This post is one of a series written for those of you who’ve been asked to speak at a networking or other business event, and who are new to public speaking. This is the advice you need on how to make sure your presentation goes smoothly.
Help the Event Organiser to Help You
If you’ve been invited to give a presentation, you might assume that you can safely leave promotion of the event to the organiser. You could be wrong.
In the first post in this series, I recommended that your research include questions about how the event wil be promoted. So you should have been able to give the event organiser what they need.
But don’t leave it there. Make sure people that you care about know that you’re giving the talk. That may include your current and potential customers, your colleagues, your network of business contacts, your suppliers, and other event organisers – if you want an opportunity to speak elsewhere.
There are many ways in which you can publicise an event. Here are just a few that you could consider:
- Write about it on your blog. You can write about it beforehand, and again afterwards, where you can talk about the reaction of the audience.
- If the event organiser hasn’t already done so, create an event on LinkedIn. Include a link to the event’s website and to your own.
- Refer to the event in your status updates on LinkedIn, being sure to include a link to where people can get more information.
- Tweet about the event. Scheduling your tweets with a service like HootSuite or SocialOomph will mean that your tweets go out on time while you’re tied up with preparing for or giving the talk.
- Email your contacts. Be sure to say why you think it’s relevant to them. If you can’t, you’re just sending spam, so don’t.
- Phone organisers of similar events and ask them if the talk you’re giving would be of interest. They might come along to check you out.
In the end, you want a big audience, just like the event organiser, so doing your bit to market the event helps you both.
You’re almost there! All that remains is to give your speech. But making sure that things go well on the day means you need to think about a few other things too – and that’s what the next post in this series is about.
Review the whole Making the Most of Your Speaking Opportunity series: