Help! I'm giving a talk. What should I say???

I'm speaking to 110 people on "Building Your Business Using Social Media" this Wednesday. The audience is mostly local business people involved in real estate, mortgages, home inspection and related businesses.

I feel good about my content (I'm stealing everything from Andy, Ben and Seth... jk)

But seriously - what 3 key questions would you ask them?

What 3 main practicals would you leave them with?

Any other tips to make a 20 minute presentation memorable?

Tags: localsearch, socialmedia

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Brad Bentz on June 13, 2008 at 4:03pm: One piece of advice I would offer these business people is to not view social media as just another channel to promote themselves or their businesses. The "social" aspect is critical, which means they should focus on communities where their interests and subject matter expertise will allow them to make valuable contributions to the conversations taking place around them.

Second, they should establish themselves as members of the community in good standing before they undertake any promotional efforts. There's not going to be an immediate payoff to getting involved in this medium, but the efforts will be worth it in the long run.

Third, if you can't use a medium well, you shouldn't use it at all. Since people have limited time to participate in social media, it follows that they should be selective about which sites they join and not spread themselves too thin. Being a regular and valued contributer to a handful of social sites is likely to generate more business than being an irregular, off-topic contributer to dozens of sites.

I'm probably preaching to the choir, but I hope this helps.

Regards,

Brad

P.S. I just realized I probably sent this message too late for your talk...Sorry I didn't see your post earlier.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Tim Tracey on June 17, 2008 at 2:24pm: Thanks, Brad. The talk went well - a lot of mortgage brokers, realtors and not-for-profits in the room.

It got their attention when I told them that their clients and neighbors were talking about the right now - and their only choice was to either ignore it or engage with it. I used a graphic showing the members of FB among alumni from my alma mater distributed by age.

Also, my illustration of the disconnect between their ad budget$ and their #1 referral source - i.e. WOM seemed to resonate.

- - Tim; ▶ Reply to This