How to become a thought leader in the Climate Tech space

Written By Joseph D. Simpson

This is the sixth post in our Ultimate Guide To Building A Climate Tech Brand.

You'll get the most out of this guide if your desire to scale your brand is exceeded only by your willingness to execute on the concepts within this guide.

This guide is designed to describe all major aspects of branding, from your brand’s foundations to strategic messaging for Climate Tech startups to positioning yourself as a thought leader in the emerging impact economy to building your relationship with the press.

Overview

This guide will showcase 7 major sections including:

Thought leadership in the impact ecosystem

Thought leadership is one of the biggest up and coming concepts in marketing right now.

It’s the digital equivalent of being an expert or the professional equivalent of being an Instagram influencer. It’s defined as “free deliverables (content), organisations or individuals produce on a topic they know a lot about and feel others can benefit from having their perspective on.

Thought leadership, in this context, does not include content primarily focused on describing an organisation’s products or services.”

For the sake of this post, I am going to rein that in even more and remove the word organisation.

By focusing solely on individuals and personal brands, we can get the best use of LinkedIn’s algorithm and have content shared at a high velocity. 

Personal branding for Climate Tech founders

People inherently want to interact with other people.

More often than not, we’re more trustworthy of people than companies. But, besides this practical insight into human nature, LinkedIn’s publishing system is only available for individuals and this is an integral part of a thought leadership strategy.

LinkedIn is integral for thought leadership for two reasons.

  1. Firstly, if your company runs a blog on its website and you as an individual share that piece of content, it’s much less likely to show up in your target audience’s feed (i.e., where they consume content).

    This is due to LinkedIn’s preference for content produced on its own platform vs. content that will take a user off the platform onto a third party site.

  2. Secondly, when you share that piece of content, it’s much more difficult to use a personal voice over a more neutral company tone.

Of course, it is possible to create thought leadership content from a company perspective, but when you’re just starting out, I would recommend focusing your efforts on engaging on your personal LinkedIn account.

You’re a founder or an entrepreneur and you’re busy building a company that will create systemic, lasting global impact. It’s natural to think that your company, the company that you’ve started, is your brand. Unfortunately, that’s only half the story.

And, you as a founder are an integral part of your start-up’s brand.

Whilst many founders like to hide behind their company’s image, consumers, customers, partners and investors believe that leaders who are active on social media are more trustworthy than those who are not.

In fact, one study by the Impact Learning Center found that although consumers are 82% more likely to trust a company when the CEO is active on social media, only one in five CEOs are active on social media. And further, by some estimates, up to 50% of a company’s reputation can be attributed to the leader or founder. 

As we’ve discussed, sustainability entrepreneurs are more likely to be an academic or an engineer than an internet personality. But when so much is at stake, leaving personal branding up to chance is not a long-distance tactic.

Personal branding at its core is about building trust. With trust comes credibility and with credibility comes growth. As such a robust personal brand will not only help your company grow, but it will also give you the opportunity to grow your network and share your story with the outside world. 

Because whether you’ve invested time or effort into it, you have a personal brand. 

Google your own name and see what comes up.

What about on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram? Are they public? Do they represent you as a founder or an entrepreneur?

This is the basis of personal branding and in a digital-first world, if you refuse to embrace this concept, you’re in danger of being consumed by it.

To put it plainly, because of the internet, whether you like it or not, you have a personal brand. That’s now irrefutable.

What you can control however is what it portrays. Luckily for some out there, it’s possible to shape this online persona.

By creating content that you strategically place across digital mediums, you can actively play a role in determining what anyone searching your name will come across.

Understanding the four stages of customer awareness

How do you become and stay, top of mind of your marketplace whilst you’re waiting for your target audience to become ready to buy?

There’s a four-step process to do so which includes engagement, qualification, nurturing and management.

