The idea of a thought leader is nothing new. The best known or maybe most popularized early thought leader was Guy Kawasaki back when he was a Mac Evangelist.
Thought leadership has now started to take on a new importance with the advent of social media, The customers of thought leaders, thought consumers, now have a nearly infinite supply of data that they have to cull through to find relevant and reliable information.
Thought leaders now have to use these new social media tools (and old ones as well) to amplify their expert status within their company from internal expert to world-wide thought leader.
In Mitchell Levy’s new book, #CREATING THOUGHT LEADERS — Helping Experts Inside of Corporations Amplify Their Thought Leadership, he outlines the process he has used since the 1990’s to create thought leaders that thought consumers can know, like and trust.
Crafted Nuggets of Actionable Tasks
What separates #CREATING THOUGHT LEADERS from the typical self-help, do it yourself book, is that it distills down the essence of the steps in easy to read tweets. This is the beauty of the THiNKaha twitter book format — easy to read and even easier to take action on.
As most of you know, THiNKaha published my book #ENDURANCE tweet — A Little Nudge to Keep you Going so I’m bought into the power of the format for learning quickly and taking action immediately.
Some of My Favorite Tweets
Some of my favorite tweets from the book include:
Aha #11 — The world seeks brands. People listen to and buy from people they know, like, and trust.
Aha #14 — In our media-saturated world, being a thought leader is nothing less than a prerequisite for success.
Aha #23 — Don’t wait for the opportunity to hit you in the face. Create it!
Aha #75 — In broad terms, thought leadership is about making a meaningful promise and living up to it.
Aha #77 — Take your unique message and see how it helps accomplish both your and your organization’s goals.
Aha #122 — Be enthusiastic and positive no matter what time of day it is and no matter who you are talking to.
Even though this talks mostly about thought leadership, the advice is solid for anyone who wants to get ahead in their company or in their own business since you never know when you might just become a thought leader.
All of us can be Thought Leaders
My good friend Greg is starting down the path to being a thought leader when in comes to life balance. He is working on his first book, Busting Your Corporate Idol, which is about his experience being chronically overworked, missing out on life and how we as American’s, tend to worship our companies instead of living more fulling lives.
The wonderful concepts and stories in Greg’s book and blog directly illustrate the way a thought leader can be built by simply expressing what they have experienced and learned from.
If you are looking to be a thought leader at your company or within your industry, then Mitchell’s book is worth a read. It’s quick, insightful and easily actionable so that you can get down the path to becoming a thought leader that thought consumers will get to know, like and trust.
Hi Jarie – thanks for the shout out. I don’t know if I’ll ever reach the illustrious thought leader status, but I’ll keep talking and trying to connect with people.
Interesting juxtaposition of the thought leader and short messages in your post. Even from someone you know, like and trust, people only have so much time to invest.