Building thought leadership doesn’t have to feel awkward. In this episode, Kim Rittberg shares insights from her recent workshop at the Fast Company Innovation Festival, including why you should stop stressing about your “personal brand” and instead focus on sharing your professional perspective. You will learn: ✨ Why hiding from the camera is actually hiding from clients and opportunities ✨ How video helps you connect with people and get promoted by social media algorithms ✨ The big mindset shift: Stop worrying about your “personal brand” and focus on sharing your professional perspective ✨ What kinds of content actually engage people: industry trends, insights, and what excites you most ✨ Why real people and authentic perspectives always beat faceless corporate updates FREE DOWNLOAD: 10 Tips to Make Better Video In Less Time (To Grow Your Revenue) click here Follow host Kim Rittberg on Instagram & Subscribe to Kim's YouTube Channel to Make Better Videos that Convert Please spread the word to your friends and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts! Transcript: (00:02) I just got back from leading a workshop at the Fast Company Innovation Festival and we had so much fun. I want to share what I taught and what was really helping people break through. So the topic was how to build your thought leadership in non-cringy ways and I ended up sharing my scene framework SEEN  framework and if you want that just drop me a message and I'll send it over to you. (00:24) Two of the really big takeaways that seemed to be very helpful for people as they came and they were like that really shifted things for me is if you want to be a thought leader first of all hiding from the camera is hiding from clients. So whether you're trying to build sales if you have your own business or even if you work at a company maybe you want a promotion or you still want sales but it's with outside of the company with inbound clients. (00:44) When we're talking about thought leadership hiding from the camera is hiding from clients. It's hiding from followers. It's hiding from people who might book you for press or speaking engagements. So, you really have to start showing up. Video is promoted on nearly every social media platform. So, a it's important because the social media algorithms will promote you. (01:04) But more than that, video will actually help people get to know you and really understand who you are and what you're about. And speaking about what you're about, one of the other really big breakthroughs that I got people saying to me being like, "Oh, that was such a really helpful way of putting it into perspective." is forget about building a personal brand. (01:22) Yes, build your personal brand, but when you're actually like, how do I do that? Forget about the words personal brand. I think it's much more effective and helpful and will end up leading to better results if you think about sharing your professional perspective. So, what does that mean? So, as you're tracking trends, start sharing the trends that you're seeing in your industry. (01:44) That's actually something I had a great conversation with someone at the festival. Start sharing the things you're seeing in your industry. People are following you because they actually want to hear your perspective. So, don't be sharing corporate press releases. Don't just reshare your company information. (01:57) You can if you want, but that can't be like all that you're sharing. Because people will follow and engage with a real person. They're not really going to engage with your company content. It's just that's just not going to happen. That's not what we see on social media. So instead of working on your personal brand, work on building and sharing your professional perspective. (02:17) By that sharing things you're noticing in the industry, misconceptions about your business, your job, your industry, things you're noticing, things you're excited about, right? Things you're working on, what you're excited about for the next quarter. So when we're talking about you can also be commenting on current events. (02:32) nothing, you know, I'll let you up to your own judgment about what you really want to comment about for politics and whatnot, but you know, current events in your industry, current events in the larger industry. So, it's really important. The reason why I don't like the word personal brand is I think it's very heavy and people don't really respond or communicate in the way where we're like, "This is me. (02:52) This is my personal brand." It's almost like we're talking about a shoe or a flavored seltzer. And it's hard to build a brand around yourself like a flavored seltzer. It's just not how we as humans work or engage or communicate. So, forget about the concept of how do I build my personal brand and instead just start engaging as the professional perspective. (03:15) All right, I have so much more on this topic. I'm keeping this episode super short because I'm tired from doing a lot of speaking gigs. No, but really there's so much. I just want you to process the idea of start sharing your professional perspective and then drop me a comment. and drop a comment below. (03:28) If you're going to start sharing your professional perspective, please start tag me. Tag me as you post. I love hearing from people that I'm helping them. So until next time, keep following me. I'm at Kim Ripber Content on YouTube, LinkedIn and Instagram. I'm Kim Rittberg and have a free download. So just message me. I'll send that on over. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.