If you’re a leader in HR Tech, you want to be known for your expertise and your perspective. That’s how you build trust in your product, your solution, your service, your company. One invaluable strategy to accomplish that is to present yourself as a thought leader. Doing that involves building your own brand as a knowledgeable innovator in the industry. Particularly in HR tech, establishing thought leadership is crucial for standing out in a super-competitive market. It also benefits all of us in this amazing industry.
I’m involved in helping HR tech leaders do just this: get their voices out there. Not everyone grasps the dynamic between awareness, trust, engagement, and outreach. It’s understandable: if you’re running an HR tech company, whether established or on the rise, whether an SMB or a giant, your brain space has to go to leading. And leading is an enormous task. There are constant crises. Constant needs. But no matter how skilled you are at handling all the must-do’s and rallying the team, sharing your insights and demonstrating your expertise with the outside world — putting yourself out there — will raise your profile immeasurably.
Four essential reasons it’s so important today:
Building Trust and Credibility
Trust and credibility are never a given. But brand reputation depends on them. For years, I was a contributor to several high powered media and proud of it. It was exhilarating to be in an environment filled with great voices and perspectives. But at some point, this vaunted channel lost its lustre. For a number of reasons it began to feel like a saturated marketplace and lost its own brand reputation and with it, its highly engaged audience. Even those on the top shelf can’t stand on their laurels.
I was among a whole herd of thought leaders who stopped putting our energy into the channel. Instead? We shifted to sites like LinkedIn, which has become a vital, and vibrant forum for thought leadership. Its audience combines insiders and innovators. They want to know where you stand on solutions, on trends, on issues — and they know that your perspective is what drives your brand. And they join in the conversation.
What does that mean in HR tech? HR tech is all about innovation and providing real solutions to real problems. Innovation is all about knowing there are gaps, there are needs, there are niches. Brands whose leaders can focus on those are going to build that credibility. It’s not just about making declarations. It’s about having the acumen and experience that prove your authority — and demonstrate how your empathy for the user has resulted in those real solutions. It’s also about curating your presence to be in the right places.
Enhancing Brand Visibility and Engagement
How does anyone know you’re really out there? You need to make noise — but smart noise. That means participating in the conversation. It means publishing articles, speaking at conferences and events (if that’s your bag, and if it’s not, that’s ok). It means joining panels and sharing insights on webinars. There are countless ways to do this, but the overall factor that counts the most is consistent, or at least frequent, presence. (We all have times when we’re going to be pulled in other directions, but don’t lose sight of the value of your presence, and return when you can.) When you’re out there, that’s how you enhance the visibility of your brand. That’s how you spark engagement with your audience, and engagement with your solutions.
Driving Business Growth
Thought leadership does have measurable benefits as well as immeasurable value. Here’s a stat from a 2022 Harris Poll about what being an active participant as a thought leader can do. Thought leadership drives significant annual value: executives attribute up to $2.7 million in revenue to these efforts. And 95% of decision-makers use LinkedIn thought leadership to stay informed about industry trends, highlighting its role in building long-term brand advocates — which is a proven way of driving business growth. When you’re perceived as an innovator, you’re also being an influencer. And that’s incredibly valuable today.
Sharing forward-thinking ideas and participating in collaborative initiatives can influence industry standards and practices. It helps you set your company up as a frontrunner, and fosters that special sauce related to continuous improvement and adaptability.
Attracting and Retaining Talent
Your thought leadership can play a key role in drawing the talent you need to keep growing the company. I want to work for her (or him) isn’t a rarity: the charisma and vision of a company’s leader directly impacts perception of the brand. You’ll attract like-minded professionals, next-gen talent and making your employees proud they work for you.
Thought leadership is also a great forum for testing out your approach and your beliefs without having to revamp your company’s marketing and core branding materials. Use it as a conversation that can be mined for reactions and suggestions. Those LinkedIn comments, to be honest, can be gold. An industry colleague’s observations may spark an important shift in how you treat an issue, and you may do the same to them. All of that funnels into brand awareness on the part of potential candidates. It may not lower recruitment costs, but it provides an organic way to showcase your values, vision, and presence — and that certainly supports recruiting, as well as engagement and retention.
Share Your Voice
We’ve recently published some great thought leadership on the TalentCulture blog from our collaborators and partners. Among what stands out: SAP SuccessFactor’s CRO Marryann Abbajay on meeting midmarket needs. Betterworks’ CEO Doug Dennerline with a heartfelt debrief on lessons learned at EmpowerHR 2025. Author and business / innovation expert Andrew Pressman on the importance of soft skills. These are articles that remind me of why we need a sustainable way to process our own beliefs, our strategies, our successes, our efforts. We’re all looking for a way to talk to each other and share ideas and solutions. We need each other. Thought leadership inserts our voices into the mix — and no one should leave themselves out of the conversation.
And yes: it’s a great marketing strategy. In the next few months we’ll be diving into how. Stay tuned.
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