  1. Awareness. Lead status: They’re just discovering that you exist, but they may not know what you do or how you do it. When a customer first engages with your brand, it’s more than likely that they won’t need your help initially. This is typically known in marketing terms as the top of the sales funnel. It’s where you put your best foot forward and tell your audience about the niche that you’ve carved. Show with action how you are embarking on your mission and reserve the spot in their mind that you exist in. The first step is to understand your client. Types of awareness content:

    • Social media post

    • Blogs

    • Events

    • Pay-Per-Click Advertising

    • Public Relations

  2. Interest. Lead’s status: You’ve got their attention and they want to know if your product may be a good fit for them. Qualification is the process to determine if your lead has the potential to turn into a prospect or not. It’s important that your content speaks to people’s needs and asks them these questions in advance within your content. Before they enter into the nurturing stage, they should already know what problems they have that you can solve and that you’re the right person/team for the job. Types of awareness content:

    • Downloadables

    • Free resources

    • Community Building

    • Offline Events

    • Exclusive Content

    • Conversational Email Marketing

  3. Desire. Lead status: Keen to know more. Once you have determined whether your lead is the right fit for your business or not, the next step is to nurture them from a prospect into a sale. Here you have to introduce your product as a solution to the problems that you’ve identified further up the funnel. This is where most businesses start the process and whilst it’s an important step, it’s useless to start here. You need to first have prospects discover your brand and then transition into a lead before you can nurture them into a customer. They include:

    • Educational content. Product-Specific emails, playbooks, & sales decks

    • Social proof. i.e., customer reviews, case studies, testimonials. If someone comes close to your CTA, but doesn’t manage to make it, email them with a customer review or social proof that your brand follows through for clients.

    • Inspirational content. Almost all quarters of B2B businesses are using video today to provide inspirational content and nearly three quarters report positive results to their ROI.

    • Free trials, free introduction calls, free report or work done.

  4. Action. Lead status: Ready to commit. Here you want to make sure that you make it as easy as possible for this prospect to become a customer. The key is to eliminate all hiccups they may have in the buying process. This stage is all about focusing on building meaningful relationships with the customer. Customers who have already purchased from you are 60 to 70% more likely to purchase from you again. Furthermore, they’re likely to refer you to their mates. So maintaining these relationships is crucial to building your brand. Remember, your brand is how people experience your brand and that’s just as relevant for today’s customers as it is for tomorrow’s. Tactics include having good refund policies or money back guarantees and not spamming people with emails when they’re already ready to buy.

Thought Leadership content is top of funnel content

As we’ve previously covered, direct pushes don’t work in the current climate.

Why? Because only 3% of people are in buy-mode.

Out of your entire market, only 3% are proactively looking for your product or services.

And if only 3% of your market is buying at any given time, then 97% of your market is not.

Author and brand strategist Jeremy Miller calls this The 3% Rule which he outlines in his book Sticky Branding.

It’s a model to segment your marketplace — anyone who might buy your services: prospects, current customers, past customers — into buying groups.

  • 3% are active buyers

  • 7% might be persuaded to purchase

  • 30% have a need, but not enough to act

  • 30% do not have a need

  • 30% are not interested in your company

If you want to get the most out of your awareness channels, then educate the 97% (like this post) not to sell to the 3%.

What most brands do is they market only to the 10% who are actively looking for their service. But the opportunity lies in the remaining 90% who are so often ignored because there is no direct and immediate benefit.

This is the crux of thought leadership. Miller says “Create an opportunity where your customers know, like and trust your company long before they have a need. That way they’ll skip right over the inbound marketing messages and call your company first when they have a need.”

Indirect marketing, when done correctly, puts the 3% of your marketplace who are actively looking to buy your product or service on your doorstep.

Instead of targeting the leads who are looking to buy, you create a funnel of them to your service or product. The business benefits of this are twofold: You reduce the time it takes to close deals, reduce cost per lead, receive better qualified and higher quality leads for sales to work on, increased deal size and experience less lead leakage.

LinkedIn for sustainability entrepreneurs and Climate Tech startups

In the previous post, we've gone into a detailed analysis of each social media platform and which you should use.

However, I didn’t include my bias towards LinkedIn.

I believe LinkedIn is the most affecting marketing channel by far if you’re targeting B2B businesses or looking to launch a funding round.

In the UK, 96% of B2B marketers are using LinkedIn as a content marketing channel, with 61% saying they find it highly effective.

