How To Fix Your Thought Leadership: Influence Grows in Ponds, Not Oceans

You’ve followed all the advice.
You post two or three times a week on LinkedIn. You’re sharing original insights. You even used a carousel. And still… nothing. A few likes, maybe a comment from a mate in sales. Crickets from the people you actually want to influence.

It’s frustrating. Especially when you’re doing it on top of everything else your team’s juggling.

Quite often, the problem’s not your content. It’s your approach. You’re talking at people, instead of talking to them.

That’s the real issue. Most marketers are playing the game backwards. They’re trying to build authority with people who don’t even know (or care) who they are. Instead of building relationships, they’re broadcasting into the void.

This article flips that.

It’s your no-fluff playbook for building a thought leadership strategy that actually earns trust and drives pipeline. One built from the ground up – starting with the right audience, not just another LinkedIn post.

You’ll hear insights from two demand gen weapons – Justin Rowe, founder of Impactable, and Rohit Srivastav, Head of Marketing at Petavue and co-founder of S11 – and walk away with a strategy you can use right now, even if your founder hates posting.

Let’s fix your thought leadership once and for all.

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Thought Leadership Starts With Audience, Not Insight

Many marketers approach thought leadership with the wrong starting point. They begin by crafting content around ideas they believe are valuable, without first ensuring those ideas are relevant to the audience they’re trying to reach.

As Rohit Srivastav explains, this disconnect is often what prevents content from landing.

“They’re talking at people. They don’t talk to people… They think it’s this profound insight that magically appears at their desk.”

Rohit Srivastav – The B2B Playbook

Instead of focusing on what the market needs, marketers often default to what they want to say. This results in well-intentioned content that completely misses the mark, because the audience hasn’t been properly defined or built.

Rohit sees this frequently when companies rush into publishing.

“A lot of people just overlook the fact and start putting out content from day one.”

Rohit Srivastav – The B2B Playbook

But thought leadership doesn’t work without relevance. And relevance only comes from understanding—and curating—the audience first.

Justin Rowe highlights this point clearly, noting that if you’re just posting, and you haven’t curated an audience that wants to hear that… you’re not going to get traction. Instead of publishing into the void, his approach starts with listening:

“First, consume content before I create content… so I understand what people actually care to hear about.”

This is a crucial shift. Thought leadership isn’t about broadcasting insight. It’s about earning the right to be heard – by embedding yourself in your market, understanding its language, and building credibility before speaking.

The foundation isn’t the message. It’s the audience.

Curate Your Pond, Not the Ocean

Once you understand your audience, the next step is making sure your content actually reaches them. That doesn’t happen by accident. It happens by curating a network that reflects your ICP – carefully and intentionally.

Too often, marketers post content to whoever happens to be in their feed. But if your feed is filled with the wrong people, even your best work will fall flat. That’s why curating your audience is the real first move, not publishing.

Justin Rowe captures this idea with a simple but powerful insight:

“If you have a thousand connections, that’s your pond… You’re dominating their feed.”

Justin Rowe – The B2B Playbook

That one line reframes the game. You don’t need a huge following to have influence. If your audience is tight and relevant, just a few posts a week can make you a consistent presence in their world. In many cases, you’ll be the only person in your category showing up regularly.

But the magic isn’t just in frequency, it’s in focus.

Many marketers worry they’re competing with the biggest names in the industry. In reality, your ICP isn’t drowning in expert content. They’re not plugged into the same voices you are.

It’s something that I regularly think about as a content creator myself. Just remember, by posting regularly to a defined audience, you’re way ahead of the game.

“They don’t share the same feed. They’re not connected to all these big influencers that are intimidating you.”

This is your advantage. While others chase reach, you can stay focused, embedding yourself in the day-to-day feed of the exact people you want to influence. That kind of repetition builds trust. And trust leads to action.

None of this works, though, if you don’t curate who’s actually in your network. Relevance has to come before reach. Otherwise, you’re just publishing into the void.

“If you haven’t curated an audience that wants to hear that… you’re not going to get traction.”

This is the shift most marketers need to make. From writing for everyone, to being consistently visible to the few that matter most.

Often we recommend using a tool like Dripify to automate LinkedIn connection requests, to ensure that you’re pulling your ICP into your network.

(See here the list of tools we use in our demand gen tech stack).

Because when the right people are listening, you don’t need to shout.

Curate Your Audience With a 30-Min-a-Day Playbook

If curating a relevant network is what makes thought leadership work, the obvious question is how do you do it at scale, without it consuming your entire day?

