Turn your speaking opportunities into content

Have you ever got involved with a project simply because it felt good to do it? Well this is where I find myself. Before I left my 9-5, I had been involved with businesses across the East Midlands and one of my favourite business people had been involved in setting up DerbySwapShop, was about to launch the LeicsSwapShop and was looking for business champions in the Leicestershire area to help support it. As a new business, I jumped at the opportunity as, although it was going to incur a fair amount of time, I thought I’d meet a lot of new people through it too. What I hadn’t really thought about was the other opportunities that would come through it.

Volunteering can lead to so much more

Before the launch, I had offered to run the social media for LeicsSwapShop and after sending out a press release, I also got the opportunity to speak about the initiative on BBC Radio Leicester. Have you ever got in the broadcast media with your business? Not only did I get to speak about LeicsSwapShop but they asked me what I did and gave a little plug to Moss Social too - I was so excited I had to take to my social platforms to tell everyone! 

I’d recently been given a great tip from a colleague of how to use the screen record on my iphone so, rather than sending the link to the program and having to say the relevant bit starts XX minutes XX seconds into the show, you can simply record the section and post it on social media. Using this format means if the BBC Sounds app is no longer giving access to the recording, you haven’t got a link that goes nowhere. It’s great to tag in the radio show and thank them in your post - you never know, they may share it, or perhaps like it. Plus, no links in your social media posts, which keeps facebook, instagram and LinkedIn happy!

The little black book

Once you go on broadcast media, there are likely to be other opportunities - did you know they keep a little “black book” of specialists in different sectors so that they have “experts” to call when they come up with new segments and ideas for their show, saving them from having to research each time?

I actually had another call only 3 weeks later to ask my thoughts on google search and content marketing - so who knows where that press release about your business may take you? Any time you get some press attention, you must use it in your social media, because your followers may not have caught the original piece, so share it to your heart's content. Don’t worry about feeling repetitive and that you might be boring people; many of your followers won’t get to see every post you’ve done and it makes great content :) 

LeicsSwapShop has given me another opportunity, this time to present on it at a networking group. I still get a little nervous about presenting - I’ve done it again and again but I still get those butterflies before I start - does that happen to you? 

I found it helpful that I was talking about an initiative I felt really passionate about, as I can see it has the potential to make a difference to so many people. This time, I didn’t know many of the audience - I’m not sure why that makes it easier - possibly because you feel you might not see them again so does it matter if you make a mistake?? 

Social media content creation

All these activities give you content to use in your social media calendar - naturally I was straight onto LinkedIn! My post not only encouraged my audience to sign up for swap shop, but I tagged others in the post, who had been at the event. It helps you connect on a better level if you include others along the way and helps them to remember you.

Do remember with LinkedIn it’s always better to comment on a post rather than share it. Unlike Facebook, instagram and twitter, where a share is brilliant for reach, a share on linkedIn dilutes the engagement. 

When you get some lovely likes or comments on your post - do you go ahead and connect with them? If not, why not? If someone has taken the first step to interact with you, go ahead and make them feel welcome in your world and say hello. Check out some of their posts and see where you can like and add a valuable comment that will help build that connection too.

Which platform is right for you?

Have you noticed that some networking events you attend, everyone shares their facebook and instagram handles and others it’s all linkedIn? You’ll start to figure out where your ideal customers are hanging out and it’ll give you a sense of where you’re best spending your social media marketing time. For example if you’re moving in the creative, personal development and coaching world you’ll be glued to instagram and facebook, whereas if you’re in the professional services world LinkedIn will most likely be your space. This enables you to be more strategic and focused about your marketing activities rather than “throwing spaghetti at the wall, and seeing what sticks” - I must find out who said that!

So have you been asked to get involved with a project just because it felt right? I’d love to know where it led to and what other opportunities opened up for you. I’ve since been asked to speak at another networking, on my own business this time, which may be more nerve-wracking than this last one!

