I wrote a bit about this in the last post at The Viral Garden but the first social media event I ever spoke at was SXSW in 2008.

Think about that for a moment; Here I am, an introvert that hasn’t spoken in a public setting for 5 years previously, and I am making my social media speaking debut at the Super Bowl of ‘social media’ conferences. I was scared to death, and the funny thing is, if this had been a smaller event, I probably wouldn’t have gone through with it. But since it was SXSW it was ‘too big’ to ignore. I knew that being able to say I spoke at SXSW was too important to not have on my ‘speaking’ resume.

So I bit the bullet, and did it anyway. Now 2 years later, I have gone from being an introvert that’s scared to death of speaking publicly, to an introvert that actually LOVES it. For any introverts out there that want to start speaking, here’s what I learned to make me more comfortable with the process:

During the creation process:

1 – KNOW your material, do NOT memorize it. Extroverts are just naturally chatty people, right? They are more comfortable ad-libing and making ‘small talk’, it seems. I think we introverts want to more carefully plan out our presentations, so we know exactly what to say.

But the big problem with that approach is that we can come off VERY stiff, and look as if we are reciting to the audience. Nothing turns off an audience quicker than a speaker that’s disengaged.

So here’s what I do. When I have created a deck and am ready to start rehearsing my presentation, I will carefully script out my session, so I know exactly what I want to say, and when I want to say it. I’ll do this about 5 times so I have pretty much memorized the material, and the key points I want to make.

At this point, I throw the script away. And I keep rehearsing the presentation without it. I also break up the flow, if I have 5 points I have been rehearsing in order, I’ll now do them in a different order, just to force myself to break away from the script and actually TALK about the points I want to make, instead of reciting them. I’ll even be in the middle of rehearsing a point and will cut myself off as if someone asked a question, then after a minute or so I’ll try to remember where I was and go back.

In the end you want your presentation to be a conversation with the audience. You want to KNOW the material. Because something will ALWAYS happen to throw you off base. If you KNOW the material, you can get back on track, but if you don’t, then you’re in trouble.

2 – Tell stories. Everyone has case studies, and everyone has numbers that back up the points they are trying to make. Big deal. What you want to do is weave those case studies and numbers into a story. A story that is entertaining, but that also shows the attendees why and how Company X used social media, and gives them actionable takeaways for how they can take what Company X learned, and apply it to their own situation.

When you arrive at the event:

3 – Find the room where you will be presenting, and get a feel for the layout. Walk around the room. Make sure you know where everything is, where your laptop will be setup, where all the jacks are. Will you have a mic, will it be a clip-on or standalone? Walk around the room. Sit in some of the chairs and make sure the audience can see you from everywhere in the room. Simply familiarizing yourself with the room beforehand really helps, especially for an introverted soul 😉

And try to attend sessions in the SAME room before yours. This gives you a chance to see how other speakers do. Are there some problems with the audio/video? Watch how the audience reacts to the session and the speaker. What does the speaker do that gets their attention, what does she do that they don’t like? Incorporate what you learn into your own session and delivery.

4 – Attend any pre-show meetups/tweetups. Most conferences will have a tweetup/meetup the night before the event kicks off. This is an excellent chance for you to connect with speakers and attendees. Try to connect with the attendees, especially the ones that will be attending your session. If you meet someone that’s planning on attending, ask them what they are hoping to learn, and why they are interested in the topic. And this also gives you a way to incorporate that into your talk. Like “Now let’s talk about getting more comments on your blog. I was actually talking to Carla last nite in the lobby about her blog…:” Suddenly Carla and all her friends at her table will immediately perk up and pay attention (if they weren’t already).

5 – Get to your session at least 15 mins early, so you have time to setup everything. This gives you plenty of time to get the laptop connected, your deck ready to go, and make a last-second bathroom run. Also, make sure you have a glass of water on hand. You’re going to be talking for 30-90 mins probably, and if you’re like me, you WILL be nervous, so not having dry-mouth helps 😉

If you have any extra time before you start, what I like to do is walk around the room and introduce myself to some of the attendees and thank them for coming. Good way to connect with them, and increases the chances that they will pay attention during my session.

Oh and one extra tip, if you are SUPER nervous right before you are to speak, eat a couple of saltine crackers, it will help settle your stomach and calm down the butterflies.

