You know you need to calm your nerves, practice your delivery and perfect your content. But you also need to think beyond the stage in both space and time: How can you reach more people beyond those sitting in the room as you deliver your talk live?
As a TEDx speaker curator and coach, as well as the founder of a PR firm that places speakers at their target events, I’ve helped clients get the most out of their speaking sessions. Here are my top five tips for capitalizing on your speaking opportunities:
1. Start early. A month before the big event, share a blog or LinkedIn post teasing it, and follow up with weekly social media posts about where you’ll be speaking and when. If you have them, share discount codes with your audience to get supporters and friendly faces there. Follow the hashtag of the event and engage in the conversation.
2. Livestream your talk. If you can get permission from the organizers, hire techs to run the cameras and ensure the Wi-Fi can handle it, an investment in livestreaming can pay off. At one event where we placed speakers, 450 people heard the presentation in the room, but within 24 hours after livestreaming, it had 10,000-plus views online. That’s like getting booked to a room almost 25 times the size! Also, you can have that footage forever to use for social media and when applying for other speaking opportunities.
3. Be social on the day of the event. Many conference attendees are on the fence about which sessions to attend, and seeing your live tweets from the event might just tip them toward yours. You can preload some tweets and posts using services like Buffer, teasing your message and what people will miss if they’re not there. Plan to post pictures you take that day. In addition, have a friend post pictures as the session is happening and just after the session with your co-presenters.
4. Organize a post-session meetup. This could be as casual as letting session attendees know you will be in the lobby after your session, or as official as a meetup with a Facebook Event page. Either way, people will likely want to connect with you and ask you more questions. Some people are too shy to ask questions in front of the entire audience, and other times the Q&A session is just too short to get to everyone. If you have a meetup, coffee break or cocktail hour planned, you can bring together people who are interested in your expertise. Who knows whom you might connect with?
5. Give and get follow-up info. Invite the crowd to opt-in during your session so you can collect their information with the promise of sharing handouts, slides or something else of value later. Turn your session into a follow-up post that’s tagged with the conference hashtag. You could write about the most fascinating things you learned at the conference, the questions you were asked and answers you gave, or simply repost media from the event.
You’re going to work hard on your content and delivery. Don’t let it go to waste by forgetting to spread it far and wide by thinking outside the room.
