Corey Perlman, CSP (Certified Speaking Professional)

Oftentimes, the best learning and teaching moments come from within the room. In my experience as a speaker over the past decade, I’ve witnessed that the best takeaways come from creating an open space for conversations to begin. I will always bring my custom digital marketing ideas and social media best practices to the audience, but the main goal of any business or association conference is to bring together your people to collaborate and build a better business together. What I share sparks the productive and important conversations around marketing and online presence management that I hope, continue after our time together.

Be down with O.P.P. (Other People’s Posts!) Where are my 90s music fans out there? This is one of the most powerful ways to get more results from your efforts on social media. When we talk about engagement on social media, we often think about how to get more likes, comments, and shares with our OWN content. Engagement can be just as powerful a tool when applied to giving of attention to the content of OTHERS. By this, I simply mean liking, sharing, and comments. It’s the equivalent of a digital high-five to your connections, and will mean a great deal to them. Make it a priority to engage with the content of your customers, prospects, and those that can be a referral source for your business.

Don’t just talk about your products and services. Tell a digital story that includes many chapters that are all interesting and valuable to your audience - filling in those content gaps that you might have in the process. If I was to look at your social media are you: 1. Overpromting? 2. Sharing content from others without adding your own perpsective? 3. Only talking about yourself or your business? If you answered yes to any of the above then consider the following: 1. Focus on adding value, rather than trying to sell. 2. Be present on social by commenting and engaging with your audience. 3. Encourage your audience to take action by sharing testimonials, case studies, and other valuable information - get them talking instead of you ;)

Even if it’s short notice I still customize the best I can to reach the event planner and audience goals. Step 1: ALIGN - Ask the event planner what their main goal is. Step 2: EVALUATE - Who in your audience would be open to examples of best practices within their industry? Step 3: CUSTOMIZE - Reach out, review accounts and put together as much valuable information that I can in the time given. Step 4: LISTEN - Let the audience lead me to the solutions, they might even be right within the room and giving them the opportunity to share best practices and ideas with each other creates a great feeling of collaboration and company unity.

We spend so much of our time focusing on creating and putting out our very best content that we often miss golden opportunities to allow our customers to do the talking. Think about a time when you were going to make a purchase or buying decision that was important to you. Did you check the reviews? What did those reviews do for your confidence in that product or service? If we don’t have a process in place for requesting and receiving customer feedback either through using tools like social listening or social monitoring then we will miss the boat on addressing and catching common concerns/challenges our audiences might be facing.

Beware the Shiny Penny Syndrome - Don’t be a jack of all social media sites, master of none. When evaluating your goals stick to clear content ideas that you can perform consistently across the social media platform of your choosing. Know where the bulk of your business comes from. Specifically, whose attention you need to grab? Are they 30-40? Mostly women? Entrepreneurs? Once you’ve determined who your audience is and which platforms they frequent most, build your social strategy and goals around only those platforms and leave the rest of the “shiny penny’s” behind.