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Your most brilliant technology thought leaders are unlikely to have stellar digital networks. But with some support, you can significantly increase the reach of their insights.

What is new: Companies aspiring to be THE thought leader in technology-savvy industries double down on accelerating digital reach.

Why it matters: Thought leadership requires face-to-face AND digital channels to reach the target audiences, especially if you are part of a large ecosystem.

Technology leadership: Thought leadership in technology-savvy industries involves promoting new technologies at early stages of market maturity. It is about turning early research into market traction and scale.

Navigating technology leadership is complex as technology disruptions happen across industry borders, and people now consume insights in digital formats beyond face-to-face interactions with experts.

Hidden accelerators: Technology businesses can dig deeper into how their employees can contribute to building their technology leadership perception by becoming active—a job where different subject matter experts need tailored support to succeed.

#1 Main thought leader: The most crucial individual had crafted new ideas with black pens on whiteboards before it reached the level of being a structured thought leadership initiative.

🏆 These individuals are:

• experienced and with deep technical and market competence, often managing research initiatives
• having a well-recognized, connected, and respected personal brand in their company and their industry
• outlining the strategy and direction for a company’s external point of view
• Masters at presenting slides in face-to-face settings and engaging in deep conversations

🧰 They can benefit from support to bridge shortcomings in areas such as:

• converting tech jargon and academic language into something easy to understand for a broader audience
• moving from passive to active in managing one’s own personal digital networks, from branding to networking

💡They have great peer networks to leverage for thought leadership communication to:

• other technology wizards
• standardization peers
• academia contacts
• Customers’ and partners’ top technical contacts  

#2 Co-authors: Thought leadership is seldom a one-person show, and a diverse team behind the lead author is worth understanding for a promotion strategy.

🏆Committed members of the team developing and driving new technology initiatives are characterized by:

• Involved in doing actual research activities
• aspiring thought leaders
• up and coming in their field of expertise
• focused on emerging technology disruptions
• grown up digital

🧰 support to this group focuses on bridging some of these limitations:

• less of a personal brand to leverage
• need for internal and external reach acceleration for promoting their posts in digital channels
• having a LinkedIn account optimized for potential employers rather than customers and partners.

💡 This group often possesses unique connections towards:

• mid-management
• younger audiences
• networks on video-centric platforms

3. Executive sponsor: The Executive sponsor for a technology leadership initiative boost importance and credibility through:

• a strong interest in the success of the initiative
• a high level of industry clout
• professional and polished social media accounts

🧰 Expect executive sponsors to have limited time to dedicate to promotion activities and

• a third party might manage their social media accounts
• they are unlikely to engage in follow-up conversations

💡The executive sponsor/s creates value in the promotion process by

• adding credibility to the importance of your initiative
• increasing exposure to their executive contacts

With the involvement of an executive sponsor, you can play your promotion game at a higher level of influence.

#4 Internal accelerators: Internal accelerators are your most social-media savvy employees, that can add reach to your initiative

🏆 This group can act quickly as they:

• are social media savvy
• have extensive personal networks on digital platforms
• are well-versed in the art of writing promotional posts  
• have a strong personal interest in finding attractive content that suits their audiences

🧰 The limitations to think about for this group are that they:

• are not specialized in a particular technology topic
• have a broader network than the topic at hand

💡 By adding this group of your best internal accelerators/influencers to your promotion team, you can expect to:

• maximize your owned impact in social channels
• increase trust compared to only using corporate accounts
• leverage sponsored LinkedIn posts

#5 External accelerators: External accelerators/influencers can add an order of magnitude bigger reach than your in-house influencers.

🏆As professional accelerators/influencers, they

• posses significant digital networks
• master multiple formats for compelling social media posts
• can capture main messages and package for easy consumption

🧰 Your game plan here is different and more about managing a commercial relationship than executing a promotion plan as:

• it requires a suitable budget, especially when attending an event on-site or for a more prolonged engagement
• clear and viable targets of what outcomes you want to accomplish are vital
• all influencers are different, and selecting suitable ones is up to you.
• influencers have less knowledge about what you do
• you work with various contractual arrangements and business models

💡For this element of your plan, you can expect to:

• reach audiences one to two orders of magnitude larger than your owned channels
• reach deeper into the targeted and adjacent ecosystems
• lower engagement and conversation rates in percent, but still sizeable

Bottom line: These five roles are part of a complete promotion plan. By defining which of the five you plan to use in your promotion plan you have control of the efforts required and can manage expectations on what to accomplish.

Additional reading suggestions

• 5 steps to creating a technical thought leadership strategy [BLOGPOST] – by Rob Dietrich, O’Keeffe
• What is technological leadership, and what does it mean for your business [BLOGPOST] – by Lynne Pratt, Future Business
• Meeting thought leadership with technology: The what, why and how-tos [BLOGPOST] – by Netscribes