In this episode of Thought Leader Life, Michael and I hang out with Jim Cahill, head of social media at Emerson Process Management. The discussion focuses on social media strategies adopted by Jim to drive #ThoughtLeadership across a 170,000-strong organization. Jim views #ThoughtLeadership from the customer’s perspective, and defines a #ThoughtLeader as someone who helps the customer solve problems: the “go-to” person in the company.

Jim gives an inside look at how Emerson creates #ThoughtLeadership and drives its subject matter experts to engage with customers, especially by blogging. Blogs become the trigger for engagement, and when more people become more engaged, they go to LinkedIn groups and the expert’s personal profile to delve deeper into the funnel. For the subject matter experts at Emerson, the purpose of working out a social media strategy is to shrink the distance between experts and the people looking for experts. Jim believes any organization should be able to make its experts more visible to enable it to reach out and help more customers and turn them into advocates.

Jim also describes the opportunities that Emerson opens for customers to have closer connection with their experts, such as the upcoming annual customer conference, called the Emerson Exchange 365, as well as industry-specific conferences. He also gives some tips on how to make busy executives and subject matter experts really participate and engage on social media, especially for large organizations.

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Here are some “‘aha’ moments” from the episode. See more in the Aha Moments from Thought Leader Life books available in the Aha Amplifier and watch the interview below!

It’s not just technologies that solve customers’ problems. It’s the expertise working w/ them to apply it. @JimCahill

Use social to help customers get through tough jobs. @JimCahill

Use social to shrink the distance between experts & customers. @JimCahill

Always, the ultimate goal is to have advocates & not only among your employee base, but your customers. @happyabout

Follow Jim on Twitter at @JimCahill. Tune into Thought Leader Life every Saturday for more thought-leader goodness!