Thought leadership measures can be an invaluable tool in generating attention for individuals (personal branding). This holds especially true for founders who tap into disruptive markets with innovative ideas and topics. The goal is to establish oneself as an opinion leader and specialized expert in a field, with a clearly-defined and value-adding position in order to enrich and influence the ongoing discussion in that field. The significance and relevance of the thought leader’s positions are successively built up and underpinned within the framework of media publications and public relations work. This brings the advantage of the company no longer being a faceless entity, but rather it is now associated with a personality that stands for something and is valued by that field’s community. This creates trust, which pays off in the long run.
A clear attitude is essential. A mix of expertise combined with strong analytical abilities, as well as being able to keep an eye on the big picture, are crucial in building a positive public image. One important prerequisite for success here, is that the thought leader must have the courage to express clear and strong opinions on certain topics and must also be able to defend them in the face of criticism. One must constantly maintain their enthusiasm for discussions, be always on the look-out for new ways to sharpen their public image and always find ways to inspire others. Employed simultaneously and consistently, these techniques help to form a consistent and authentic position for the thought leader in their field. The ensuing exchanges the thought leader has with their community can also pay off, firstly in the sense that there is active involvement and discourse, and secondly because the honest feedback and suggestions from the community can feed back into the company and generate new and ground-breaking ideas. This direct engagement with the community also affords the thought leader another benefit: the attraction of potential business partners, new networks and partnerships as well as new customers. We have had many successes implementing these techniques with, for example, Hanno Pingsmann, founder and managing director of CyberDirekt. Find out for yourself how it all works: feel free to contact us, and we will be happy to explain our strategic approach.
Thought leadership should be thought of as a process that is constantly evolving. Building a profile and becoming a visible thought leader requires perseverance. A consciously-selected array of measures pay off in thought leadership strategies, such as well-founded professional articles in industry-specific media, commentaries in trade media and in the daily and business press, talks in podcasts, lectures at congresses and trade fairs, as well as posts on LinkedIn, or even YouTube content. The goal is not to create a short-lived media hype that radiates content randomness, but to produce and place sustainable and quality content. The idea is to set up a strategic PR roadmap with topics, communication channels and selected events that work together in harmony and achieve predetermined goals in unison.
With our client Florian Brokamp, we have been steadily building a profile and opinion leadership for sustainable corporate leadership in the start-up environment since the summer of 2020 and can implement all elements of the thought leadership strategy in a very classical way. Of course, it is also possible to integrate individual tools from the strategy alongside other classic PR measures, such as with targeted LinkedIn articles. Get in touch to find out more, we would be happy to build your own thought leadership strategy.
monoceros is a strategic communications agency based in Berlin. We develop customized, target-oriented PR campaigns for digital disrupters, startups and tech giants. The basis for our outstanding results: Over ten years of PR experience on the corporate and agency side and the motivation to establish an agency with the highest standards. On our monoceros blog we regularly highlight essential topics of our PR work and report on the latest developments from the digital economy.
