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Ariel: Thought Leadership

I want to disarm us all before I dive into this one and say, this is not supposed to be, Ah, haughty conversation about being Gandhi or being Marianne Williamson or being Nelson Mandela because I think a lot of times when we use thought leader is being used a lot more often than ever before. This is about really connecting your personal brand to your signature story to your niches and establishing a platform for yourself. So when I think about a platform, I think about successful people that have, um the one thread that I have found is they are all thought leaders. So, um, we're gonna dive in and again, same format, three part conversation with me. Part one is about thought leadership. Part two will be nine Tactics for thought leader engagement. And as you move through the rest of social boot camp with Amber and with Kim, I want you to kind of keep this in mind that these tactics kind of go hand in hand with the strategies that they're going to put in place for you. So when you think a...

bout your social media strategy, you're always thinking on two levels, right? It's about what is my signature story? How am I being interesting and interested? And then there's all the tools that you add on top of like, what do I physically do with all of this stuff? So these are the tactics. And then the third part, as I mentioned earlier, I have developed a very nice niche and a living, and many other people say that I am a thought leader. Which is why I'm actually interested in exploring this, um, because of what I've done. So I wanted to share some of the lessons that I've learned along my journey to this, which, which has been really, really an amazing one and really fun. I started my business when I was 23 years old. I didn't really know what I was doing. I just sort of made it up as I went along. And, um, it's been really great. So I'm gonna share that. But before I do that, I'm gonna try not to get choked up. Meet my mom. This is my mom. Her name is Carol Hyatt. She is a thought leader, and I think when we go back to telling our stories and telling our personal stories. Here's Here's another kind of first for May. I haven't really told the story of why all of this a happened to me and why this topic is so fascinating to me. So this is 1979. I was 10. My mom. No, I was nine. My mom. I had a New York Times bestselling book, and the book was teaching women how to sell themselves and anything else. This was a brand new conversation. There were not a lot of women in the workplace, and statistics are woven throughout her work in her book, which are alarmingly similar to the statistics that we see in lean in today. So the conversation is still relevant and important for women. But the reason why I think I've been so drawn to this conversation of thought leadership is I grew up sitting at a dinner table with a thought leader, and my mom has attracted a tribe of literally millions of women. Andi. She's changed the lives of a lot of people through just sharing her story, sharing how she created a seven figure business in the early seventies when she couldn't get her own name on the lease of her office because women weren't allowed to sign leases. Her brother had to sign her lease. So this is how I wanted to kick her off. Um, that's my mom. So about thought leadership thought leadership is hitting the mainstream. All of us are now being touched by thought leaders on a daily basis. Ted talks Ted X, the think big. There's tons of information and people being cited online is thought leaders, and they're getting into kind of the fabric of our every day. Being companies are beginning to arise as thought. Leadership companies Google those guys what they're doing, how they have a test, everything on the marketplace, apple, how they don't test anything on the marketplace. And they roll everything out in the exact opposite way that Google does these air two different ways of thought. Leadership in business. Then we have Amazon and Zappos completely changing the way customers get access to goods and products and services that are suitable for them. This is a thought leadership conversation, and then Tom's. This is one of my favorite brands and products to look at when you're thinking about your own strategy. Here is a shoe company that has the most amazing sort of social responsibility of giving back to the world. Tom's, for goodness sake, are for sale at Neiman Marcus. You don't often think of Children without shoes in Africa when you're shopping at Neiman Marcus. And here's this amazing thought leader that put these two elements together. And I live in New York City. I'm on the subway every day. Tom's on everyone. So this is something that is very interesting to me. Definition. I think we need a little definition here to get a little bit of a paradigm around what is thought leadership, and I googled it. I always start with the Google when I'm preparing new talks, and I found a lot of definitions, and I thought this one was really good from a sort of business magazine point of view. And it's a two parter. Number one. A Thought Leader is an individual or firm that prospects clients, referral sources, intermediaries and even competitors recognized as one of the foremost authorities in selected areas of specialization, resulting in its being the go to individual or organisation for said expertise. We have a much more elegant definition coming, but this is a really good one. So in other words, it's a person or a company that gets their clients through their use of thought leadership. A dumbed down term for this is info marketing, sharing information as a marketing tool. Number two ah, thought leader is an individual or firm that significantly profits from being recognized a such Tom shoes everywhere. So just having an idea isn't good until you get people paying you for that idea. So that's the differentiator in thought leadership, and I've been kind of put a little think tank together when I was creating this talk, some of some of the women I love the most in my life on we started talking about thought leader archetypes, which I'll share later. I'm not positive that every thought leader has profited, but I do know that every community Mother Teresa was not rich. But boy, how maney people profited from what she did in the world, so so thought. Leadership and profit maybe not always go together, especially when you get into non profits and charities, but But I think I think this is a really good definition. I asked our