Social Media for Speakers

I’ve got a confession for you this AM. I’ve been a bit quiet; haven’t posted to the blog much – and there’s a reason.

I take pride in being a mentor to you in all of this “new media” stuff, like online video, social media, podcasting etc. I’ve spent years advancing the cause of product development and distribution for speakers.

With the world being shifted by Social Media, I want to shine a light on the most direct path for you to walk to attract the niche market audience you need to grow a big business whether or not you are actually getting lots of engagments.

So after months of building nearly 3000 friends on Facebook, attracting almost 900 speakers in to my Speakers Passive Profits group on Facebook and then attracting thousands of followers on Twitter – there wasn’t much going on. I had not yet “cracked the code”. I did not fully understand the value this media offered me.

So as any good mentor will do, I started seeking mentors of my own. And boy have I learned alot. Now I’m ready to share that with you, the public speakers that I serve.

I interviewed Social Media Maven Michelle Price to create a bonus CD for my Passive Income Avalanche system which was released this month. In one hour I learned so much.

An article that helped me to understand was this one from @randy_gage who started discussing the “7 Twitter Critters you don’t want to be”.

Listening in on a Blog Talk Radio program with my friend @warrenwhitlock gave me another bit of clarity.

Now I am ready to start sharing some of the big lessons with you. Here’s my top 5 tips for what you need to know to attain success as a speaker using status updates through Twitter.

1) Be yourself. Who on earth could you be anyway? There is no one like you, so be you. This means you’ll want to write a bio/profile that people understand. It’s ok to talk about you dog and your kids, we all have them and might just relate to you more when we learn that you’re human too. Oh, and in the bio — skip the acronyms and designations (like CSP. ME, CPAE, etc). Most of us don’t know what that means – the rest of us don’t care.

2) Offer up real value. The info stream that is available to you on sites like this is just unbelievable. Add to it. It’s not interesting, helpful or endearing to anyone to hear about your sandwich today at lunch. Unless, as Warren Whitlock so aptly said recently, he was weaving that sandwich into a point that you could use. Very wise indeed.

So utilize your posts to a) tell me something that is useful or interesting  b) start a conversation with a follower or friend. If you are not sure what is useful to your community use tools like Search.twitter or Twitter Sheep. Then simply join (or lead) the conversation.

3) Use automation where possible. If you are posting on Twitter, you can (and should) have those posts automatically posted to your Facebook profile too. One easy tool to use is Ping.FM which will post your updates in up to 50 different places at once. Nice. And it works with alot of the mobile phones, Instant messaging tools and even email.

4) Invest time every day. (Well most days anyway). Look I’ll be the first to admit, Twitter by itself can be addicting. But to use it effectively all you need is 15-20 min day. Post links to a few things you think I may have missed and would be interested in, comment on something others have posted, share a quote, whatever. You’ll know that you are adding to the community when you start to see your name show up in the “retweetlist”.  With just a few minutes a day you can become known as a giver and as someone who I should pay attention to.

5) Go easy on the pitch. Never forget that if you are doing business online, that much like in the real world, people do business with people they like and trust. If you are constantly offering me something that you sell, like mass media advertisers do, I’m gonna tune you out (and unfollow you too).

Engage me, help me, show me you care about me. That’s a fast track to getting me to like you and trust you. When I do, I’m open to buy your information or possibly introduce you to my friends to buy from you too. That is the “real magic” of social media.

Now how is any of this going to get you more bookings? More engagements? It’s called positioning. You see, if you consistently share with me information about your industry and demonstrate yourself to be an expert, I might come to believe that you REALLY ARE an expert. And experts are and always will be in demand.

This is another reason why you must begin to increase the size of your product catalog, (my Passive Income Avalanche! system makes it so easy), but that’s a different topic for another post.

If you like this post – share it with a friend. And make sure you register for all of the free stuff I make available to visitors to my site. If you haven’t heard them yet, my 2 free audio trainings might be just what you need. Give them a listen and let me know what your thoughts are.

Related posts:

1. Social Media Marketing – my thoughts on Facebook
2. A Public Speaking Tip Regarding Social Media
3. Twitter – All Grown Up
4. To Tweet or Not to Tweet?
5. Speakers Marketing Questions (and some answers)

Tagged with: free public speaking tips • public speaking • public speaking business • Social Media • speaker marketing • speakers training • Speaking Tips

Filed under: Social Media • Speaking Tips

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