Do It! Marketing Blog: Marketing for Smart People™

As a speaker marketing expert, and professional speaker myself, I feel it's important not to OVER-emphasize social media... and also not to UNDER-emphasize it either. 

As John Jantsch likes to say, "social media is a tactic, not a religion" and I have to agree. Here are 10 social media tips for professional speakers that will help you balance your mix...

1. YouTube One Of Your Speeches – The best form of advertisement when it comes to professional speaking is showing your abilities online. When people have seen your electrifying speeches, they will be more likely to want to book you. Adding in a small link to your site during your Youtube video also will bring traffic to your website. Adding your Youtube video to your website will also get buyers more confident in your skills. After all, with many decision-makers and meeting planners, even the most eloquent writing will mean nothing to them if they cannot watch you in action. Try and get video in front of a high-octane audience. The more excited the audience is, the more dynamic your video will be.
2. Post Blogs On Related Subjects – If you are a professional speaker who makes a living from leadership speeches, having a blog that offers daily leadership tips will get more targeted leads to your site. Moreover, having extremely good leadership information and articles will also get people spreading the word about your site. There are plenty of authors out there who were able to sell books through their blogs; why should you be any different? As a general rule of thumb, the more content that you generate, the better your marketing results will be.
3. Podcasts Are Your Best Friend – Audio recordings of some of your shorter speeches or "snippets" are a great way to advertise your expertise. Including these in a feed will keep fans and customers updated on your latest work, and also will help spread the word about your speaking abilities. Even better, selling audio programs on your site might just make you a little money. Remember to add a little audio blurb in each audio program telling your audience how to book you for their next event!
4. Link It All Together – On each of your social media profiles, add your website link, your blog link, and upload some videos, photos, and audio recordings if possible. Making yourself as accessible as possible will let people know that you are serious and open for new business. People also will enjoy the convenience of having everything linked together in an easy-to-access way no matter where they may land in your web empire.
5. Get As Much Social Bookmarking As Possible – Got videos online? Get them ‘liked’ on Facebook. Encourage your audience to Tweet links to your website, blog, or show pages. Whenever possible, install as many social bookmarking tools as possible, and try to use all of them (Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon). The more that you can get people to share with ease, the more your expertise will spread.
6. Twitter Is Great – Tweeting your updates is an easy way to keep people informed about your latest thoughts, insights, and audiences. However, the best way that you can use Twitter is to engage your fans and prospective clients. Being able to chat with you via Twitter will show people that you are still a real person, and that your fans/followers matter to you!
7. LinkedIn Is Best For Corporate Speakers – LinkedIn has long been known to attract professionals in just about every field. For business speakers, it’s a smart move to put your biggest social media efforts into LinkedIn. Then take those relationships offline - perhaps even networking with local managers in your area to get you some steady gigs as their favorite professional speaker.
8. Keep It All Short N’ Sweet N’ To The Point – No matter what social media tool you are using, make sure to be direct and impactful in your communications. No one is going to read a page and a half of advertising. No one is going to show up at one of your events if you forget to give the date and time. Expect people to have short attention spans.
9. Use Each Form Of Social Media To Strengthen the Others – For instance, using Twitter to get more Facebook likes will give your Facebook advertising more power. People who have friends on Facebook will see your ad, and then ‘like’ it themselves. Getting people to post your YouTube videos on their walls will make your YouTube marketing efforts more successful.
10. Search Engine Optimize Your Blog – If your blog gets picked up by search engines like Google, using your social media tools to market yourself will be easier. The best part of using SEO to increase your hits is that you can often do it yourself combining titles, tags, and key words into some simple strategies to greatly improve your organic web traffic. 

Guest column by Jerry Minchey, SearchEngineU

There are a lot of ways to get incoming links, such as:

• Get listed by the directories.
• Write articles for ezines and newsletters.
• Provide useful content so people will link to you without you asking.
• And the technique we are going to talk about today . . . Ask other sites to link to you. I'll go into the other techniques in another article.

Sample Link Request email message

Create personalized custom letters and send them manually one at a time. (My comments are in parentheses. The actual lettler is the text outside the parentheses.)

Subject: Link request (Look at their website and see if they request a special subject line when requesting links.) (Start of actual email message text:)

From: Jerry Minchey at http://www.SearchEngineu.com Personal email address: JMinchey@xxxxxx.com (This tells them that this is NOT spam. Spammers don't leave their email address.)

Cell phone: (Use a cell phone or a number where you can almost always be reached. If they want to talk to you, they may only try one time.)

Dear Jim, (Take the time to find the site owners name)

I found the information on your site at http://www.YourSite.com to be informative and professional, particularly the section on (fill in something to show that you have actually visited the site).

I think your visitors would all appreciate help getting their websites ranked higher on Google and other search engines. We are a subscription website, but we offer a ton of useful search engine optimization information to non-subscribers as well. (Show them an advantage to having your link on their site.)

I would like to request a link to our Home page at http://www.SearchEngineU.com from (Describe their page you want a link from. Home page, main product page, etc.) at http://www.yourSite.com/resources.htm. (List the URL of their page you want to be linked from. Maybe give them two suggested pages. Find two on-topic pages that have a reasonably high Google PageRank if possible. Of course, their Home page is always nice, but their Resources page may be where all of their other links are from.)

You can link to us by downloading our logo and code from: http://www.searchengineu.com/public/department25.cfm or just creating your own code. (You should have a “Link to Us” page with simple step-by-step instructions on your website showing people how to link to your site. Refer to it here.)

I have subscribed to your newsletter and look forward to receiving it. (That is, if they have one. This shows that you have looked at their site and find it of value. Stroke their ego.)

(And if you are proposing a reciprocal link arrangement, include the following statement:)

I have already added a link to your site. You can see it at: http://www.searchengineu.com/public/department25.cfm

I think the visitors to your site will appreciate your help in providing this valuable resource for them and of course, it will be greatly appreciated by me.

If you can provide the link, an email to confirm it would be appreciated.

Please let me know if you have any questions. I can be reached by email at JMinchey@xxxxxx.com or call me anytime on my cell phone at xxx-xxx-xxxx.

Thanks for your consideration, Jim. (End any request with the person's name. It works much better than starting the sentence with their name.)

Sincerely,

Jerry Minchey

P.S.Remember, adding this link to your website will take you less than two minutes. And your thoughtfullness in adding this valuable resource of additional information will be greatly appreciated by your visitors.

(Always add a P.S. to your email message restating what it is you want and why they should take the time to do. They may just scan your email message, but they WILL read the P.S.)

Click here if you want to see more articles on Search Engine Optimization Techniques.