friends. See, see what his idea of thought leadership is, and I think he gave a beautiful definition. Ah, thought Leader is someone who has knowledge and expertise in a given field and regularly shares their thoughts and commentary on it to the world. Someone cannot give themselves the thought leader title. It is only the community that must bestow upon someone. And I think this is This is a much more human as a Sisi because he's like a big, giant teddy bear full of amazing knowledge. I thought I thought that this was a really good one. I asked a lot of my thought leader friends, What thought Leadership is. And I'm gonna really begin to blogged about this at cyber pr dot com. But this is a good one. Another one. This is Daniel Rams, Miss who wrote Rasmus. Sorry, he wrote an amazing article about it. This is sort of what really got me to begin thinking about thought leadership. That leadership should be an entry point into a to a relationship thought leadership should intrigue, challenge and inspire even people already familiar with the company. This sort of relates back to what I was talking about. It's like you get into your signature story, and then you find that you could be more and more relatable as you go on your journey. It should help start a relationship where none exists, and it should enhance existing relationships, right? So you're working at two levels with your thought leadership thinking, So that's what they say. Um, I started thinking about the different types archetypes back to our archetypes of thought leaders and I came up with 14 of them, and I thought we could go through them. For those of you who are thinking of establishing a thought leadership platform, I hope that you see yourself in one of these archetypes. And then as you go through this, I think, What's your primary and what's your second dairy? And then there might even be 1/3 So number one. The businessman businesswoman Who are they? Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Barbara Corcoran, Number two. The media mogul Oprah, Arianna Huffington and Martha Stewart, people that made huge platforms around their thoughts. Ideas, methodologies, products, goods services, the self improvement coach Tony Robbins, Brian Tracy, who completely inspired me to write my first book, Marie for Leo, Amazing cheerleader for all female entrepreneurs wanting to understand business structures. Tony Robbins needs absolutely no introduction. Spiritually enlightened er. Now I think three and four kind of blend together. You might be a little of both of these things if you're a coach. Depok Marianne Williamson A car toll. These are people who are more on the spiritual side of the coaching number five. The cultural forecaster Malcolm Gladwell gave us the tipping point. Got us thinking about all kinds of amazing cultural phenomenon. How they happened, why they happen, continues to do that. I saw him just as I was coming to SFO last night in the JFK upon one of the TV screens commenting about football. So here's someone who is commenting about things going on in our culture all the time. Ray Kurzweil. Ah, futurist of epic Proportion. He basically pioneered how we would begin to interact with things. Hannah Rosen talking about the end of men. A very interesting book, Um, that I think every woman should read Health, wellness, fitness, nutrition. There's so many, I try tried only to choose three. So for those of you in your mind, going well, why didn't you have so and so there I have a list that's giant in my notebook where we didn't stop scrawling Dr while really helping the baby boomers understand health their bodies. What's good? What's bad. I think he's full of amazing advice and information. Alice Waters Changing the way the future is eating right? The Slow Food movement. Jamie Oliver Changing our schools Andi Chef ing the do gooder Al Gore shocked us with his environmental talk a couple of years ago and still continues to be a pioneer. Scott Harrison. He's the founder of Charity Water. He's changed the way and CC talked about him to the way we relate Teoh, who doesn't have water in the world. Huge Angelina Jolie. What she's done for women and breast cancer. This conversation is unalterably thing. The political activist Gloria, Miss Gloria Steinem. Amazing. Michael Moore, Eve Ensler. You can kind of see how I think that these were the three that I Joes. But, you know, everybody has their own. Okay, The Philanthropist Warren Buffet, George Soros, Melinda Gates. People giving money, changing the world either with thoughts Or actually it's with money. Digital strategist, online innovators and marketers. This is this is quite a large bucket these air. I think it could almost be three archetypes, but Mark Zuckerberg and Biz Stone, founders of Facebook and Twitter, respectively. And then, of course, Seth Godin, who is the godfather of all simple marketing techniques. The artist, um Bonneau, really changing our conversation about people starving with his Red product project and his political activism. Amanda Palmer Changing the conversation for independent musicians everywhere around the world. If you haven't seen her, Ted talk, do it. Incredible artists. Steven Soderbergh needs no intro. The beauty maven, the fashionista, the dapper Dan Bobby Brown Diane Von Furstenberg has changed the way women dress forever. Simon Doonan love him. Okay, the cultural commentator Daniel Pink, David Brooks, Thomas Friedman and the passionate parents. Heather Armstrong is the founder of Deuce, one of the most powerful mommy bloggers in the world, and Mani Blog's air. Incredibly very, very powerful group of people Changing the world and Daddy Bloggers. Davis Guggenheim is the filmmaker that wrote Waiting for Superman, which is a film about our education system and candy. Lightner is the founder of MADD Mothers Against Drunk Driving, who has tirelessly gone on her passion project of making sure Children don't die at the hands of drunk driving, so those are the thought leader archetypes. I would believe that you're probably one or two or three of them. I would recommend that you choose a primary, um, and then some secondary. And maybe there's even 1/3 or 4th 1 Here's a little exercise that you can do right down 10 thought leaders in your archetype category and integrate them into your social media activity again. For those of you that feel confronted by social media and you don't wanna, you know, you don't know how to create all this content. There's so much content that's already out there. The good news is you can just curate