How can you collaborate with other Thought Leaders to boost your brand and reputation?

Collaboration is key to building your reputation and influence as a thought leader in your industry. In our work to develop more diversity of thought leadership, we constantly interact with and promote other thought leaders. Our biweekly LinkedIn Lives feature thought leaders who provide our audiences access to their unique points of view - their thought leadership. Supporting, promoting and collaborating with other thought leaders allows each of us to grow, to deepen our own thinking and to access opportunities we wouldn't otherwise know about. Collaboration is one of the greatest ways to grow as a thought leader, so if you are looking to build your thought leadership and your influence, reach out, I'd love to collaborate with you.

It's often a mistake to assume that potential collaborators must know more or are better than you. In fact, the best collabs are often with people who has a different or unique point of view. Let me explain. Why would an audience be interested in a content where everyone agrees and says the same thing? It will be the most boring content ever... So try looking for people (to collaborate) by seeking those who share your goals, but taking a different path from you along the way. 😉

Before you look into finding collaborators, it's important that you have a clear idea of your goals and ideas for this. For example, list a number of topics that are related to these goals and the key issues you are looking to address. Then, research and find thought leaders on these topics and key issues. Reach out to them and propose a collaboration.

Collaborating with thought leaders can boost your brand and reputation. Engage in meaningful conversations, share their insights, and co-create content. Collaborative webinars, articles, or podcasts can expand your reach and establish you as an authority in your field. It's a win-win partnership!

Collaboration is a key skill today given that we are in a global community, as it allows people to share ideas, solve problems, and achieve common goals. Thus, enhances one's reputation, as it demonstrates the ability to work well with others, respect different perspectives, and contribute to the team's success.

Be clear about your collaboration idea and intent and how this aligns with both your goals and the collaborator's expertise. To this end, make it personal and add value and benefit to them as well as yourself. To increase your chances of acceptance, add social proof or testimonials from previous collaborators you have worked with. Finally, be open and flexible to feedback. Prepare to be challenged and don't get attached to the original idea and be willing to listen and adapt.

A good way to build trust and rapport is to first support other thought leaders through endorsement of their comments, articles or books that resonate with you. Through such support, you build a win-win relationship which can lead to further collaboration and partnership

Be open, honest, transparent and clear. Show how you share a common purpose and passion for the topic or key issue. Be authentic and vulnerable and share personal stories or talk about your challenges. These are significant in establishing trust and building rapport with your collaborators. The objective here apart from a one-off collaboration is to grow your network and build genuine relationships and gain positive feedback.

Consider your audience, what's been working, any improvements you would like to make or if this is a brand new format you are trying out. For example, many thought leaders post content on blogs, sites, or LinkedIn, whereas collaborations are typically performed through audio or video formats. Look at your resources and capabilities and evaluate the cost and time this would take. Subsequently, decide on a format suitable for yourself, your collaborator, and your audience. Trial and error this until you get it right.

You've done the hard work; now it's time to promote this through social media, hashtags, mentions, personalised e-mails, etc. Leverage technology here and look into Mailchimp to create a newsletter that showcases your collaboration content. Finally, look into repurposing your content into different formats. If you've done a video collaboration, make a post or newsletter entry out of it to add value and enrich the conversation.