How to Become a Web3 Thought Leader | Top Tips to Try

Ty Smith0:10

Being seen as a thought leader can be hugely beneficial to your business. It helps you attract more leads, it helps you get higher prices for your services, and it ultimately opens up tons of opportunities for you to grow your business. So today we're going to go through top ways to position yourself as a thought leader in the Web3 space. So we'll go through what thought leadership actually means, why building thought leadership is important, and then the top ways to establish yourself as a thought leader.

Ty Smith0:34

So, dive right into it. What does thought leadership mean? So thought leadership refers to the process of building yourself as someone who is seen as an expert or a trusted source in your particular area of expertise. Thought leaders are often seen speaking publicly about their area of knowledge, and then their audience as such sees them as a subject matter expert and trusts them, and there's a bunch of business-related benefits to that, which we'll go through.

Ty Smith1:00

As far as main benefits to being a thought leader, there's I'm going to go through the obvious ones. There's also, I would say, a ton that you would never even think of, just being invited to events, conferences, all this stuff that you wouldn't particularly set out on a marketing plan of, 'This is what we're trying to accomplish with thought leadership,' that just kind of happen. Business opportunities, collaborations, all that kind of stuff happens when you're a thought leader.

Ty Smith1:29

Beyond that, it just builds your network, which is, in many ways, the most valuable thing that you have. So you'll get invited to conferences, invited to speak at events, invited to contribute to projects, invited to pitch your services to a certain group, and it ultimately helps you close more business. So you can get higher close rates if people trust you, something your competition probably can't emulate so easily, and then it creates opportunities for just people finding you and then again trusting you that you actually know what you're talking about and then will deliver on the promise that you make when you try to sell your product or your services.

Ty Smith2:01

An example of a thought leader or a number of thought leaders, some of the more well-known ones would be like a Mark Cuban or a Kevin O'Leary. They are considered thought leaders on building a business. Obviously, they've done tons of content, they've all written books, they have courses, they've been on TV shows, and kind of looked at as, 'These guys have successfully built a business. These guys talk about how to build a business constantly. As such, I trust that they really know what they're talking about.' That's essentially what a thought leader looks like.

Ty Smith2:30

The top tactics to build yourself as a thought leader is content creation. That's the main one, and there's a bunch of different forms of that. In today's digital world, social media is probably the easiest, most cost-effective way of doing this. In the Web3 world, Twitter and LinkedIn tend to be the most popular platforms for establishing yourself as a thought leader. Outside the Web3 world, LinkedIn is super popular, Instagram can be popular, but in the Web3 world, if you are a Web3-focused brand, Twitter tends to be the best platform for you. If your product is more B2B, LinkedIn could be a little bit better, but if you're a retail product, then I honestly probably wouldn't waste time on LinkedIn.

Ty Smith3:08

Another form of content is podcasting. So podcasting is a great way again to just share your thoughts, speak about what it is that you're an expert on, and give people a piece of content or a number of pieces of content where they can hear you speak, learn from you—that's the ultimate thing is adding value—and then from that, build a level of distant but still intimate relationship.

Ty Smith3:31

Another form of that would be videos. So just like podcasting, videos, things like YouTube channels, anything you can either post on social media or on YouTube or your website. That's a great way to do it. Again, people can see you, which is a little bit helpful as far as trusting you. Another form would be blog content, written form content production. Again, that will help with people just kicking the tires on, 'Does this person, does this company know what they're talking about, and do I trust them?'

Ty Smith4:00

In the Web3 world, another great opportunity for building yourself as a thought leader is Twitter Spaces. Since Twitter launched Spaces, the Web3 world has gone crazy for them. They're even being used now super broadly for things like political elections and announcements and not even just crypto-related things. But I think Twitter Spaces is definitely somewhere you should focus. It allows you to, in a more casual way but still very shareable and very widely distributed amongst the Web3 world, speak about again what you're an expert on, give your two cents, and just build relationships as a nice networking component to that as well, which is helpful.

Ty Smith4:34

Another way to do that and grow as a thought leader is interviews. Essentially, anything that you can do that involves creating content that's shareable, that will be seen by an audience, that positions you as the expert on something. So in an ideal form of an interview, someone is saying, let's say you're trying to be a thought leader on cybersecurity. There's a recent hack in the Web3 world, and then someone does an interview with you as an expert on cybersecurity: 'What went wrong? What could they have done better?' That's a perfect example of thought leadership building content that's relevant to the Web3 space.

Ty Smith5:08

Speaking at conferences, another great thing, similar to the interview process. Again, you're being positioned. There's something really, I think, stimulating about seeing someone speak on stage. It really defines them as a thought leader. Those positions are sometimes hard to get if you're operating on your own, but if you can get them, they're really helpful.

Ty Smith5:26

A shortcut to all these things, with the exception being the social media piece, is working with a PR agency or an earned media agency like Coinbound that focuses on Web3 thought leadership building. These kind of agencies will identify who you need to be seen by, what kind of messaging they need to see you create to really trust you.

Ty Smith5:47

They'll line up interviews, they'll get you featured on podcasts, news websites, they'll source like op-ed pieces, editorial opportunities, interviews, all kinds of things like that, which again will result in a ton of content that you can share. And then you do that enough over a long period of time, and you are—it's kind of a funny process when it actually happens to you—really exciting, and someone picks up the phone and calls you and says, 'Well, you're the subject matter,' and then there's kind of a feeling of, 'Oh, I guess I am.'

Ty Smith6:17

So super cool to see. Again, thought leadership building is massively important for essentially any business that's trying to grow, especially so in the digital age. It's actually especially easy now in the digital age. So it is something I recommend everyone focus on at least partially. It's the kind of thing that you're not going to see overnight results. It's the kind of thing you have to kind of build into your long-term plan.

Ty Smith6:47

You may want to, if you're from a marketing department and you're not necessarily the face of a company, but you're trying to build thought leadership as a component of building trust for your brand and your company that you're operating under, you may want to position the CEO or a member of the board or the CFO, someone on the C-level executive suite to be a thought leader.

Ty Smith7:09

It's helpful for people that aren't even trying to be the face of a company, they just want to have job opportunities in the future and just kind of increase their implied value as a contributor in the workforce. That can be a great way to do that as well. I have a friend who doesn't work at a company right now, he's freelancing, but he puts out tons and tons of LinkedIn content, interviewing people, speaking about what he does, and from what I've heard, it's been super helpful for him finding job opportunities. So tons of benefits, again, a lot of stuff you don't even think of when you start to set out as a thought leader, but it is really exciting when you get it going. Tons of monetary opportunities as well.

Ty Smith7:34

That's going to wrap it up on thought leadership. So if you're exploring thought leadership building as a component of your marketing strategy, leave a comment. We love to explore new things. The field of thought leadership building is constantly evolving, and the people that can be more creative tend to do better than the ones that are kind of going through the same playbook as everyone else. So we'd love to hear from you on that. And then as always, rate, review, and recommend if you found this episode valuable.