other people's stuff all day long. Do we have any questions before I dive into our tactics for thought leader engagement coming through? Ariel is me typing furiously, taking personal good. I love it. I really do it really love how you broke that down into the 14 different archetypes but also giving people permission to know that they can curate um that they can cure it. What's already out there but but again, finding your niche of information to curate just again makes you makes circle go around. I'm in the fitness and wellness sphere, and I guess my question is, is I suffered from anorexia for about half a decade and kind of overcame that and want to bring into the conversation living a sort of healthy lifestyle and wellness. It's not obsessive and doesn't kind of lead you down a really destructive path. And I find myself having a really hard time talking about that. You know, I tried to write my bio the other night, and I had to, like, walk away from it because it was two persons. It was it felt really personal and painful, and I, you know, But I also really want to kind of speak to that that you know, the girl in the woman who's going through that now who's wants to be on the other side of it. And I guess I just I don't know. I need to kick in the butt. Or maybe I need to cry it out or, you know, look, and then again, like, sometimes you don't want to cry it out on your block, that that might be inappropriate for some people. Um, you're sitting next to someone who wants to take photos of the beauty of women. So I think we've got a love connection here. No. So Well, so Okay, so eso on that, I think, And I'll talk about this later in the tactics and addresses this head on. But you don't have to reveal your whole story. You can make that one sentence of your bio and then spend a lot of the next few months curating other people's content around this and how it relates to you. I always find the best way to learn anything is to teach it. That's sort of how how I personally am. But I also find the best way is to really identify who's resonating with you and what are they saying? And I think in doing that, you're also gonna find really where you can be helpful. And I think about that documentary thin that HBO did a couple of years ago and how profoundly upsetting it is. And then you learn how many people are actually suffering from this and again. You know, you've got a gift to give to people cause you've overcome this and you know how to lead a healthy let lifestyle, and that's going to lead so many people to you. But that doesn't have to be the only thing that gets revealed. So I would say share one sentence and leave it at that until it's time kind of back to me In my Oprah story, I was happy to say I'm not sure that mainstream media is the only and best way to get popular. And then when I really shared why it hit home for me, it changed my life. But it took me nine years. Okay, didn't I wasn't ready. It was too painful. It cost me speaking to my mother for two years. It was a very painful thing that happened. So I get it and you don't have to do that. So you do have to do something again. This is like, you know, but it looks like you already probably able to do stew some picks, a dip your toe in the water, and then when you're ready for the waves to come up that you take your time good. Any other questions in the chat room? It's interesting how people they're enjoying the talk because they it was unexpected. A little bit could. You haven't done this before. And I think a lot of people are waiting for the social media posting schedule doing today, really appreciating because it's it's thought provoking for them and even Laurie Girl on Twitter. She was like a thought. Leadership should be the entry point to every relationship, whether it's online, I guess, or practical living again. You know, this is not everyone's a thought leader, you know, in a in a grand scale. But I would argue, after working with 1800 independent musicians, everybody's got a little platform. So again, I want to just, like, take this down to this sort of. This is not about being any of those giant monsters of thought leadership that I mentioned in the 14 archetypes. So for those of you kind of spinning right now, we can, you know, we can take it down. So So to that point, Darryl MIT says, How do we less had a wee less than super famous people with thoughts? No. When we have graduated into being a thought leader Yeah, you have? Yeah. I just interviewed CC about this. I've known CC Chapman for 10 years, maybe more, and you know, he and I started going to, like, pod camp together. We're like, you know, we had, like, 100 friends on Twitter and we were nerds. So you know, and I've watched him. I mean to two best selling books. I mean, the guy's amazing and he just keeps getting better and Iterating and Iterating And he said something very perfect in the interview on Thought leadership, and that will be one of many that I'm about to start doing. And he said, I didn't realize I was a thought leader and this is I can I can say the same Until people started quoting May or people started really commenting back to May. And he said it earlier today when he when he went on the job interview and the person said, Oh, how was so and so about his Blawg and he realized, Oh, people are like actually following and this is this is, um, this is I think, one of many indicators that you're on the path to that and we'll talk about the path that is not the right path. I think with with with social media, comes the scourge of self indulgence and you can be really going on your own trip, and no one can be caring. That's not so. You always want to Justin correct and continue as you go. So I would say Seth Godin calls it when the 1st 10 people notice if you if you play a show and 10 10 more people come in 10 more in 10 more. I think that's an indicator. Are people liking It is the word spreading our people reacting on and Sisi said it earlier. And, well, um, many people reading don't react at all. Like most, I think for every 50 readers you get, you get one comment. You know, John Austro, who's the director of campaigns at my firm, says, You know, he sat on his couch for a year in his underwear, blogging, and nobody commented. And then he remembers like the first day when it happened and he realized he was on. He's a major thought leader in the music marketing world. He realized, Oh, somebody likes me, you know. But people were reading, of course all along. They just warrant they weren't they weren't ready yet. Toe chime in