Growing your personal brand with bold leadership: ready for takeoff?

Image by SpaceX/Youtube

In our previous blog, we shared ways on how to start building your executive brand and took a closer look at one of the boldest industry leaders in the market — Elon Musk. So let’s assume you’re all in. You’ve nailed what your personal brand represents. You’re ready to take a page from Elon Musk, and become a bold industry thought leader. Now it’s time to create brand awareness with your very own content marketing strategy that emphasizes thought leadership content.

Five steps to grow your executive brand

1. Create a unique point-of-view
Begin by establishing what your personal brand will stand for. What is your unique point-of-view? This involves weaving in your company’s core brand values and determining the theme and topics that you want to hone in on, and which you can speak to with intelligence and fervor. Make sure you know your target audience, their unique personas and concerns, and determine in advance your unique spin on the opportunities and challenges facing your industry. Here’s where a good public relations agency excels. A strong public relations agency can collaborate to define your thought leadership strategy and help identify the most salient perspectives vis-a-vis what it trending in your market, topics where your competitors are gaining traction, and the broader market landscape.

2. Develop a content marketing calendar that incorporates thought leadership content
In order to ensure a consistent flow of quality content, you’ll need to document and specify which topics you will cover, what angles you will take, and when you will publish. Best practices suggest that you publish at least once a week to build momentum and stay top-of-mind. There’s a lot more science to building a strategic content marketing calendar but incorporating executive thought leadership is a must.

3. Determine a content amplification strategy
While blogging is one popular way to distribute content, it’s by no means the only way. You should also incorporate a mix of videos, podcasts, articles, presentations and ebooks. Determine how you can get the most from your thought leadership content by repurposing it in different formats to reach your audience on their preferred channels.

4. Build your social media presence
The top B2B content marketing tactic is social media (92%). Where are your customers, partners and investors, and what’s the best way to package your content for your key social channels? Be creative. Include interactive content, such as infographics or live surveys. Ask questions to generate conversation. Building your social media presence is also important to growing your executive visibility.

5. Measure and improve
Make use of analytics tools to measure the impact of your thought leadership content. How much was your content shared via social media? Has your content accumulated authoritative backlinks to drive your content higher during organic website searches? If not, this is an important area for improvement. Is it performing well by driving organic traffic to your company’s website? How well does your thought leadership content drive organic content versus your top competitors’ content? Know what you’re tracking for, and make use of analytics to measure and calibrate your content marketing efforts accordingly.

To be recognized as an industry thought leader, you must go beyond challenging and inspiring employees to create a great brand that provides a valued product or service. You need to be willing to put yourself on the line, willingly talking to a variety of audiences about the opportunities and threats presented by a given technology, laying out proposed solutions, and articulating your company’s end-game. Bold leaders do not shy away from difficult people or topics. Instead, they put their stamp on the subject, letting the world know where they stand. They won’t be right all of the time, and they may be controversial, but, like Elon Musk, they do not go unnoticed. Especially if they have a solid content marketing strategy in place to ensure their voice is heard.

So even if you’re not planning on launching a starman into space on a Tesla Roadster, we encourage you to share your passion or expertise with your tribe! Seize the opportunity to express your beliefs and vision. Sharing you unique point-of-view is valuable information that provides an excellent window to champion the company’s core values and distinctions to your employees, customers, partners, target audiences and extended community.