Your Personal Brand and becoming a Thought Leader on LinkedIn

Did you know that the function of a LinkedIn profile, if you really want to step up your game... is to establish yourself as a Thought Leader? So let's look at both the definition of a Thought Leader and a Personal Brand.

A Personal Brand is basically your reputation and how you are seen by others. It speaks of what people can expect from you. A Thought Leader on the other hand, is someone that is perceived to be an expert or leader in their specialization. Kind of "the go to person for...".

Can you see the correlation between these two labels?

Now ask yourself, how important it is to have these two aspects, support your business? Wouldn't you agree that these two are kind of the Alpha and Omega of your LinkedIn endeavors to attract connections? More accurate a statement would be, to attract the "right connections" to your profile.

Now how would you do that exactly? This is your next question right? Well, there are some ways to do this on LinkedIn, and to do this with credibility. Let's explore some of these:

1. You need to obviously have the right experience in order to convince your audience.
2. You need to have a select skills set that you pin down on your LinkedIn profile.
3. You need endorsements to validate your claims.
4. You need the right keywords on your About section in LinkedIn
5. You also need to provide valuable content offerings to the LinkedIn audience in order to showcase your expertise.
6. Then lastly, I would say the frosting on the cake, would be the authenticity you present to the LinkedIn world.

When you get these 6 aspects to work in tandem, then you stand a very good change to stand out above the rest of the experts in your field of expertise. Now each of these aspects are pretty much worthy of their own article on my page, but as time is limited and I don't want you reading for hours, I think I will much rather explore each of these in a series form following this article.

The big deal here, is to build influence. You have a wide audience looking at your profile and if you don't convince them in about 3 seconds, then you have lost their attention. You do this by giving yourself a personal, professional impression. You ultimately want to portray a value proposition to your target audience. Doing this is quite simply:

1. Defining your current brand
2. Creating your desired brand
3. Doing this with your target audience in mind.

One way to do this is to create your value set. And then, supporting this with proof on your LinkedIn page. This all creates credibility with your audience. And the way to do this is in setting a strategy, that is supported by authenticity. You must show what your values are, and then provide proof of how you lived these out in practicality through your previous work experience, your content and your offering to the market. No one wants to buy your stuff... they want to buy your offering. What are you giving them in return for their favor?

This is also where consistency comes into the game. You can only support your brand or thought leadership if you have consistently posted, shared and brought valuable information to your target audience. So yes, this is a time game.

More often than not, I see clients come our way that had no visibility on LinkedIn. They come to us expecting to get a lead straight out of the cuff in the first month. Well, the truth of the matter is, that unless you have advocated your personal brand, and your Thought Leadership... it's kind of like a puppy running with the big dogs on LinkedIn.

So in closing... It is important to note, that your personal brand, and your Thought Leadership takes time to establish. If you have a had a LinkedIn profile that merely lists your work experience and not much content, you cannot expect to establish credibility and therefore a footprint to lead generation on LinkedIn.

It's like a rare wine... it takes time to absorb the essence of its surroundings into its bouquet. Well, it is the same for your LinkedIn profile... time is of the essence. And to get there faster, you need a LinkedIn expert that can build the right content in line with your Personal Brand, and your Thought Leadership. BUT, the trump card here is that you need to write and construct everything on LinkedIn for your client... it is not about you after all, is it? It is about your target audience.