And while people are spending time on other social channels, they’re investing time on LinkedIn. Furthermore, a whopping 80% of B2B leads come from LinkedIn over other platforms. Whilst I can’t be sure what the future will hold, all of this is true right now, in 2020. 

Linkedin’s Content Deficit

LinkedIn is the only major platform at the moment that is in a content deficit, meaning that there is literally not enough good content to satisfy its users.

As a result, LinkedIn’s organic reach or how many people your post will reach without having to promote it by paying the platform, is at its high point right now.

LinkedIn is today, where Facebook was roughly 8 years ago. With over 500+ million active users, it’s the destination for B2B entrepreneurs and start-ups.

Whilst Facebook is still the largest social media network by far, its organic reach for brands has declined to almost nothing over the past few years. This happened almost immediately after they brought in the “Boost” button.

If you post from your company’s Facebook page and you want people inside your network of followers to see it, benefit from it and share it, you almost certainly will have to pay for it. If you want anyone outside to see it, you can damn sure forget about it.

Paying for Facebook ads is a fantastic strategy if you have time to put into testing your content, promoting it and building your following with creative content. However, if you are anything like the majority of other entrepreneurs, you’re probably low on time and funds.

As a result, LinkedIn’s current setup is a much better option. Building a following on LinkedIn comes down to networking and connecting. And the best way to do both of those things with those outside your network is by providing something of value…i.e., thought leadership. 

For example, one of my biggest markets right now is ghostwriting content and guest blogs for clients. I’m guessing you wouldn’t know this was a thing that people did, because to be honest, I didn’t know it was such a big market until I saw the results.

Creating content to share, be it on LinkedIn, Medium or on external news publications is a great way to build authority and reach your target audience. It also reinforces the fact that you exist to your network. But so many founders don’t have a lot of time to commit to this process.

In this section I intend to convince you that a) you should definitely be taking the time to spend on this vital form of communications and b) you should be using LinkedIn as your main medium initially. But before we get into it, let’s look at why you should invest time into your personal brand and the benefits of being a thought leader in your topic.

Using LinkedIn for Influence

If 50% of your business’s reputation is built on that of it’s founder and as LinkedIn is the best place to build a personal brand, then LinkedIn instantly becomes the best route to establish yourself as a thought leader.

To take this statistic literally, you should split your marketing efforts 50-50; work 50% on your own brand and the other 50% in building your business’ reach.

Whilst this seems like a lot, you have to remember that when you’re just starting out, your brand is linked to your name just like conjoined twins share the same skin.

I understand that you want to focus on building your company’s brand. It’s not only important, it’s necessary to grow your business.

But in practice, you may only have a few hours a month to spend on communications. One of the most effective — and cost effective ways — to make sure you utilise that time is to build your own connections and brand on LinkedIn.

Ask anyone who’s gone through this process before you and they will tell you, it’s all about consistency.

One of the most effective ways to do so is to establish yourself as an expert/thought leader/influencer on LinkedIn.

Opportunities with using LinkedIn for thought leadership

Becoming known in your niche is not easy on LinkedIn, but with persistence and a smart strategy, you can build meaningful connections with your target audience in a way that’s not possible on Facebook or Instagram.

For the purpose of this section and to ensure that I’m not boring anyone to death, I am going to presume that you already have some presence on the platform.

If that’s not the case, your first job is to fix this immediately. As I have just noted, LinkedIn is currently in the phase — right now — that Twitter, Facebook and Instagram were at at the start of last decade.

This means that there are massive opportunities to gain influence and have your content reach your target audience without paid advertising.

Another reason why I recommend working with LinkedIn is because it’s hyper-tailored to sharing content.

For instance, when you share something on LinkedIn — whether it’s a post or an article — if somebody comments on it or likes it, it will show up in their newsfeeds for their contacts to view. This means that growth is exponential and curated to boost networking and content views. You can use this tool effectively to reach your contact’s contacts and if they also like or comment, it will continue onwards and forwards.