For Rohit Srivastav, it’s a matter of setting a daily rhythm.

“Every day, 30 minutes… you’re adding 20 people that are exactly your ICP. After a month, 1,000 people have seen you engaging.”

That small, repeatable habit compounds quickly. But what matters most is who you’re adding—not just how many.

Rohit starts by identifying a few people in his market who already have audience traction, then goes deep into their comment sections.

“Go into their comment section, start engaging in some meaningful way.”

This isn’t about stealing attention. It’s about joining relevant conversations, being visible, and offering perspective before you ever publish a single post.

Once that’s in motion, Rohit moves to what he calls the “knowledge graph”—LinkedIn’s ‘People You May Know’ suggestions. LinkedIn wants you to network with people who are actively using the platform.

The logic is smart: if LinkedIn recommends someone, it means they’re likely active, relevant, and close to the communities you’re trying to reach. Spend 15–30 minutes a day adding and engaging, and you’re not just building a list—you’re shaping perception.

As Rohit puts it:

“Now you’re not an outsider… you’re one of their own.”

Justin takes a similar approach. He filters for ICP fit and platform activity, often using Sales Navigator to zero in. But the key principle is the same:

“I send 15 to 20 connection requests a day… you need to do it intentionally.”

This isn’t a growth hack. It’s infrastructure. You’re building a distribution engine, one connection at a time.

Before the posts, before the content calendar, this is the real foundation of your thought leadership strategy.

Find Your Format & Feed the Algorithm

Once you’ve built a network that mirrors your market, the next challenge is staying visible. Not by doing more, but by showing up consistently, in a format that works for you and the platform.

This is where most marketers overcomplicate things. They chase trends instead of committing to a cadence they can sustain.

Rohit Srivastav compares it to training.

“It’s like exercising… if you’re not having fun with it, you won’t keep doing it.”

Rohit Srivastav – The B2B Playbook

His point? You don’t need to write threads, film talking-head videos, and post memes. You just need to pick one or two formats that fit your strengths, and show up consistently.

For some, that’s video. Justin Rowe leaned into it, even though it wasn’t comfortable at first. But it worked.

“They want to feel like they know you… understand what you believe in, what you dislike.”

Video shortens the trust curve. It gives your audience a sense of who you are, even before they meet you. That matters—especially on platforms like LinkedIn, where people follow people, not logos.

For others, it might be carousels, short posts, or humour-driven content. Rohit’s known for using timely jokes to stay top-of-feed without relying on selfies or high-production content.

“I make a joke out of it and post it on LinkedIn… I know LinkedIn will push that content.”

But there’s a strategic layer underneath that creativity. You still need to align your content with what LinkedIn rewards.

“You need to feed the algorithm the things it needs to make you bubble up.”

This isn’t about gaming the system. It’s about respecting how the system works—so your content gets seen by the people you worked so hard to connect with.

Choose a format you’ll commit to. Add your voice. Then structure it in a way the platform will surface.

That’s how you build visibility that compounds.

Thought Leadership You Can Outsource (And What You Can’t)

One of the biggest barriers to thought leadership is the person who holds the insight doesn’t want to be the one writing it.

And that’s fine, because not everything needs to be done by them. But some parts absolutely do. Justine Rowe says you can’t outsource the subject matter expertise extraction.

The thinking still needs to come from the founder, executive, or expert. What can be outsourced is the system around it, how you capture it, shape it, and get it published.

Justin’s approach is to reduce friction. Don’t ask a founder to log into LinkedIn and start writing. Give them a simple process where their only job is to show up and talk.

“You can build a repeatable workflow that’s easy for them… let them show up and talk.”

Rohit Srivastav takes it a step further. His method is to interview founders like he’s writing a profile piece – one that brings out their real opinions, stories, and positioning.

“I do a journalistic interview… like I’m writing a People magazine cover story.”

Rohit Srivastav – The B2B Playbook

It’s not just about questions. It’s about making them feel heard, drawing out nuance, and capturing language that actually reflects how they think.

“If you ask them to write a post, it’s going to take a week. If you sit them down and record a conversation, it takes 15 minutes.”

This is where marketers can play a critical role. Your job isn’t to ghost-write generic takes. It’s to create leverage, by extracting what already exists in the founder’s head, then turning that into content that scales.

If you treat the founder like a bottleneck, thought leadership dies. But if you treat them like a source of signal—and build a system around that—you get clarity and consistency without forcing them to become creators.

Don’t Post and Ghost—Engage Intentionally

Even the best content won’t land if no one sees it. And just hitting “publish” doesn’t guarantee visibility. Not even close.

