By Laurel Egan Kenny, Tatiana Kuznetsova, Seth Marlowe, CTP, and Nicole Meyer

These days, social media plays a significant role in our lives both inside and outside the office. Sometimes it can be confusing or difficult to get started, understand the return on investment, and use it as an asset to the industry, your career and your personal brand. We’re here to help.

Social media and other thought leadership efforts can advantageously bring you to new levels as a treasury and finance influencer. Our collective philosophy and advice are to 1. get out there and 2. get out there earlier and more often — in compelling (and even unexpected) ways.

Here are 11 — yes, 11 — proven (by us) best practices:

1. Create a new standard: Be the first one on your team or in your company to take the leap toward influencer status. Others (including your current or future boss, clients and colleagues) will take notice of your thought leadership efforts, so be prepared to own your leading position and answer questions.
2. Elevate constituents to elite/VIP status: Seth Marlowe’s Treasury Whisperer brand does just that — it makes people feel included in something special and unique.
3. Appeal to our professional colleagues’ humanity: For example, Laurel Egan Kenny and Nicole Meyer promote personal stories of their women-owned treasury and finance-focused small businesses and keep people engaged by sharing progress in both their personal and professional lives.
4. Share trials and challenges: Real life isn’t perfect! Be genuine — be your authentic self. If it works for you, be vulnerable.
5. Photos: A picture is worth a thousand words! Sharing photos helps your audience (literally) “picture” you in action (wherever you are)! This also makes you more recognizable at industry events.
6. Back up your omnipresence by being accessible elsewhere: In person, by phone, via text, LinkedIn messages, by email — multimedia engagement is the name of the game.
7. Be an expert resource/single point of contact for others in the industry: Lend your thought leadership to industry programs, events and publications. When someone in your network needs a presenter/panelist on your particular subject matter expertise, they will be more likely to call on you if they have seen, heard or read your content — or even better, if they have experienced you delivering the content previously.
8. Don’t just build your network, put it to use: Use your center of influence status when it makes sense to do so. Know whom to call on within your network for various requests. Chances are your relationship-building skills have kept you in contact and in good standing with others who may be willing to help others in your network.
9. Be honest, sometimes brutally honest: And ask others to be honest with you. Feedback is a gift, as long as you use it for good. Don’t get bogged down in negativity but consider different perspectives.
10. Define and refine who your target audience is: Have a core set of followers you can count on to support you. This core of support is built over time through consistent engagement. P.S. It is OK to ask these followers to LIKE, COMMENT or REPOST your content when it really counts.
11. Lift others up: We are all part of the regional/national professional treasury and finance community. In addition to posting your own original content, support others in their efforts as they embark on their own influencer journey. This will go a long way in reciprocity “currency” and tangibly building those very macros that cement you as an influencer.

Want to learn more? Join us at AFP 2023 for our session “So, You Want to Be a Treasury or Finance Social Media Influencer?” See you in San Diego!

Check out the full lineup of AFP 2023 sessions on the Session Explorer.