Lastly, if your content reaches LinkedIn’s influencers or thought leaders and they interact with your content, then your content will get boosted by LinkedIn’s algorithms and will have greater velocity. Whilst these features are available in Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, there’s a greater chance that you have to pay and that your content will be taken out of a professional context. 

Typical LinkedIn challenges for founders and entrepreneurs

The first obvious step which you should take to grow your influence on LinkedIn is your profile. Your profile is your landing page and it will be the first thing that people see when looking you up on the platform.

As an entrepreneur, it’s just as important as your resume or your website. An incomplete profile — whether it’s your work history, your business’s profile or your profile photo — is going to send messages to your target audience that your heads are not in the game.

Here are the major downfalls that I see all the time when it comes to entrepreneur’s profiles.

  • No profile photo/unprofessional profile photo. It’s honestly amazing how many times I come across founders with no profile photo. I don’t care if you’re camera shy or if you don’t have any friends with a good camera, this is one fundamental concept which should not be glossed over.

  • Tagline that says how you do what you do and not your actual role or title. For instance, “Growing sustainable ecosystems for your business” and not “Founder and Director of Sustainable Ecosystems at X Start-Up”. This boost’s your search-ability from the LinkedIn homepage and builds credibility for your profile.

  • About section is filled in with fluff. Your About section should tell the reader, in concrete terms, that they’re in the right place, that you understand their needs and what your business can do to help them solve those needs. This is also where you should use multiple keywords to help direct your profile to the right place. For example: My start-up, Company A, helps businesses in X, Y and Z sector. Name all the sectors that you’re interested in working with and be specific so that your ideal target audience can identify themselves in there. 

  • The ugly grey tombstone logo. In my opinion, one of the least professional things that you can do on LinkedIn is list multiple companies that you’ve worked for which don't have a logo. Each grey box subconsciously signifies that you haven’t worked for any credible companies and it’s not the message that you want to send on your profile. This is not the look you want to go for when investors are scouring your profile to decide whether to invest in your company or not.


Once your profile is up to date, it’s important that you have reached out to all of the contacts that you may be able to add. LinkedIn is a platform that limits your interactions with people outside of your network, so your best bet is to grow it organically at first by connecting with everyone you can. 

The LinkedIn Algorithm

Beating the LinkedIn algorithm is quite simply the best way to hack LinkedIn and grow your influence as a thought leader. And the first way to hack the algorithm is to understand it. The majority of us don’t post from our own accounts on a daily basis.

Usually, small start-ups post once a day or perhaps a few times a week or month, hoping to directly gain clients as a result.

Unfortunately, LinkedIn is not that simple and it requires a bit more creativity to get it going.

The LinkedIn algorithm is however predictable and if you want to grow your presence on the platform, you need to understand what’s happening under the hood of the platform. 

LinkedIn is in a content deficiency. Rather, LinkedIn is in a state of quality content deficiency. There is so much that is blatant advertising out there and the platform does not like to show advertising rather than organic or valuable content. But how does it decide what is an ad and what’s authentic? 

When you post a piece of content on LinkedIn, the platform goes through four stages to determine how valuable the content will be to your target audience. Your target audience is your followers, those who you’re in a group with, the hashtags you use and your connections’s connections.

The piece of content will get graded as either clear, low-quality or spam and the outcome depends on the attributes of the text, the image or video and the influence of the member who posted it. If your post is counted as spam, it will end up in the bin and no one will see it.

If it’s considered low-quality, it will be exposed to a small selection of your connections and if it is considered clear, then it will go directly to the next phase of the algorithm.

Phase two sees the content posted in the first hour or so be shown to a sample selection of your network. It is then ranked based on the amount of likes, comments and shares it receives. You can look at it like this: a like is worth one point, a share worth two and a comment is worth three points.

The more points you get in this incubating session, the higher LinkedIn will grade your post and the more likely it is to be shown to the rest of your connections and their connections. LinkedIn loves comments because it fuels discussion, keeps users on the platform and boosts their ability to collect crucial data. 

If your post performs well in this initial test round, then it will be displayed to a wider audience. What’s important to note is that the best authors on LinkedIn are able to create discussion in their posts or articles.

