Leveraging LinkedIn for Authority Building

OPPORTUNITY: How does the CEO of a management consulting startup differentiate her company (and her leadership) and position it as the go-to service provider in a highly competitive sector? This was the case with Inspirant Group, the disruptive management consulting firm started in 2017 by Meighan Newhouse and her two co-founders. In their fourth year of business, the company had begun winning industry awards but it needed to increase stakeholder awareness and further promote its value proposition.

APPROACH: With goals of attracting new business and employee talent, our strategy was to position the CEO as chief brand ambassador. Positioning her as an expert on 21st century leadership, emotional intelligence and company culture, we bolstered her presence on LinkedIn and in B2B media. Using the PESO Public Relations model of Paid-Earned-Shared-Owned media, we identified both paid and unpaid editorial opportunities where the CEO could share her thought leadership on hot button topics including emotional intelligence, mental health, remote work and company culture. We leveraged LinkedIn (shared media) as the platform for building the CEO’s fans and followers, fostering new business connections and reigniting relationships. Initial program success led us to work with other Senior Leaders across the organization to develop their LinkedIn presence and thought leadership in industry trades specific to their areas of expertise including Human Resources, Learning and Development and Agile technology.

RESULTS: Quarterly byline articles were produced for the Forbes Business Council on the benefits of remote work, 21st century leadership and empathy and community building in the workplace. We developed content and managed the relationship with the technology trade, BuiltIn featuring various senior team members which showcased their people-centric company culture. We secured the prestigious Great Place to Work employee certification which led to guest blogging opportunities on that platform on company culture, creating a people centric workplace and mindfulness.

Media Coverage: With a focus on content contribution opportunities, coverage included: Forbes, NJ Law Journal,  Thrive Global, Great Place to Work, Authority, BuiltIn, Talent Management, HRD Connect and DevOps among others. LinkedIn: Our strategy was to post original content on three consecutive days per week on transformative leadership, company culture and mental health. Followers: +38%Engagement Rate ranged between 1.39% - 3.01% over the course of the program. Note that on LinkedIn, when impressions, engagement % decreases, Aggregate Comments, Likes and Shares almost doubled. Impressions +193%, Likes: +50%, Comments: +190%.

Speaking Engagements: Our LinkedIn content acted as a magnet for both media interviews including podcasts as well as speaking opportunities including Toyota/Chicago regional directors conference, Change Management Review.

Industry Awards: Crain’s Chicago - GenX Leaders to Watch in Accounting, Consulting and Law.

OPPORTUNITY: How does a Fortune 20 Chief Customer Officer build trust? Seeing employee attrition and burnout rise during the pandemic, the (female) Chief Customer Officer (CCO) overseeing a field team of 40,000+, sought to build a sense of community, boost engagement and motivation by raising her executive visibility and establishing trust on LinkedIn.

APPROACH: We proposed a LinkedIn content strategy that would humanize the CCO as a transformative, forward-thinking female leader - she works in the male dominated tech industry - who cares deeply about her people and staying innovative. After identifying her personal core values and content pillars: emotional intelligence, mental health, innovation we developed compelling content that her existing audience would care about that would also attract new followers To personalize the posts, we crowdsourced content and photos showing the leader visiting field offices, engaging with employees.

RESULTS: Over the course of the program we grew her following from 7,500 - 25,000+, making her the 3rd most followed C-suite leader within the organization. Audience engagement rose from 1.4%-2.0% displayed in the rising number of detailed comments, reposts and anecdotal feedback. In year 3 of the program, she was named a LinkedIn Top Voice.

There's been a groundswell of conversations that people from across the organization are having on her feed, building on each other's comments and getting to know one another. Stakeholder buzz has been overwhelmingly positive. Now, when the Chief Customer Officer visits a regional office, people show their enthusiasm and say things such as, “I’m seeing you all over LinkedIn,” “I really enjoy and learn from your content,” “I share your content” and “I feel like I know you from your posts.”