As a speaker you need to be everywhere, all the time. It’s better to be visible in your community.
Contribute, be found, be followed.
How do you inspire people to follow you? It may sound counter-intuitive, but you inspire people to follow you by following the things they care about.
The easy way to do that, follow the conferences and event planners that work with your niche community. Then you get twice the bang for your time investment.
It’s like doing the homework to make sure you’re on top of your niche.
Get in Front of Your Niche Audience to Get Booked
Take a half hour a week to find new event resources in the community you serve. Find and follow the event host’s twitter feeds — many businesses use a service to follow their followers.
When they post something of interest to your niche, retweet it. If you have something of value to add to a conversation, add it.
This it will provide amazing results and help you get found and booked.
This method works across many social platforms, but it’s especially effective with Twitter because it’s so easy for them to see who retweeted their posts.
Become something of a fan of what they do, and be active so they will notice you.
Do Your Homework
Before you begin, create a spreadsheet (by whatever method works for you; I use Google spreadsheets because I can access them anywhere) of associations or organizations you want to speak at. You can continue to expand on this list every week.
- In the first 2 columns put the organization or event’s name, and in the next column put their website address.
- Now visit their website and/or conference page and find the organizer’s name. Put that in your spreadsheet in the third column.
- Once you have the organizer name and conference name, find the conference and organizer on Twitter — they may have a link readily handy, or you can go to Twitter search and try to find them. If there’s a #hashtag suggested for the event or conference, add the relevant links to your spreadsheet. It will make it easier to find them later.
- Next check their Twitter feed(s). How active is this account on Twitter? How frequently do they post? If they’re an active user, it’s time to start a conversation and build a relationship. (If they’re not active, you may want to move their information to another spreadsheet or page of the spreadsheet to follow on different networks like Facebook or just on their blog.)
- Scroll through their tweets. Like and share any that are relevant. Be so visible — without crossing the line into stalker — that they can’t help but take notice that you are sharing and commenting on their tweets. Be nice about this part: you don’t want to seem obnoxious or shallow.
- Comment on their tweets. You should be contributing to the conversation with real un-rushed comments on their tweets, not just say “Good post” or “Nice one!” You need to step it up and stand out and that won’t cut it.
- When they tweet about a new blog post go to their website and read it, or if they shared a post from someone else, go read it. Then go back to their tweet and make a targeted comment about that blog post. Also, share their posts if they’re relevant to your audience.
Repeat the above steps every week, adding 3 new organizations or associations to your list each week.
Using these methods will show you care and you are interested.
You will start to stand out and start conversations. Conversation leads to relationships and relationships lead to opportunities.
A couple Do-Nots
- Don’t pitch yourself — that’s an instant block or strike against you.
- Don’t direct message (DM) them unless they reach out to you first.
- Don’t be over-zealous. This is a case where less is more, but none at all is too little. Like, share and comment but be careful about your interest being annoying or transparent. Find the balance. If your interest is genuine, they’ll pick up on it. If you’re just in it to book an event, you may mess it up.
The door is wide open and if you can commit a half hour a week to doing this, your hard work will pay off.
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