They invite you to leave a comment by asking a question or triggering you to think about your own experiences. When you receive a comment, it’s equally important for the algorithm that you reply. Some sources believe that it can bring up to 250% more views on the post as a whole. 

The algorithm also finds posts valuable when:

  • You only post once a day. If you post more than once a day, the algorithm will punish your second piece of content.

  • You link to external sources. Obviously LinkedIn wants you to spend as much time on the platform itself as possible. So when you publish a link to an external source; your website, the New York Times or YouTube, your post will be ranked less and your content will be penalised. Alternatives include writing articles on LinkedIn about the news you are talking about and uploading your images or video directly to the platform.

  • You don’t add a photo or video. Whilst we may believe that adding an image doubles engagement with your post, LinkedIn considers text as valuable content. This is especially true in a world where the majority of posts just use random stock images.

LinkedIn Profile Articles

The articles which feature on your profile add an element of depth to your personal brand. However, different articles serve different purposes. Below are a few types of evergreen articles which will help achieve your goals:

If your goal is getting funded:

  • 1 x Article which details why you started your business

  • 1 x Article about the potential growth in the market in the future

  • 1 x Article which shows that you are obsessed with the problem and not your solutions

If your goal is getting customers:

  • 1 x About why you started your business

  • 1 x Article about the transformation which you give your clients

  • 1 x Article which pinpoints the major problem or pain point you solve for your clients

“But how often should I post?”

This is a question I get all the time. Below is a timeline that I try to follow and it’s what I recommend anyone starting out on their personal brand to follow as well. You should be:

  • 3x posts per week (the LinkedIn equivalent of a status update). Write in sentences, not paragraphs. Fill up the entire 1300 characters and always keep your target audience in mind. Say something personal, don't tell them about a global event that’s happening or share another bloody Guardian Environment article on melting sea ice.

  • 1x article per month (see below for what you should write about).

  • Adding 20+ people in your target audience per week and always add a note. I use “Hey, My name is Joseph D. Simpson and I help impact entrepreneurs and sustainable startup founders build their brand. [insert something personal here about what you have in common]. Would you consider adding me to your LinkedIn network? Best, Joseph.”

  • Engage for at least 15 minutes per day and leave comments on your target audience’s posts. I have a list of 30+ people that I would LOVE to work with and I make sure that I say something thoughtful when they share something. Do it when you’re on the toilet or having your morning coffee...It’s far more effective than scrolling through the bullshit on Instagram or Facebook right now. 

Connection requests

I recommend adding at least 20 people within your target audience per week. However, using a poorly crafted or not including a message in your connection requests can seriously damage your reputation and limit the number of connections who will accept your request. Essentially limiting the effectiveness of this strategy.

Consider this: The vast majority of valuable connections are being swamped with people sell shit to them via the platform. They’re expecting lots of spam messages. As a result, if your request comes across as self-promotional or salsey, they're 100% going to reject it. 

So as a result, I like to flip it and focus on being genuine and amicable, and looking to build a connection — which is what they're called — than a client. 

Below is an example of my typical Corona-crisis connection request:

Hey X,

I'm Joseph and I help impact entrepreneurs and sustainable startups build their brand. I thought I'd reach out during these trying times to do a bit of quarantine networking. Would you consider adding me to your LinkedIn network?

Best,

Joseph D. Simpson

I will always scan their LinkedIn profile for a common connection or train of thought which I will include to create that personal connection. 

The golden rule(s) of LinkedIn content

Taking the potential to influence your target audience into account, you can optimize your content on LinkedIn for maximum impact. To become a thought leader, you must create thought-provoking content. And if you’re not saying something that someone will disagree with, then you’re not saying anything at all.

It’s important to follow one simple rule: give away all your best advice and secrets for free. You will grow by lifting others up. If people say “you’re crazy, you should be charging for this kind of advice” that’s when you know you’re on the right track! A lot of people initially feel conflicted giving away this kind of advice for free.

However, consider it from the audience’s point of view. If you’re not putting out your best then you’re putting out something sub-par. There’s no two ways about it. So as an audience member, if you’re not giving me your best, why would I follow up? Experts must provide value to their audience; it just makes sense. If your audience values your content, they may turn into customers: It’s a powerful way to build your expertise and create demand for your product and services.

