And Carrie On

A couple of months ago someone asked me on LinkedIn the specific steps I took to become a thought leader in the HigherEd space.

While I never set out to be a thought leader, in reflecting, I realized I followed a pretty intentional set of steps for people to see my writing, and that could be of benefit for someone interested in thought leadership.

After sharing with the individual, I also realized it would make a great blog post, so here we are.

Initial Steps

Once I decided I was going to build my own website, I made it a goal to follow people I knew in LinkedIn. I knew LinkedIn was going to be the primary mechanism to share my work. About 2 months before I ever went live with my website, I began following about 10 people a week I somewhat knew on LinkedIn. Often, they followed back, so I was quickly expanded my following.

My Website

The site was ready and live, but I waited to publicly announce my work until I had a month of content posted for people to explore. I thought having 4-5 posts people could binge would be important.

LinkedIn Posting

I only had time and relevant content to blog once a week on my site, but I realized I needed more content to maintain engagement and grow interest. I had to be more visible. As such, I developed a content matrix to consistently generate LinkedIn posts. Since I wasn’t heavily in the space, I had to do lots of initial work to have enough content to talk about.

That original content matrix looked something like this:

• One external article I found and my comments to go with it
• One celebration post of something I was proud of
• One blog post from my website
• One photo of something that showed action or connection

I made sure to post this every single week.

About 3 months into posting, I started getting overwhelmed with the rigorous schedule and made some adjustments. I decided to give myself a week off each month from writing my blog. I also developed a content calendar of what blog posts I’d post each month.

That process has kept me creatively energized, and I’ve now been following it for well over a year.

External Conversations

I also set out to be featured once a month on someone else’s platform, which would help me build authority, reach, and generate content I could share on my own LinkedIn account.

I reached out to SimpsonScarborough and Volt initially but over time and many podcasts reach out as well. I said yes to everything to help me grow my work and my voice.

I was constantly writing, editing, speaking. But, it was a major part of getting my name out there!

Getting Strategic

At the beginning of 2024, I realized I needed to look at my commitments and make strategic decisions. Sometimes being everywhere isn’t the best approach. Now that I was out there, it was better to focus my efforts on places and spaces that supported what I was hoping to accomplish.

In this process, I did some self reflection and tightened up my initial interest areas to focus on:

• Training the next generation of leaders
• Industry expertise
• Innovation

My work still revolves around HigherEd, marketing, and leadership, but with a more defined and narrow scope.

I also realized that I had the opportunity (for the first time) to use my voice to support others. As such, I adjusted my LinkedIn posting strategy to include bragging on others at least once a month. This could be celebrating a win they had, promoting their content, or helping to bring someone new to the space. So many people did that for me, and it felt like a great way to pay it forward.

What’s Next

I continue to enjoy this season of life. Recently, while on a walk with my husband, I shared some of the things I’ve been working on. He said, “Keep pressing on, as long as it brings you joy. The moment it doesn’t…. stop.”

You, our work, and our space gives me so much joy. I can’t wait to keep learning and connecting with you all. Thank you for being part of the journey, and I can’t wait to see the great things we accomplish together for our field.