Four ways to become a thought leader on LinkedIn & Twitter
If you aspire to become a thought leader or business influencer on LinkedIn or Twitter, it will take strategy, not luck. But what does it take to be and stay successful?
Knowledge and dedication! After all, you must captivate new followers by investing time in a systematic approach. So before we start going into details, begin your journey to influencer status by researching the pros and cons of each platform and mapping out who your desired audience will be. Once you understand where your ideal audience hangs out online and why they like it there, you can determine which platform is the best use of your time.
Let's start with LinkedIn. LinkedIn has more than half a billion users around the globe, making it the largest social media platform for business professionals. Over 80% of B2B businesses and 96% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn. If your ideal clients are business-minded individuals, it's worth the effort to build a good reputation on LinkedIn.
Twitter has 206 million users worldwide. 67% of B2B businesses and 82% of B2B marketers use Twitter. On Twitter, you can be a micro-influencer with as few as 1,000 followers. LinkedIn only requires over 500 followers to be considered an influencer.
But no matter the platform, the type of followers matters. It's better to have 1,000 active followers than 20,000 inactive followers. If they are not industry peers or interested in your content, their presence doesn't help you.
Armed with that foundational knowledge of LinkedIn and Twitter, you can now decide whether you want to utilize one or both platforms to help grow your brand.
1. Create meaningful content
Creating meaningful content is the quickest way to establish yourself as an influencer on any platform. LinkedIn values high-quality, stimulating content because it inspires comments and conversations.
The goal is to create thought-provoking content that doesn't alienate your target audience. Keep things fresh and compelling by mixing up your post formats. Use various post forms, including videos, carousels, audiograms, and gifs, to keep your readers interested. Seek topics that will add value for your followers, even if you occasionally post something purely amusing.
To create meaningful content, you must first determine how you want to be known and what type of value you want to bring. Choose something you have a natural affinity for when you select your domain of interest. It should be something you have some expertise in that allows you to create content your target audience will find helpful.
Before posting anything on any platform, determine whether or not it fits your overall influencer strategy. Every piece of content should accurately reflect your brand. Remember that old tweets never die. They just get retweeted when they incriminate you. Secure the trust of your followers by refraining from promoting products or beliefs you cannot confidently defend at any given time.
2. Cultivate genuine relationships
When you post to social media, tailor your content to suit your audience's needs. Knowing what works for your audience will help you keep existing followers and attract new ones. To understand your audience, start by analyzing your current follower base and identify their area of interest and demography. Look at your existing posts, dig deep into one that has received maximum engagement, and brainstorm creative ways to replicate it.
Once you have a baseline understanding of your current and target audience, it is all about building relationships. Interact with your followers. Comment on others' content. Share content that you find valuable and tag the creator to generate even more engagement. Generating dialogue in comment sections is particularly beneficial on LinkedIn. Experts say becoming influential on the platform is attained with consistency, depth, and (most importantly) the genuine desire to create conversations.
The best way to nurture relationships on Twitter is to tweet regularly. Post at a rate that your followers can begin to predict. You risk losing loyalty if you don't tweet for days or weeks. By the same token, you don't want to overwhelm your readers with too many tweets. Find a cadence that works, and if necessary, you can automatically set times for your tweets to be broadcasted directly from the Twitter app to keep your tweet schedule consistent. Ensure things don't slip through the cracks by setting aside time for tweeting, responding to audience engagement, and engaging with other users' content.
3. Establish influencer credentials
We talked a little about the numbers needed to be considered an influencer. Now let's get into some more general types of influencers:
A nano-influencer is typically characterized by a hyper-niche following between 500 and 1,000.
Micro-influencers are the most common type, with followers ranging from 1,000 to 100,000.
A macro-influencer has between 100,000 and 999,999 followers.
Mega-influencers have millions of followers and are considered social media celebrities.
Determine what type of influencer you want to be, then study accounts that you aspire to emulate. Take note of what you like and what you'd do differently. Observe how others compose their tweets or vary their LinkedIn content. Think about how they present themselves across all platforms. How is their overall online presence? Consider creating a website to compliment your digital presence and write (or curate) blog posts to establish yourself as even more of an expert.
4. Engagement is key
Engagement is what separates social media from plain old media. Likes and favorites, comments, DMs, replies, shares and retweets, saves, clicks, and mentions all measure how often people interact with your content.
Your levels of engagement highlight if the content you're creating resonates with your audience. It also determines whether or not your future content gets seen. Engagement is crucial because social media platforms say it is. What outlets deem "meaningful engagement" prioritizes how far your organic reach will go. Therefore engagement is key. Whenever you create opportunities for conversation, it is rewarded with greater organic reach.
As you update your social strategy, asking for what you want is perfectly fine. Ask for retweets and shares or end your posts with questions and surveys. Shamelessly request interactions to aid in the growth of your brand.
Start your influencer journey.
Platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn are a means of helping you build relationships that can amplify your overall goals. Whether you aim to attract more customers to your business or make money off endorsement deals, gaining influencer status is the way to go.
Create a strategy and stick with it. Also, keep in mind that continuously revising your plan based on current trends is part of the process. Social media is ever-evolving. To be successful, you have to evolve as well.
Are you ready to start your journey toward becoming a social media influencer? Have you already been working on it? Did you find value in this article? Please comment below and share your experience building a social media following.
Photos by Toru Wa on Unsplash; Jonathan Cosens Photography on Unsplash; and JD Mason on Unsplash.