Video: How to Build Trust and Thought Leadership

It is 2019 and “James” is giving a talk on ethical hacking at the Technology conference in Las Vegas.

The room is buzzing. You can feel the eager anticipation of the IT engineers in attendance, and James does not disappoint.

Like a master illusionist, James wows his audience with how easy it is to break into a network. Then he gives them a peek behind the curtain and says, “Anyone can learn to hack into your network. Anyone.”

The audience claps their approval, even if they are still not completely sold on his assessment. Because this is a time when IT folks and their bosses, especially their bosses, believe that only the Targets and Equifax’s of the world get hacked. Not small manufacturers, mortgage brokers, or consulting firms, never them.

James is sly, though. He expects his audience to be doubtful. They’re engineers, after all, and being doubtful is in their nature. But James has a plan.

Everyone who attends the conference is added to his email list.

On Monday morning, they receive an invitation to attend a live webinar with his “crew.” Other security professionals who talk about the hacks of the day.

One of the regulars is named Chris. His company does incident response.

Chris and James are thought leaders. Through the medium of video, they help you to feel like you know them, even before you’ve met them. They demonstrate knowledge and likeability. They are consistent with their messaging.

More importantly, they’re the ones you’ll reach out to when your systems are down. I know, because I was at that conference in 2019, I’ve attended their webinars, and I have worked with them since.

How to Build Trust in 2024

Your customers have a problem, and they are looking for the services you offer.

Unfortunately, there is way too much information (including misinformation) on the web to sort through it themselves.

So, they need an expert, a thought leader, to help them make the right decisions for their business.

2024 is the year of know-like trust. It’s the year when you should be thinking about videos, podcasts, and marketing that makes you visible.

Think about it: if there are more data points on the web than grains of sand on the plant (citation), then it makes sense for your customers to go to people they know, like, and trust to help them solve their business problems.

Now, you may be thinking, “How will they find us if there’s so much information on the web?” Good question.

Thought leadership content can work for you in a myriad of ways.

Here’s a true-life example of how thought leadership content can work for you:

Your sales rep, Sheila, is golfing with an important prospective customer named Tim.

Tim brings up an issue he’s having with his ERP system. Sheila says, “That’s interesting because our marketing department just made a video on that topic. Is it okay if I send you the link?”

“Sure,” Tim says.

Sheila sends Tim the link and follows up with him.

Tim likes the video and does a little more research on her company. He easily finds several more videos and other pieces of good content on how  Sheila’s company can solve his problems.

Building thought-leadership for an online community

• You can take this strategy off the golf course and apply it on LinkedIn and email outreach.
• You can even do it as part of a larger community-building strategy on YouTube.
• You can drive traffic to your content and develop an automated conversion strategy.
• With the right tools, you could even build your own ecosystem, like James did, where prospective customers go to your channels rather than search aimlessly on Google.

The psychological benefits of video

There’s a positive psychological effect of seeing someone on video that imparts importance and a feeling that they already know you and your organization. It’s called building rapport.

Rapport is about building meaningful connections with another person (citation). And it can be done through video and other content marketing strategies. It’s a “one-to-many” strategy.

Rapport will help to provide warmer leads when a prospective customer calls you.

If the video content is done well, meaning appropriate for your ideal customer, it will have a similar effect on prospects as having written a book and calling yourself an author.

If you and your team could manage one good piece of meaningful content a week and share it, you’ll be amazed at how quickly you become a thought leader in your industry.

Let’s have a conversation. Call me today for a free, no-obligation strategy session. I’m here to help.