How to Elevate Your Thought Leadership in the Comments Section

By: Isaac Serwanga

September 30, 2019

As the volume of thought leadership content across every social platform climbs to a fever pitch, how do industry leaders break through the noise?

The answer lies in thoughtful commentary—certainly in your own content, but also in response to others. It’s easy to underestimate the power of well-written, genuine feedback in a public forum with other industry players. Still, few content producers spend the time or effort needed to make it work. This is a missed opportunity, given that strong commentary has the potential to grow both organic engagement and reach.

Consider deploying the following tactics in a LinkedIn or Facebook comment section or on an industry-relevant Twitter thread:

Take the time to offer thought-provoking commentary on fellow industry leaders’ posts. Who is your industry’s Gary Vee? Find him or her and engage with their content in a way that separates you from the crowd. Do so consistently, and your industry peers will become increasingly familiar with your brand and viewpoint.

Make sure your commentary is both heartfelt and valuable for readers. For heart: Give credit where credit is due. Is there a unique quality or characteristic that drew you to the original post? Be brief and fill your comment with heart, establishing an authentic connection with the content creator.

For value: Bring another angle to the existing conversation. Provide background context when necessary. For instance, a business influencer that I follow recently posted a networking tips article. After giving him a compliment, I shared one of my own tips, which continued the discussion, saw organic engagement and led to a DM asking about my personal work.

Engage with the engagers. Too often, thought leaders share their ideas and log off immediately afterward. They don’t take the time to dig into all of their responses. That’s where we come in.

Who in your community is asking open-ended questions? Are there certain names—potential clients, partners or customers—that regularly respond to a given influencer’s content? Taking the time to thoughtfully engage these commenters provides you the visibility, credibility and opportunity to build your own audience organically.

In the age of mass content production, this is your golden moment to jump in and be the thoughtful voice in a sea of noise.

Connect with Isaac on LinkedIn.