Yesterday was a panel marathon in Columbus.
Sitting on panels for the central Ohio PRSA event, as well as an afternoon blitz at the Columbus Young Professionals Career Development Conference, was a totally worthwhile experience because both events, while very different in nature, were very well organized.
In terms of social media adoption, the contrast was interesting. Only the PRSA event used a Twitter hash tag and audience play-by-play commentary. I noticed two things that I thought were great ideas for any speaker, or even audience members who likes to tweet during events.
The simple question to answer: How can a presenter help the audience to tweet more of their content during a presentation?
Here are two ideas that came from watching the PRSA keynotes yesterday. If you speak at events or clubs, consider giving these ideas a try in your own talks.
Sexy Sound Bytes
Your audience is going to pay the most attention to things that take complex information and boil it down to a brief and memorable statement. Case in point: At yesterday's blogger relations event, PR guru Kevin Dugan made the following comment:
Social media is more like a 401K plan than a wining lottery ticket.
A comparable statement might look something like this:
Companies and PR professionals should approach using social media with long-term goals in mind, not just short-term gains.
Now, you be the judge. Which statement scores higher on the sexy meeter? Which would you be more inclined to retweet?
Going back to follow the tweet stream, I've been able to find 32 separate mentions or retweets of Kevin's quote. What's the take away here? Sexier sound bytes get noticed and spread. When you are speaking to a Twitter-friendly audience, it's worth the time and effort to be sexy.
Kevin said a whole mess of intelligent stuff during his talk. I had to leave early to get to another event, but I was able to get this clip of his take on some very bad pitches he's seen. Check it out:
Kevin Dugan on Bad PR Pitches at #coprsa from Nate Riggs on Vimeo. Video was shot on a Sprint HCT EVO 4G.
Create Tweetable Tips
One of the things that always challenges an audience using Twitter is how to distill a slide or complete thought into 140 characters. It's challenging for three reasons:
- Too much info. A typical presenter will talk for a few minutes on each slide
- What's important? How do you get the most important snippet from a slide or thought?
- Speed. Presenters have a lot to get though and tend to move fast. How does the tweeter keep up?
Aside from being a wonderful presenter, Heather Whaling did something in her deck that I thought was badass. She's found a way to encourage tweets of her content by making it easy for her audience to get the good stuff out. How? Put "Tweetable Tips" at the bottom of each of your slides that captures the most important information. You'll notice the inclusion of the event's hashtag in Heather's tips too. Well done!
Here's an example from Heather's presentation deck:
What About You?
These days, lots of us go to events where a Twitter hashtag is used top capture and broadcast the play-by-play. If you were speaking, or even tweeting from the seats, what would you do to make the event content easier to spread on Twitter?
