5 Ways Executives Can Establish Thought Leadership on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a powerful social tool and provides an excellent opportunity for companies to establish thought leadership with their target audience.

Yet, many companies struggle using the “world’s largest professional social network”.

So, how can your company establish thought leadership on LinkedIn?

Executives!

Your executive team is your biggest brand advocates. With their LinkedIn networks of clients, colleagues, and friends, they can help you establish a solid thought leadership base. And your business can gain credibility and visibility.

5 Ways Executives Can Establish Thought Leadership on LinkedIn

1. Have a Social Media Policy

   Many people believe a social media policy is just a list of restrictions. But an effective social media policy educates all your employees (even the ones up top!) and helps them understand ways they can use social media to help achieve business goals.

2. Encourage Your Executives to Have a LinkedIn Profile

   While you can’t require your executives to be active on social media, you can encourage them. It may seem counterintuitive to productivity, but encouraging your leadership to spend time online and engage with their LinkedIn contacts offers benefits to your company and them personally.

3. Train Executives to Improve Their LinkedIn Presence

   Not everyone feels comfortable with social media. Help your executive team feel more at ease and confident about LinkedIn by providing training. Holding lunch and learns or distributing how-to tips should encourage hesitant people to get involved.

4. Update Your Executive Team When You Post on LinkedIn

   LinkedIn favors status updates that have higher engagement levels in the news feed. Leadership team engagement (likes, comments, and shares) on your updates expand your visibility and reach beyond your company’s business network. Send updates and ask your exec’s to engage with your business posts so that your company’s thought leadership ideas are shared with their personal network.

5. Set a Good Example

   For successful employees engagement in your LinkedIn strategy, business leaders must lead by example. It’s important that your executive team, all the way to the CEO, has a strong presence on LinkedIn and encourages staff to be active on-line as well.

In a world where running a business is unlikely to get easier, thought leadership is essential.

Your executives are critical to your business establishing thought leadership on LinkedIn.