How to Become a LinkedIn Thought-Leader

LinkedIn is a great platform to establish professional relationships and share your expertise with the world. LinkedIn boasts over 830 million active users across 200 countries. 40% of these users log in daily. These staggering numbers prove that LinkedIn is the best medium for building your brand and expanding your business network.

But, just sending out new connections to LinkedIn is not enough. You must become a thought leader to see the best results, including increased job opportunities, traffic and revenue. Thought leaders are change agents and influencers who ask critical questions and offer innovative solutions.

Keep reading to learn how to be a LinkedIn thought leader within your industry.

What are the main reasons to become a LinkedIn thought leader?

LinkedIn is a great place to be a thought leader. There are many reasons to do so. Experts in their field are thought leaders, which can lead to more opportunities and better pay. Your platform can be used to increase your visibility to potential clients and recruiters.

In other words, being a thought leader via LinkedIn will benefit you.

• Create your own brand
• Show off your expertise and knowledge to increase your industry credibility.
• You can be a leader in your field and get new clients or job opportunities.
• Reach out to potential employers looking for experts in a specific topic.
• You can attract speaking engagements at conferences or other events where people meet face-to-face. This will allow you to build relationships offline as well as online.

How can you be a thought leader on this platform. These are some tips that will help you get started.

11 Tips to Become an Influencer on LinkedIn

1. Optimize your LinkedIn Profile

Optimizing your LinkedIn profile is the first and most important step to building a strong personal brand and becoming a thought leader.

This can be done by using keywords that are relevant to your job title or industry. In your content, you can add keywords that relate to the topics that interest you. This will allow people to search for the keywords you have added in your content more easily.

LinkedIn profiles that are optimized for success should include:

• A professional title that clearly identifies what you do and who it helps.
• A professional-looking profile picture.
• A brand cover photo that shows what you can do for people and what they can expect.
• A description of your profile that includes details about you and the things you can do to help others.
• You can add topics to your LinkedIn profile as a LinkedIn creator. These topics will appear under your profile title as hashtags.

Here’s an example to illustrate how a LinkedIn profile that is optimized should look.

2. Identify Your Target Audience

The second step in becoming a LinkedIn thought-leader is to identify your target audience. This is an important step as you will need to identify your target audience in order to create content that appeals to them.

To better understand your target audience, create buyer personas. Take a look at their job titles, responsibilities, and demographic information like age, gender, location.

Once you’ve identified the person, write down their reasons for caring about your topic or industry. Next, write down what you can do to help them solve their problems. This will guide you in creating content that resonates more with your readers.

3. Share your insights

LinkedIn is a great place to establish your credibility as a thought leader. You can share your thoughts with others who are interested and you can also easily connect with them. LinkedIn is a great way to establish yourself as an authority within your industry.

It can be difficult to get started. Here are some ways you can share your knowledge on this platform.

• Create LinkedIn articles:LinkedIn can be a great place for you to get started blogging. LinkedIn allows you to easily share your expertise via blog articles. Your content will be appreciated by people who value your expertise. You can also use grammarly tools to improve your content, which will allow them to learn more about you.
• Post relevant updates to your LinkedIn feed: If you don’t enjoy writing long-form articles you can still share your insights with LinkedIn by sharing them on your feed. This is a great way for you to stay consistent with LinkedIn content creation, as well as sharing your client’s achievements and endorsements with your audience.
• Join discussions: When someone posts an article, or asks questions related to your expertise, jump in with your thoughts. This will allow you to easily connect with other people who have similar interests, and help you build relationships over time.
• Share a portion of a podcast. If you’re an expert in your field, and have much to share, why not make podcasts using your knowledge? You can create anything, from a quick show to an hour-long podcast. Then share it on LinkedIn and engage your audience. To produce high-quality material, you only need a script and confidence in speaking.

4. Demonstrate Your Unique Perspective

If your LinkedIn content is similar to everyone else’s, it won’t help grow your brand. Write unique content to stand out on LinkedIn. You must offer unique insights to help others see you as a thought leader in LinkedIn. Everyone has their own opinions and views about the industries they work in. Do not be afraid to voice your opinion!

There are many ways to inject your brand voice into your content, whether you’re sharing updates on your Instagram feed or writing articles. You can experiment until you discover your brand voice and personality.

5. Use visuals in your posts

According to Medium, visual content can increase engagement rates up to 650%. Many companies recognize the importance of visual content being posted on their websites as well as social media channels such Instagram and Facebook. What about LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is more than a text-based platform. It’s also an image-based one!

You can create and publish amazing visual content on LinkedIn using the right photo and video editing software. This can help you stand out and attract more attention from your audience.

6. Get to know other experts in your industry

Engaging with influential people on LinkedIn is a great way to grow your influence. You can make new connections and learn from the perspectives of experts in your field by interacting with them.

It is estimated that 84% of LinkedIn users use the platform for professional networking. It is clear that LinkedIn networking is a valuable tool in identifying new opportunities.

7. Make the right connections

LinkedIn is a leading professional network, but it’s not social in the traditional sense. LinkedIn is a place where you can connect with others who share your interests, and may be able help you advance your career.

Contrary to popular belief, LinkedIn networking is more than just sending out connections requests or commenting on posts of random people. You should be looking for the right people for you, no matter if they are experts in your field or target customers.

This can be done by searching LinkedIn for groups related to your area of expertise or interests, searching specific keywords or looking at companies within your industry to reach out to their employees.

8. LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn Groups can be a great way to meet like-minded professionals, thought leaders, and potential clients. These groups allow you to exchange knowledge, ask questions and learn about the latest trends in your area of expertise.

There are thousands upon thousands of LinkedIn groups that can cover any topic you want. These groups can help you become a thought leader within your industry. Join them and interact with their members. You will have a wider network to share your content with more people.

9. Please share your achievements

Writing LinkedIn articles or posting industry-related updates to your feed are great ways of demonstrating your expertise. However, you should also share your accomplishments. This will show your expertise and will increase your professional credibility.

Sharing case studies from past projects is a great way to show off your accomplishments. For example, a consultant or freelancer might write about how they helped clients grow their business through social media marketing. There are many free platforms for advanced marketing. Talk about your successes at work or the endorsements you received from colleagues and superiors.

10. Be Authentic

One thing is going to make or break your efforts as a LinkedIn thought leader: authenticity. Authenticity is the best way to make your profile stand out among thousands of other LinkedIn posts and articles.

This is because people seek realness more than ever before, and thought leaders must be that voice. People are looking for honest opinions and personal insights from thought leaders.

Don’t pretend to be an industry expert by using buzzwords and jargon that only industry professionals understand. Be yourself instead! Be funny and sarcastic, even if you are funny in real life. You’ll attract people who resonate with your authenticity and repel people who don’t.

11. Post Consistently

LinkedIn is a great place for you to be recognized as an industry thought leader. You’ll build a reputation for being a thought leader in your industry by posting frequent updates and providing valuable insight on different topics.

When it comes to growing your brand’s presence on social media channels such as LinkedIn, consistency is crucial. People will trust you more if you post quality content on LinkedIn. This will result in more engagement from your followers which could drive traffic back to you website or blog.

Last Thoughts

People look up to thought leaders for their expertise in a specific field. You can become an authority figure in your field if you are a LinkedIn specialist.

You can achieve this goal by putting in the effort and following the tips provided in this article. You will attract more opportunities if you are a leader in your community.

Scoop.it Blog published the article How to Become a LinkedIn Thought Leader.