Social media has become a powerful tool to grow your aviation business and your thought leadership, which will help set you apart in a crowded world with so many competitors. It’s not hard being a thought leader in aviation but just like with so many things in life; you need to have the right strategy. We’ve put together this comprehensive guide of just five strategies to use to build your thought leadership in aviation and dominate your space, whether that be flight schools, airlines, charter operation, etc.

What is Thought Leadership and Why Does it Matter for Aviation?

Thought leadership is a way of being recognised as the go-to person and expert in your field. In business, it’s a powerful way of establishing brand credibility and trust.  When it comes to aviation, just think of the big brands like Qantas, Boeing, Airbus, etc. Aside from their stellar marketing, they are thought leaders in their field. Even if you’re not as big of an aviation brand as them, it doesn’t mean you can’t be a thought leader in the field. In fact, now more than ever in a post COVID world, we need more aviation thought leaders. As an aviation business, it’s one of the smartest things you can ever do to build your brand, grow your customer base, and ultimately get more leads and sales.

Pick One Primary Social Media Platform to Build your Thought Leadership

With so many social media platforms, it can be tempting to be across all of them or at least a couple, but when you’re starting, it’s best to focus on one. Remember mastery or at least proficiency requires singleness of focus. Don’t scatter yourself. Be sure to pick a platform where your target audience is. Once you’ve built up some thought leadership and have the time and resources, then expand into other platforms. Many social media marketers recommend that businesses be on the following six social media platforms:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• Pinterest

 Decide What Type of Leader You Want to Be

Before you even go onto social media to showcase your aviation thought leadership, you must decide what type of leader you are or what type of leader you want to be. Like there are all types of influencers on social media, you need to know how you want to be seen by others with your thought leadership. Do you want to be old school? Modern and innovative?  Specialist in your field?  A generalist in your field? These are important questions to ask and answer. Knowing what type of aviation leader you want to be will develop a distinct online social media personality and voice. Your content should then reflect your leadership style.

Create Amazing Aviation Content 

It goes without saying that content is king, and globally it’s a trillion-dollar industry. If your aviation business isn’t creating some content in 2021 and beyond, then you’re in trouble. When building and sustaining your aviation thought leadership on social media, you must create content. This is what gets consumers engaging with you. The first step to creating content on social media is to know your audience and identify their needs and wants. This way, you can create highly relevant and targeted content. Your content must be of high quality (written well) and provide high value. This value could be educational, entertaining, or just informative, including a combination of these. Now you can hire a team of aviation marketing experts who can care for all your content needs. Content comes in many forms like video, blogs, articles, infographics, whitepapers, etc.

Build Your Network for Your Aviation Thought Leadership

The reality is that you do need to have a sizeable following of at least 5000-10,000 on your social media to get traffic and be seen and heard by others. If you’re only got a following of 50 or 100 people, it just won’t do it. Even a network of 500 in this day and age is still a small number. We know that quality counts (great customers) in business, but we also know that quantity counts too (volume). To influence and inspire others with your aviation thought leadership, you need to be constantly building and expanding your network. It’s this network that will engage and share your content and ultimately spread your message.

Be an Active, not Passive User of Social Media.

Social media takes time and commitment, and often, it’s the number one reason why people and businesses stay away from it. Or they open accounts but are hard on it – making them passive users. Don’t treat it like the auto-pilot on a plane where it’s set, and the pilot or pilots just let it take its course without much human interference. Your social media needs you to switch off auto-pilot and actively use it at least 3-4 times a week. This requires creating and posting content and engaging with your audiences, both your customers and prospects, regularly.

By implementing these five strategies, you’ll be growing your thought leadership in no time. But as you can appreciate, thought leadership requires lots of well-crafted content and time Book a time today with Off the Ground Marketing, your aviation marketing experts that can help fast track your thought leadership.