Imagine Your Reality

In a recent post, Jeremiah Owyang discussed the necessity of integrating social media into Professional speaking, citing that monitoring the social media streams of information was as important as focusing on the in-person audience. He even suggested that professional speaker should expect to have a clicker in the one hand (to advance slides) and a cell-phone in the other to monitor the social media. I’m going to be devil’s advocate and disagree with him somewhat.

I don’t think monitoring social media whilst doing a speech is as important as focusing on the real-time audience. I think it can be a component of monitoring audience reactions, but even in those cases, it should just be a complement to what the person is already doing in terms of monitoring and responding to audience reaction. In fact, what we need to remember, in this particular case, is that social media is a tool, used to monitor conversation. However it should not become such a focus that the presenter is spending more time on it and less time on presenting a good speech.

Here’s another point to remember. No amount of monitoring the conversation will decrease the reality of a bad or unprepared speech or presentation. And if that’s what you’ve delivered, trying to respond to all the tweets will take up too much time. A better avenue would simply be to do your best to prepare a good and relevant presentation, which means that you need to spend time doing the necessary prep work and research.

The other reality is, you’ll never please everyone or answer every question to every one’s satisfaction. There will always be one or two people who will feel that what you presented wasn’t what they thought it would be. If the majority of your audience likes your presentation then you’ve done it right.

If you want to incorporate social media into your professional speaking (and I agree with Jeremiah that this will become more and more important to do), I’d suggest NOT using your cell-phone. If you do, you’ll be constantly looking at it and getting distracted, when you should be focusing on the audience in front of you. Instead have a laptop setup at an angle where you can see it, but it’s a bit to the side. Or two laptops, one for the presentation (if you’re using powerpoint), and one for your social media monitoring. While you are speaking, occasionally glance over at the screen and quickly skim over what’s being tweeted and then either answer questions from the tweets, or continue with your presentation, but adjust as needed to help you stay on top of your presentation.

Most importantly stay focused on the people in front of you. They want you to engage with them, and yes social media is one way to engage people, but in our enthusiasm to embrace social media, we mustn’t forget that it’s equally important to engage people in-person as well…and when you’re presenting a talk, people do want that in-person engagement. Monitor the social media stream to help with your presentation, but keep it to a minimum. your main goal, afterall is to present your talk and you need to stay focused on doing that, instead of splitting it, by worrying too much about how people will or won’t react.

Michael Szul, owner of Overmortal Technologies and I chatted for a while last night about social media. Today he sent me a blog post he wrote about our conversation and what he got out of it.

There’s a couple of interesting blog posts about social media out there today:

What about the in of social media

and Jeremiah Owyang’s commentary on how media brands are building their own social networks.

Social media is about an exchange of information, on one level, and on another level is a relationship building activity. Both of the above mentioned blog entries focus on this subject from different angles.

The first blog post discusses the need to invite the conversation to come in. Reach out and communicate, but also be prepared for feedback, and for letting the people you connect with into your circle. It’s quite true and important to let people into your circle, as well as reaching out. In fact if you only ever focus on trying to reach as many people as possible, but don’t necessarily invite them to really get to know you, it can be very hard to really connect in a meaningful way. It instead becomes a superficial method of touching people.

The other blog post is discussing how some companies are starting to create specialized social media sites as ways of further branding what they do, while also reaching out to the online community overall. It’s a novel idea, but also a further commercialization of social media for corporate purposes. At the same time, having specialized branded social media sites could in fact invite the depth of conversation I mentioned above, though not necessarily in as open a forum as regular social media sites offer.

My take on all of this is that what we’re seeing is the continued evolution of social media. It’s not just about reaching out, but also creating relationships where we get to know each other, so it’s not just selling the brand, but also dealing with the criticisms of that brand. And branded social media sites are essentially inviting that kind of depth of conversation in, while also continuing to advertise the brand, in an effort to sell it. What social media users need to decide is if that will create a genuine relationship, or just be more of trying to reach out, without actually engaging the social media users.

On Web Strategist Jeremiah Owyang’s blog, he had a blog post about monetizing blogs and whether it was more important to create a relationship based presence or to monetize the blog for monetary returns, and ecommerce. There were some interesting arguments from both sides.

My own approach is to take a mixed strategy. I think it’s important to offer quality content and create strong relationships with my readers, but I also believe that enabling monetization offers another stream of income, which can be useful for building a sustainable business. At the same time, I don’t the blog should be given over to ads and promotions so heavily that people only see that.

If you’re going to monetize your blog, keep the following in mind:

You still need to provide quality content that will make people want to read your blog. Put simply, engage your reader with interesting material and information that will keep them wanting to come back.

Be sensible with your ads. It’s true that you can have ads put on your rss feeds, your actual blog, etc. Give some careful thought to what strategies you want to use for monetizing your blog. Right now, for instance I’m trying monetization via a google search bar, but i’ll probably incorporates ads as well.

Remember that at the end of the day your blog is a blog, not an advertising page. People don’t want to just read advertisements and if that’s all they feel they’ll get from coming to your blog, eventually they won’t read it.

I’m still figuring out just how much I want to incorporate monetization into my blogs. I do agree with Owyang that building quality relationships is likely the best way to go to develop business, so that influences my own monetization strategies.

