Demonstrating Thought Leadership, Building Your Online Presence (a speech at Oxford)

You don’t need a fancy job title to be a leader. Managing a big team doesn’t automatically make one a leader. A manager manages while a leader inspires. 

With social media, whether you are young or young-at-heart like me, you have a chance to be a thought leader if

• you have informed opinions
• you are the go-to-person in your chosen field of thought leadership
• you inspire people with fresh perspectives and innovative ideas, and
• you have WILLING followers

It may sound daunting, so here are 9 steps to get you started on your journey in becoming a thought leader.

1. Develop a social media strategy   

Choose one social media to be your main engine. In my case, I chose LinkedIn because it is most suitable for leaders. Even though HSBC's new CEO feels social media doesn’t come natural to him, Noel Quinn still went ahead to create his LinkedIn account. 

Try to google or baidu your name together with your company or school name. In my case, I’ll search for “Eric Sim Institute of Life”. Did you find your Linkedin profile appearing in the first page of the search result? It means your LinkedIn profile gives people their first impression of you. 

Next, use your main engine to drive content to other platforms.  

2. Decide the area of expertise you want to pursue

It is absolutely fine if you are not clear what your area of expertise is at this stage. It will take some trial and error. Choose an area you are willing to put in a reasonable amount of time to read up and do research on. Choose an area you are happy to be known for in the long run.  

It can be an area related to your day job, eg healthcare or tech, just ensure there is no conflict with your employer. It can also be an area not directly related to your job. I intentionally stay away from writing about investment banking because of client confidentiality. 

3. Narrow your target audience

For a start, try to have a narrow target audience in mind. When I first started writing on LinkedIn, I focused on helping Asia-based students interested in banking. As my online presence grew, I expanded my reach to include young professionals in banking and finance. Now I write for professionals and students who are looking to advance their careers and achieve success in life. 

4. Share personal stories that add values

Sharing personal stories with universal applications that add values to your target audience will help you build your thought leadership quickly. If you share only news about your industry, you’ll become a news channel, not a thought leader. If you just share personal stories without adding value to your audience in the area of your chosen expertise, you become a friend, not a thought leader. 

5. Write with your audience in mind

Use industry terminology that is familiar to your target audience so that they feel your post is written for them. I wrote this post talking about work and happiness. Since my readers are mostly banking and finance professionals, I used banking terms such as SPA and M&A.

From the views statistics, you can see the views came from mainly banking and finance professionals. 

6. Offer fresh perspectives 

To be a thought leader, you must offer fresh perspectives and don't worry if some readers disagree with you. I wrote “The Education We Need Next Year” back in Dec 2015. It was quite a new idea. Let me share the first half of the article here. 

There are 10 more points in this article, if you like to read the rest, here is the link. Because the idea is quite new and borderline controversial, it encourages readers to engage and share their views.

7. Be prepared for criticism

Fresh perspectives also criticism. The above article attracted more than a thousand comments and quite a few are negative comments.

Here are just two:

“Interesting ... but I disagree with you on the description of today's school. In Sweden we prepare the students even for real life ... there are already those "IOL" thoughts since many years back.”

“It's not called IOL. We call it ART. It does everything you speak of and more. It's the public schools that have cut the arts out of their budget calling it "not important enough" Thanks for the opportunity to speak up.”

You should not dismiss criticism but welcome them because some will offer you a different view which can help you grow as a leader. 

8. Write insightful comments?

Besides writing your own article, you can write insightful comments on other writer’ posts to reach out to a wider audience. This is what I wrote on Linkedin News Asia’s post on waking-up time. Notice the number of engagements on my comment. 

9. Spread your message

After you have created your content, spread your message via your other channels, eg, Facebook, IG, messaging apps, webinars and TEDx talks. Picture below is an example of me sharing a follower's LinkedIn article on my Facebook.

I suffered from stage fright when I was a student, so I took some actions to eventually overcome the fear of public speaking. The effort is well worth it! 

Think of a small action that you can take today to start your journey in becoming a thought leader. Key is to start now, no matter how small.

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