Thought Leadership via LinkedIn Posts
Quick Intro to Amy Spurling
I worked with Amy Spurling during my internship last summer at Jana, a Boston-based startup. She joined as the CFO the same month I started my internship. In so many ways that have nothing to do with social media, she was an interesting role model for me to observe as an example of how a new senior executive at a company can set the tone about her leadership style, build relationships quickly, take on notable responsibilities, and produce visible impact, all within her first 100 days. (Those first 100 days are not just important in House of Cards!) No, Amy is not world-famous, nor is she exactly a top social media influencer, and I don’t think she’s on a TIME magazine list of top CFOs, but she was the first example that came to mind as the focus of this blog post and I think she’s great.
Using Personal Social Media to Convey Leadership Capabilities
I noticed last summer that Amy was publishing posts within the LinkedIn platform. These posts are highly visible on her LinkedIn profile as they appear near the top. As you can see from the screenshot below, her posts show up right under the relationship section of her profile, and she has 1,000 followers.
What Her Posts do for Amy’s Image
One of Amy’s posts that really stood out to me contains her advice on how to land your first job as a CFO of a startup. It was short and sweet, with just 6 main suggestions, and it was pragmatic and direct in tone. This post demonstrates that Amy wants to give back to the startup community by sharing lessons learned from her own successes. Instead of hoarding her knowledge about how to hustle for the job you want, she shared her best tips openly through her post. During my time at Jana, I personally felt that Amy demonstrated a clear desire to be a mentor and pragmatic advisor to people who are earlier on in their career. So a post like this positions Amy as a mentor which I think is a highly valued leadership trait that many companies value, especially startups looking to attract young talent.
Additionally, Amy’s other publications position her as a thought leader on topics like HR policies, open office layouts, and company culture. These are all topics that demonstrate her qualifications to be an excellent CFO who can take on responsibilities beyond overseeing accounting and fundraising. With this personal social media presence, she can demonstrate she is a well-rounded leader. Her writing on diverse topics helps shows off these capabilities in much more depth than a simple resume.
I’d like to emphasize that her posts are straightforward and short-to-medium in length. She doesn’t need to write posts to prove she is a Pulitzer-winning writer, a world-leader on these topics, nor does she have to come up with fancy frameworks or “disruptive” concepts, in order to successfully use this form of social media to boost her professional and personal brand image. I think her results of having over 100 views, and a few “thumbs up” on each post are totally fine. I think these posts complement her profile and are sufficient given what I assume about Amy’s professional goals.
Now, What About Me?
I guess here is the part where I publicly commit to the less than 10 readers from my MIT Sloan social media class who will read this post that I will emulate Amy’s behavior by committing to X posts at Y frequency on these three topics through which I want to reflect my personality, expertise, and intellect. For now I’m just going to commit to thinking about it. My plan is to ensure I graduate first… but maybe I’ll start on producing more content this summer. I’ve enjoyed using Medium for the class blog, but I think LinkedIn will be a more visible platform to publish on, particularly if I’m trying to position myself well to potential employers.
This post is part of a blog series for a class I’m taking at MIT Sloan called “Social Media Management.” For this blog post, we were asked to identify an aspect of a person’s social media profile — you can choose any platform — that you admire and wish to emulate in some way. Describe the content and how you would incorporate it as a part of your own social media presence.