What are your thoughts on this subject? Please leave a comment.

At one of the social media events in PDX, Jeremiah Owyang, was asked to comment on a blog journal titled, “Is Twitter a waste of time for small business?” The original poster had come to the conclusion that it was, but Jeremiah made an excellent point that if your audience is on twitter, it isn’t a waste of time. As someone who is a small business owner, as well as focusing on teaching social media to other people, I thought I’d put my own response to that question, but frame it within the wider context of social media.

The fact is, social media is here to stay. It’s not going anywhere, and in fact social media sites are seeing increasing numbers as people join. Ignoring it or pretending it doesn’t exist doesn’t work. Saying that it’s a waste of time is the kind of thinking which looks toward trying to quantify social media as a way of finding ROI.

Certainly social media can and does contribute to the success of businesses. But something I’ve noticed missing from a lot of the analysis being focused on social media is the lack of understanding about the networking component of social media. Networking is about building relationships and ideally that’s what occurs in the social networking aspect of social media. We build relationships. We learn about each other, our wants, needs, etc. And then we help each other out. And from that you can grow a business, but you’ve got to realize you are building relationships with people. Without that relationship factor, social media marketing won’t be successful, because it’s driven by the consumer, by the buzz that people generate and to get that buzz you’ve got to engage people in a meaningful manner.

This is why a lot of the marketing efforts where people ceaselessly spam others with their latest products and services and ways to get thousands of followers is starting to backfire. They aren’t engaging the people they spam in a meaningful way that will make those people want to know more. Instead what they are really doing is striving so hard to get an ROI that they appear as the carpetbaggers and snake oil salespeople they really are.

Social media isn’t a waste of time, but how YOU approach it could be. If you’re only going into social media to make a quick buck and get rich, then you may be disappointed when you find out that people care more about the relationships they create than about the products and services you try to shill out. Check out this link for An excellent example of social media at work bringing in business It shows that businesses can succeed at social media when it focuses on engaging those people and building relationships!

That’s pretty powerful, and it’s based on a qualitative approach to social media…building quality relationships over quantitative relationships.

Upcoming Events

Why do I need Social Networking for my Business? Yes, you can do it less than one hour a week.

Social networking is a hot topic in businesses today. Many of us are not sure how it helps grow our business or acquire new clients or where we will have the time to add one more thing to our hectic lives. However, one thing is for sure, if we don’t come and find out, we will never have answers to these questions.

In this program, Taylor Ellwood will explain what social networking is, why it’s important to be on these sites, and how it can benefit you and your business. He will explain how to automate your social networking presence so you only need to spend one hour a week and still have time to run your business and live your life. In this class you will learn:

• What Linkedin, Facebook, Biznik, Twitter are and why it’s important to be on these sites or some of them.
• How to get clients and business from these sites.
• How to automate your online presence so are spending minimum time and effort, yet getting maximum returns.
• What a status bar is and why it’s a good idea to update it regularly.
• How these sites can be used to obtain recommendations and testimonials from your clients.
• The do’s and don’ts of Social networking and how to maintain a professional profile on each site.

Taylor will not only explain, but also demonstrate the benefits of social networks, and show you how you can attract more clients to your business.

Date: Friday, August 7 2009

Time: 11:30pm to 2pm

Price: $35.00 per person, Lunch included

Location: 607 Main Street Suite 240, Oregon City, 97045

To register please RSVP with Diane Dahlins. Check and credit cards only please, when rsvping.

Are you networking effectively? How to turn your natural network into your referral team

Networking isn’t just about online social networking sites such as twitter and linkedin. And it doesn’t just involve going to a chamber meeting or other type of in-person networking event. Networking involves learning how to create relationships with all the people you know, so that you can help all of them, even as they help you. In this workshop, I’ll discuss how you can take your natural network of friends and family and interests and mesh them in with your network of business associates. By the end of this class, you’ll get started on turning your network into a lean, mean referral machine!

In this class you will learn:

• What networking is and the do’s and don’ts of networking.
• How to recognize a networking opportunity in everyday interactions.
• How to mesh your natural network with your business network and have everyone benefiting from it.
• How to listen and make connections between the people who need something, and the people who can help them.
• Know who to refer to what job
• You’ll get a free e-book when you register for this class on the Eleven Elements of Business

Date: Thursday, August 6 2009

Time: Noon to 2pm

Price: $35

Location: Bravo! Publications 630 B Avenue Lake Oswego OR 97034

To register please rsvp with Taylor Ellwood at Imagineyourreality or register via paypal

Checks or paypal only please

Teleseminar: What are your Businesses’s Strengths and Weaknesses?

Do you know what your strengths and weaknesses are for your Business? In this one hour teleseminar, I’ll provide you an assessment tool you can use to assess where your business is strong and where it is weak. You will come away with increased clarity about what’s working in your business and what isn’t, as well as with a plan of action to remedy the weaknesses and capitalize on your strengths. You will learn the following:

• Why it’s important to check your business plan every 3 months, and how it can help you improve your business
• How to assess your business model and determine what your strengths and weaknesses are
• Action steps you can take to make your business successful

3pm to 4pm (PST time), 6pm to 7pm (EST Time) on August 10th and 17th

Cost $20, and you get a free e-book on social media marketing when you register

To register, email me at Imagineyourreality or via paypal