So you are a professional speaker – perhaps you are even a member of a professional speaking association.
You get invites to be a guest on a webinar or a live stream and it is a great opportunity to promote your expertise in the interview and even your latest book.
You have the opportunity to share your website and social networks so people can contact you and then you wonder why no one followed up with you after the event even though it was attended by lots of people?
I look at thousands of websites a year in the course of my work and as a professional speaker myself (plus having interviewed hundreds of experts online through webinars, virtual summits, podcasts and live videos), I also connect with other professional speakers.
What astounds me is that there are some speakers who pay little attention to the impact they have through their digital presence that could therefore be impacting their online reputation and turning people off taking the next steps to work with them.
Are you confident you are avoiding these five mistakes some professional speakers are making on their website and social media channels Click To TweetLet me give you the example of one person I saw speak recently on a live stream interview. They shared that they were a speaker in the early days of web marketing and had even written a book about the Internet almost 20 year ago.
So you might expect their digital presence to be ‘top notch’ as they have been an authority in the topic of online marketing.
Here are five mistakes they are making with their digital marketing – I am sharing these to give you some things you can audit and check for on your own site:
- One of the websites that the professional speaker promoted was last updated in 2012 – you can see the date of the posts on the site. In today’s fast moving world, that is the equivalent of last century! The content may still be relevant, but in the minds eye of the visitor to the website, it leaves them with a doubt that the content will still be relevant at the end of 2016
- The video on the home page of the professional speakers website was from 2008 – it may be a video that shows they had been able to speak at a major event. However the visitor to the website may wonder why there is a lack of more recent video content especially as video is a great way for professional speakers to present their expertise?
- The home page of their main website still has icons that show it is a template website – see the screen shot below. Does this instill confidence that the speaker has an attention to detail?
- Turning to Twitter, the speaker is using a free app to say thank you to people for following – it takes little time to say thank you to people and connect with a personalised message. Instead we see a Twitter account filled with automated replies and little content that reflects the speakers expertise
- Regarding Facebook, you can see that the posts are being automated and posted to Twitter in the image below. There are a number of ways this can be done if you feel it is essential – though this is not a practice I recommend if you truly want to optimise your use of social media for leads and sales. However the way this speaker has implemented it, the image and the content of the Facebook post do not appear. So they are flooding their Twitter account with content that is purely a link to Facebook – why on earth would people click that link?
I know that digital marketing takes time. It’s hard to keep everything up to date especially if you are managing everything yourself as a professional speaker and have a small business to run at the same time.
But this is what you can do to boost your personal brand online. The next time you are invited to speak on a webinar, live video or at a virtual summit, take the time to review the sites that you are referring people to. If you do a great job delivering wonderful content on the virtual platform, don’t you deserve to get people follow up and connect with you?
Don’t let yourself down by failing to check that the platforms you direct people to serve you well. What small changes could you make that enhance rather than detract from your online presence. Yes we can go on and talk about landing pages and email data bases, chat apps and online meeting tools – there are many ways you can use integrated into your online presence to increase the chance you get that follow up email or phone call after your virtual speaking event.
But let’s get the basics right to start with.
If you are a professional speaker and want to make sure your online presence supports your speaking career but are unclear what to do first, or you are organising a virtual event and need a speaker to talk about these important issues including preparing your speakers for their time on camera, you can schedule a private meeting with for a FREE consultation here.
