Thought leadership: How a single person can improve company success
In early 2021, the CEO of German multinational chemical company BASF, Dr. Martin Brudermüller, signed up for LinkedIn to extend his dialogue with scientists, business leaders, and other innovative minds about chemistry and sustainability. Within just a few months, he had over 7000 followers, a fraction of the over 1.5 million people that follow his company's corporate LinkedIn page.
However, when Martin Brudermüller shared the same post on the corporate page about a new partnership, he got 200 times more reactions and engagements than the corporate page. This incident shows the impact one individual can have on LinkedIn compared to their company brand. An individual account can create exceptional trust, build new and lasting relationships, and drive behavior.
In an interview for our Straight to Business Podcast, we sat down with Tigercomm founder and president Mike Casey as he shared his go-to strategies for executives on social media. Read our key takeaways below to help you understand how you can maximize your outreach with thought leadership.
Mike Casey is president and founder of Tigercomm, the leading US clean tech PR, marketing communications, and public affairs firm. His passion for the last 30 years has been designing, building, and running winning communications programs. He counsels clean tech executives and investors and has trained over 2200 people on message development, media interviewing, and PR management. Tigercomm has helped over 140 companies and organizations increase sales, establish brands, and secure fair policies in the clean tech space. Mike regularly shares content on the Scaling Green blog and podcasts in Renewable Energy World and other clean tech and marketing publications.
Check out the highlights of our interview with Mike on how thought leadership can significantly impact your every company as a whole below!
What is thought leadership, and what role does it play in the business decision-making process?
Mike defines, "Thought leadership, done successfully, is telling a discrete target audience useful things it did not know about itself." Thought leadership plays several roles and can achieve several things. At the early stage for startups, thought leadership is best limited and directed toward explaining why the company exists. For trying to raise money, thought leadership can help explain why an investor should take a meeting with that company. Then in later stages, as a company prepares to get acquired or go public, the company itself needs to be narrated. In the last step, you must decide how much of the brand will be the person. If it is a lot of the person, you can put company narration out through their thought leadership. If you're going to have the company brand be about more than just one leader, then you need several people narrating the company through insight-based thought leadership.
"There are many points in the lifecycle of a company where thought leadership can produce value," Mike answers. In a situation where a company is ready to go public or get acquired, you have this decision in front of you. How do we narrate the company? Do you market through a person or a team? After figuring that out, you must ask how prominent the CEO should be. There are several factors to find out your answer: is the CEO somebody who likes a public role? How much time and effort do they want to invest in content creation? You should also investigate other company strengths that someone on that leadership team particularly represents. For example, if a company is known for its strong technology, you might have a chief technology officer who you want to show off.
What plays into building executive thought leadership?
As stated by Mike, the main question to ask is, "What does a leader have to say that's useful that the target audience did not know?" Our first instinct is to tell the audience about ourselves. Assessing the competitive field correctly is crucial—looking for lightly occupied or unoccupied intellectual space. A topic that your target audience cares about that not many of my competitors are talking about is the perfect place to establish thought leadership.
There are three factors to how a thought leader builds a profile. The first is the importance of their platform. A well-known CEO would have less pressure to say things that are as important or in as interesting a way as an essential platform gives you a head start. If you don't have organic import out in the world, then there is a second factor: the flair or style with which you can say things. The third, what most companies have to work with, is what you say. Most B2B companies focus on the third factor, as what is said can often influence partner relationships and future sales.
Why should I dedicate time to be active on social media?
The benefits of a CEO deciding to take a role in thought leadership are based on company objectives. Ask yourself if achieving that goal can be cost-effectively supported through thought leadership. However, some social media presence is required in the current B2B Spere, as relying on individual retail or in-person communication isn't feasible.
Sales teams across the sectors struggle with "the sixth email problem." "Let's say I meet you at a trade show, you're a prospect, and we exchange cards. And I will later give you a call. You're busy, and I go from someone you want to talk to a nice idea if you can get to it," Mike explains. "If I haven't gotten you to respond to me after six emails, you start to see me as an annoyance." Content marketing and thought leadership helps solve this problem by making your company available to customers when they decide they are ready to buy.
Next to all the other tasks you have as a CEO of your own business, how do you manage to be present on LinkedIn?
During the 2010s and onward, the marketplace tended to reward prominence and punish obscurity. Whether in politics, nonprofit work, or the private sector, human beings conflate prominence with competence. To be an influential voice for your cause, it is easier to work with trends rather than against them.
However, being a thought leader isn't about focusing on trends and current events. A good way of achieving prominence while keeping an eye out on trends is by condensing your experiences into usable formats for the next generation of clean economy communicators. "Do I have something meaningful to impart to people that can then turn around and use it to profit in their own life?" Mike asks. "If I can clear that bar, I will post something."
What kind of role does social media play compared to other business channels?
"Social and your website must be at the center of your corporate communications efforts," Mike states. If your corporate communications program primarily comprises news releases, you are missing much potential. In B2B sales, up to 60% of purchase decisions are made through online content. Engaging with people interested in your company, or at least making sure you are known to prospects, helps facilitate more sales. People ready to buy can gauge their decision by your social media prominence.
If someone has never used social media before, would you suggest they first go for an internal audience or immediately attack the external one?
"I think the first thing I'd suggest they do is pick the platform with a clear rationale," Mike states. For him, LinkedIn is where he invests the time and energy to learn the platform. While doing so, he ensures that his thought leadership is cohesive with the platform's demands. Then watch, observe, and listen to understand what those you want to meet or exceed are doing. From listening, you can find out if this platform is right for you.
In essence, thought leadership is about sharing innovative information and improving your field for the future. As more people use social media daily, thought leadership and content creation help separate you from the rest of the crowd, allowing for more sales.