Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

I know these efforts work because, about two years ago, I made the commitment to invest my time and resources into boosting the profile of my company, which boiled down to putting myself out there. The work has paid off so much that we’ve diverted most of our advertising budget to content marketing—which, for us, includes guest posting and speaking. In 2014, the guest posts, infographics, PDFs, and ebooks that my team and I created snagged us around 1,000 media mentions.

Being a thought leader is just as important for entrepreneurs and professionals who are starting out as it is for Richard Branson and Jack Dorsey—if not more. With that idea in mind, here are three things you can do to build your personal brand and be seen as a thought leader in your field....

The phrase "talk is cheap" is old, and in leadership roles, talk is particularly cheap.

It is easy to make pronouncements about directions and vision. For people to trust what you say, though, it is important to recognize that you communicate in three ways: through what you say, what you do, and what you reward. And each form of communication on this list is more important than the last....