To succeed in creating valuable content, keep these things in mind:

  • Speed wins in marketing. But companies artificially put up red tape that prevents them from going fast.

  • Don’t wait for perfection, this isn’t a Superbowl ad. Put stuff out, test it 

  • Stop focusing on what your competitors are doing and focus on your own customers.

  • Write content you wish the Younger You had found 3 years ago.

  • Focus on how the buyer wants to buy a product, not on how you want to sell it.

  • Let your website do the selling, you don't need to do it in your content.

  • Start with the ideal end result in mind; the ultimate action you want to happen.

  • When you give buyers good information, they feel empowered to make their own choices.

Some of the simplest ways to begin engaging with LinkedIn is to post one thing in the morning. I try to post between 10-11am; when people are having their morning coffee.

Topics that people are interested in vary as per the industry, but one thing that should always shine through is your personality. People prefer to know about you, your highs and lows and your experiences than the turnout of your company’s latest event. Consider LinkedIn’s posts a professional long form Twitter. This is a great place to:

  • Post relevant news that your audience will find valuable. Sharing news is a great way to get your name out there and keep on top of the happenings in your industry. If you’re struggling to find news on your topic, go to Google News and type in your subject, chances are that you’re going to find something new and unique here. 

  • Ask questions. One great way to attract responses from your audience is to ask a question. It’s simple psychology that people want to be known as an expert. Enticing them to answer a question is one great way to play on that desire and to get your content to spread. Remember that if someone comments on your post, it’s got a higher chance to be shared on their connections feeds as well, making the chances for others to see it and interact with it much higher. 

  • Get recommendations or ask for advice. When you ask your network for advice on how they did certain things — whether it's get something featured in the press or hire your first employee — you can create a post full of tips and resources that is not only valuable for you, but others in your place. This is also a great way to bring others along on your journey through entrepreneurship. 

  • Post statistics that you’ve come across. As much as we don’t want to admit it, when it comes to facts and figures, there’s always a bit of nerd in us. Sharing visuals or numbers creates for an interesting and memorable post that engaged the viewer

  • Be careful here however because a common mistake is to only share negative news about the environment and climate change. Whilst this might be relevant information to your purpose and your journey, it doesn’t inspire people to follow you. Always keep a balance of news that is shocking or depressing — the majority of news about the environment — and developments in your specific sector or industry (Smart Cities, CleanTect, etc.) 


Repurpose Everything: How to create bulk content

This will potentially be the most important thing that you take out of this section of the course. If you’ve gotten this far, you’ve realised that whilst you may lay the foundations, if you don’t communicate effectively you’ve wasted your time.

Social media and in particular, LinkedIn and Instagram, let you really connect with your audience. They give you a direct line of influence. Yet as impact entrepreneurs, we consistently under-leverage these platforms.

Whether it’s because we don’t value them or simply because we don’t have the resources to throw at them, it holds us back from scaling our influence and ultimately, our solution. To conclude this post, I will give you the code to cracking content creation.

It’s so simple and yet so effective. And employing this consistently is the code to turning you into a thought leader and LinkedIn into a lead generating machine. 

“What could possibly be so simple yet so effective?”, I hear you asking. The answer is: Repurposing content. It all comes down to how we consume content today.

Short form video, audio and short, punchy text is what social media is about. Repurposing content is the one most effective way to turn an hour into a month creating each of these pieces. Each month, if you’re posting between 3 and 5 times a week, you’ll need roughly 20 pieces of short-form content, 1-4 blog posts depending on the length, plus quotes and images for Instagram.

Throw in a couple of videos and you’ve got yourself a month's worth of quality and engaging content. That sounds like a lot if you have planned out each video, script everything, edit everything etc. However, it doesn’t have to be perfect.

Whilst your company may be striving for perfection, these snippets should be more “behind the scenes” than faultless reality TV.

How can you create this much-unscripted content each month? 

It all starts with having one podcast, webinar or piece to camera.

Joseph D. Simpson
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