared online, it was on the first page of Google searches for “newsjacking.”

A Personal Brand Mission Statement

Granted, some of your people may be uncomfortable with the idea of promoting their personal brand in this way. They may even think that establishing themselves as thought leaders seems egotistical. But it’s not—at least not if you do it the right way.

Thought leadership isn’t about thumping your chest and talking about how wonderful you and your company are. Instead, you are offering something of value to those who read the content you produce.

It’s about focusing on what you can do for others rather than what they can do for you.

A good way to get started is to have your internal thought leaders ask themselves what they are passionate about, what their values are, and what it is they do well. The answers to those questions will help them focus on exactly what kind of thought leader they want to be.

They can then use those answers to create a mission statement for their personal brand, just as corporate brands have a mission statement.

Getting Started

When it comes time to create the content, suggest that they add a bit of their personality to the work as well as anecdotes that provide real-life examples. That’s one of the best ways to connect with the audience so that the content isn’t just a list of facts and data that an AI program could have generated.

Even a short couple of paragraphs that reveal how the author encountered a difficulty and solved (or failed to solve) the problem can add a human element that readers will identify with.

Speaking of those readers, it’s good to have someone in mind as the target audience when you write your content. That could be defined somewhat broadly (any new business could use tips for recruiting top-notch employees) or more narrowly (advice for CMOs who were just promoted to that position).

But understand that personal branding efforts by your internal thought leaders aren’t a replacement for directly promoting your corporate brand. Instead, the two approaches should complement each other.

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When you think about it, one of the greatest assets you have as a B2B company is your people and the talent they bring to your organization every day. What are you doing to grow that talent so they can share their expertise with the world and, in the process, grow your company?