Who’s for afternoon tea?

I’ve been thinking about what to say and I’m leaning towards more of a tutorial, as people love some practical tips don’t they? I know I love to come away from an event feeling I have some new tools to play with. 

I’ve recently been consuming content about new tricks on instagram and think that as it’s an afternoon tea networking (sadly virtual because I’m all about scones and clotted cream!) that might be the right audience for a little of that. 

I first got into learning about instagram stories from an online coach, Alex Beadon, you may know her? She has always been so clear about what you can achieve if you let your audience know what you’re doing in a creative way. There are some great hints and tips that I’m sure most of us don’t know about hidden away in the depths of the platform. I know how excited I was about learning some top tricks, so I feel that would be a positive talk especially if I could help others transform their business presence on instagram. 

Instagram top tips

Did you know there are 5 elements to instagram and to feature strongly in their algorithm, you really need to be active on all 5 of them? This makes instagram such a time-consuming platform to work on but can reap great rewards. 

If you’re on instagram already, you will have a presence on the feed, some accounts really go to town on this with some great coordinating efforts and make them appear rather beautiful. A lot of designers advise you to keep consistency by using the same fonts and possibly even the same filter for all your posts. I suggest if you’re selling a product or design is your business, then yes, your feed will be a reflection of that business. If you’re not it may be best to simply get your message out there and not be too hung up on perfectionism of design.

So have you tried stories yet? These are the posts that disappear after 24 hours, however, as long as you have a business account, they land in your archive so that you can reuse them at a later date or even highlight them on your page. This is where the magic is on instagram - the stories are the first thing your audience will see when they open up the app and if you can be consistent, your little circle will be one of the first they see :) There are so many incredible ways to decorate your story posts, from filters to colours of text - there’s a whole rainbow to choose from, not simply the circles at the bottom. There’s a range of new fonts, with or without a background. You have gifs and even engagement stickers to increase the likelihood of your audience engaging with you. Once someone engages with your story, their response lands in your direct messages (DMs) - you then get the opportunity to direct message them back - this includes the option to send them a clickable link to your website or landing page. If you have less than 10,000 followers you will know the frustration of not being able to use a clickable link, so this is a great work around. Did you know you can send them a voice message too? This is such a great way of building that relationship on a more personal level.

The third element is instagramTV (IGTV) - have you tried it yet? If you’ve tried video on stories, you’ll know that you only have 15 seconds for each story and the most video you can load in one go is 60 seconds worth, so the IGTV option allows you to post anything over 1 minute long up to 10 minutes long - like a mini version of YouTube! You’re back in the square format remember, not the 9:16 ratio that IG stories requires. These have longevity as they sit on your feed as the short clip and transfer your audience into the “TV” mode for the rest of the clip. Remember IGTV videos still need a caption with hashtags and additionally, you have the option of creating a series, so if you have a theme of videos you’re thinking of creating, you can make them easier to find by collecting them under the same heading or “series”.

Instagram Reels is making its way into everyone’s accounts steadily. It’s Instagram’s answer to tiktok, so if you like the Instagram platform, you’re likely going to prefer to stay with this than jump over to learn yet another platform. Or, if you’ve already been active on tiktok, you’ll find this one easy to get used to. It similar to stories in that the maximum clip length is 15 seconds and you have to record and edit directly in the Reels section of the app rather than loading up a piece of video you’ve already recorded. So you record, edit, then if you have some of your 15 seconds left you can record some more etc. until you have filled your 15 seconds. I’d advise you save the video you have created to your camera roll before publishing it, then you can use it on other platforms too.

And last but not least, we have the “live” option. Many of us forget about this element, but just like facebook live, it can drive great engagement and improve your rankings in the instagram algorithm.

In future blogs I’ll go into these elements in more detail but have a play with some of the features and let me know whether you’ve found any of these pointers helpful by leaving a comment below.

And if you’d like to know more about LeicsSwapShop, check out my social accounts for links.