That’s why Justin Rowe builds engagement into the publishing process. Before he posts, he comments on 10–15 relevant posts in his feed. Not just for goodwill—but to drive reach.

“If I comment on someone’s post, my next post gets priority in their feed.”

This is how the LinkedIn algorithm works. It favours mutual interaction. If you want to increase visibility among your ICP, you need to show up in their conversations first.

Rohit Srivastav takes the same approach—but goes even further upstream. Before his founders publish anything, he’s already spending 30 minutes a day engaging on their behalf.

“At the end of the month, 1,000 people that are exactly your ICP have seen you engaging.”

This is more than just networking. It’s priming your audience to recognise your name, associate you with relevant conversations, and eventually – pay attention to your content.

When you engage strategically, you’re not just boosting reach. You’re accelerating trust. You’re showing up in the right feeds, building familiarity, and warming your audience before you ever ask them to care about your ideas.

Posting is only half the job. The other half is activating it through smart, consistent interaction.

Personal Brand vs Company Page

By this point, you’ve built a network of the right people. You’re engaging before and after you post. You’ve extracted real thought leadership from your founder or subject matter experts and packaged it in a format that works.

Now comes the question most small teams ask – where should this content live?
Should it come from the company page, or the personal profiles of the people behind it?

For most teams, the answer is clear: start with the personal brand.

It’s not just a preference, it’s how trust is built on platforms like LinkedIn.

“People buy from humans—not faceless, lifeless entities.”

Rohit Srivastav – The B2B Playbook

When you post from a personal profile, you’re tapping into the strength of human connection. It’s more relatable, more engaging, and most importantly – more visible. The algorithm prioritises it. And when you’re working with a limited team and limited budget, that visibility matters.

Company pages, by comparison, have far less organic reach. That doesn’t mean they’re useless. It just means they play a supporting role.

Justin Rowe puts it well:

“It’s not that company brands can’t work—it just takes more money and creativity.”

If you have the time and resources to invest in building a strong brand voice, consistent creative, and maybe even a bit of paid distribution—then company pages can help reinforce the work you’re doing through individual contributors.

They’re useful for brand consistency, announcements, and recruitment. But they shouldn’t be your primary channel for building authority.

The reality is most B2B brands don’t have the resources (or creative tone) to pull off the kind of high-performing company pages we see in B2C—like Duolingo or Surreal.

Your founder might not want to be the face of the brand. That’s fine. But someone needs to take the lead. Whether it’s you, a product marketer, or another internal expert—your audience wants to hear from real people.

Start there. The company page can follow.

Go Beyond LinkedIn to Scale Thought Leadership

If LinkedIn is where you earn initial attention, the next step is to extend that influence across the rest of the buyer journey.

One way to do that is through paid retargeting—showing your strongest thought leadership content to the people who’ve already shown intent. It’s a low-cost, high-leverage way to stay top of mind and reinforce trust.

“We retarget people who visit our site with top-of-funnel thought leadership content,” Justin Rowe explained. “What are the 10 to 20 pieces of content I want someone to see after they visit my site?”

This doesn’t mean every post needs to be turned into an ad. It means identifying the content that performs best organically—then scaling its reach strategically. Ads don’t replace thought leadership. They help extend it.

Rohit Srivastav recommends taking that visibility offline, too.

“Micro-conference speaking gigs… have worked really well in the past year.”

These aren’t large-scale events. They’re small, specific, and often more influential. In-person exposure builds credibility fast, especially when you’re addressing a room full of ideal buyers or partners.

Then there’s YouTube and podcasting—channels built for depth. Where LinkedIn is short-form and fleeting, these platforms give your audience a chance to binge, go deep, and develop a stronger sense of trust over time.

“YouTube is a great place for bingeable authority content,” said Justin.

The key here is sequencing. Start with LinkedIn. Test what resonates. Then redistribute your highest-impact content across paid, owned, and offline channels.

Thought leadership doesn’t scale by doing more. It scales by making your best work go further.

Thought Leadership That Works Starts Smaller Than You Think

If your content isn’t landing, it’s not because you’re not smart enough or creative enough.

It’s because you’re trying to lead before anyone’s ready to listen.

This isn’t about writing better posts or posting more often. It’s about building relevance, trust, and visibility – in that order.

The marketers who win with thought leadership aren’t chasing reach. They’re building focused networks. They’re using structured processes to extract strong points of view. And they’re activating those ideas through smart engagement and targeted distribution.

You don’t need a huge audience. You just need the right one.