2-Minute Tip: Make Eye Contact

 

Making eye contact with your audience is a great way to show them that you care and are interested in their success. It's much more effective than looking down and a script or shuffling note cards around.

 

Bonus Tip: Watch the Air Quality

 

Before you go someplace to speak, check the air quality in the city. A simple web search should bring up the latest data. For example, the air quality in Seattle right now is 153. That's unhealthy. Good air quality is between 0 and 50. In our case, it's because of forest fires throughout the US and Canada.

 

This means speakers who spend a lot of time outdoors may have problems with the throat. A speaker may find themselves sneezing a lot more or generally stuffed up. We may fatigue more. Our lung capacity may seem lower because we're inhaling so much more than just air.

 

Plan for local air quality. That may mean you bring more tissues or lozenges. You should probably drink more water. Consider wearing a mask while out and about. Reduce your exposure to outside air.

 

In general, protect your voice.

 

Post Tip Discussion: Meet Louise Brogan

 

Louise Brogan (Social Bee) is a social media consultant and trainer, who teaches entrepreneurs and established companies and organizations to market their business online. Louise's aim is to explain how to do things online in a simple, straightforward way.

 

Louise has been working with organizations and small businesses for over five years. In 2017, Louise was listed in the Small Business Saturday Top 100 Small Businesses in the UK, and in March 2018, Louise was awarded Top 50 Small Business Advisors in the UK by Enterprise Nation

 

As you would expect, our discussion focused on the intersection of public speaking and social media.

 

There were a number of key lessons I found in this episode.

 

1. Reach out to local councils, governmental organizations, or Chambers of Commerce about speaking opportunities they may have available. Some of these gigs may or may not be paid, but they can be great for lead generation.
2. Use LinkedIn to make sure your professional network knows you're a speaker. It's a great tool for finding those opportunities.
3. As a business, focus on only 1 or 2 social media platforms where your customers are most likely to be and are most likely in their customer mindset.
4. Speaking because you have the fire for it is great, but there's also tremendous value in it if you don't like speaking for speaking's sake.
5. Social media for business is profoundly different from social media for personal use.

 

Relevant Links

 

Louise on the web

https://socialbeeni.com

Louise on Twitter

https://twitter.com/socialbeeni

Louise on Instagram

https://instagram.com/socialbeeni

Louise Brogan on LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/louisebrogan/

The Social Bee podcast

https://socialbeeni.com/category/podcast/

The Social Bee Podcast on iTunes

https://itunes.apple.com/mn/podcast/the-social-bee-podcast/id1294334198

The Social Beehive on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/groups/socialbeeni

The Social Bee on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6EDuPVWHu8OM0z0x777bMw

 

Call to Action

 

• What are your thoughts on speaking and social media? Let us know in the comments below.
• Be sure to subscribe for free to the Social Bee Podcast, and, of course 2-Minute Talk Tips in your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode.
• Does someone you know run social media for their small business? Send them this link: http://2minutetalktips.com/socialbeeni, and ask what they think about it.
• Make eye contact with your audience
• Don't get best…get better.