BTL 3: Developing your profile

The previous email in our series on becoming a thought leader explained how to develop your ‘message’ as a thought leader. This one looks at how you can start to develop your profile as a thought leader and ensure that it reflects your message appropriately.

As a thought leader, you need to be discoverable—and your audience needs to like what they discover!

It is therefore worth having a look at your ‘digital footprint’, and considering what it says about you. Your first step is to Google yourself. Once you see what’s out there, you can then start to manage it. Our friends at SkillsYouNeed.com have a useful page about managing your online presence.

You also need to have an account and profile set up on your chosen social media channels and any blog sites. For B2B, the most common are LinkedIn and Twitter.

If you already have accounts on your chosen platforms, great. If not, go and set them up.

Now you can think about your profile. A good profile tells your audience what you are about. It showcases your expertise, and explains what information you will provide. Does yours?

You can read more about developing your Twitter and LinkedIn profiles on our site, and also about what makes a profile successful.

Finally, take a bit of time to find three people whose profiles you think are good, and try to identify three reasons why for each. Do you need to apply any of these ideas to your profile? If so, do it.