During your presentation:

6 – Thank everyone for showing up and MEAN IT. When I spoke at #optsum a couple of months ago, I was a bit worried about the topic, which was Think Like a Rockstar: How to Build Fans and Community Around Your Social Media Efforts. I was afraid that it might not be what the audience (mostly property managers and apartment complex owners) was looking for, and was a bit worried about how well it would be received.

Somewhat to my shock, the session was literally standing room only, and we were still bringing in chairs to accommodate everyone 5 mins into the session. I was beyond grateful for the turnout, especially considering the caliber of the other speakers and sessions at that time slot, and made sure everyone knew how appreciative I was.

7 – Let the audience know exactly what’s coming. Tell them exactly what you will be talking about, the exact order of the talk, and tell them how they can get involved. Most sessions have a talk, then questions at the end. I generally encourage the audience to ask questions as they think of them, rather than waiting for them to wait till the end, when they might forget the question. But if you do this, you need to be mindful if the question-asking is cutting into presentation time. If you realize that after the 5th of 23 slides that you’ve just spent 10 mins answering questions, then you probably need to tell the audience that you need to move on at that point.

8 – Move around. At one of the first events I spoke at, the speakers were provided a podium up on stage, above the crowd, with lights shining down on them. No matter what they were talking about, having them chained to that podium having to stand in one spot behind a microphone made the session seem less interesting. The audience seemed less interested as well, I think the unintentional message that the format sent was ‘this is a lecture’.

When it came time for my talk, I told the organizer ‘You’ve got to mic me up, I can’t stay up there’. So I was the first speaker that didn’t present from a podium on stage. I was down eye-level with the audience, away from the lights, and interacting with the audience. The guy that was in charge of videotaping the sessions didn’t like it, but by simply being ‘ground-level’, the audience perked up. They paid attention, and that made them more engaged.

One thing I also like to do is get to the CENTER of the room. I’m sorry, but I just hate staying in front of a group for an hour. Chris Brogan had a great point one time about the difference between an audience and a community is the way the chairs face. I want to spend some time in the middle, interacting with people where they are.

9 – Realize that you WILL screw up, and likely no one will notice. Remember my first point about knowing your material, and not memorizing it? Here’s an example where I screwed that up. In preparing to moderate that first session at SXSW in 2008, I made a COMPLETE script of what I would say to each panelist. I knew the exact questions to ask, etc. I even made two scripts, one was detailed, and the other was a ‘loose’ script to keep me on track. I kept the detailed one to my left and the loose one to my right.

So as our session started, I set the groundwork for what we would be talking about, and the format of the session, closely following my very detailed notes. All was going off without a hitch.

Then I moved to introducing the panelists, and went back to my detailed list, and carefully started reading off who each panelist was. Then….it happened. I read the bio for one of the panelists off my detailed list, and looked up at the crowd to tell them about the panelist. Then when I looked back down…..I looked at the ‘loose’ script, instead of the ‘detailed’ one. I was expecting to see the detailed bio for Mario that I could read off, and instead I saw ‘Introduce Mario’.

At this point, I was completely confused, and after what seemed like 20 years (in actuality it was probably a couple of seconds), I realized I had stopped talking, and mild (read: OH SHIT!!!!) panic set in. After another second or two of literally being scared to death, I finally found my place in the script, and went on. The rest of the session went off without a hitch.

But the FIRST thing I did as soon as the session ended was apologize to my fellow panelists for the disaster I made during introductions with that seemingly 5 min pregnant pause. They had no idea what I was talking about. So I assumed they were just being nice, so I found a few people that attended the session and asked them about it, and they didn’t know what I was talking about either.

So in reality, I thought I had totally ruined the session 2 mins into it, over an ‘error’ that apparently no one noticed but me. That’s usually the way it goes when you are speaking, and I think introverts take even minor mistakes much more seriously than extroverted speakers. But the reality is, most people won’t even notice them.

10 – Engage with the people that are engaged with you. Another big advantage to knowing your material is that you can talk about it, and while you are, you can connect with the audience. I spend time looking around the room as I am speaking to see who I am connecting with. The woman at the front left table that nods along when I make a point. The guy in the middle right table that laughs when I tell a joke. If they are paying attention to me, I am paying attention to them. And they see this, and that makes them more interested in what I am saying.

11 – Close the presentation by thanking the audience for coming (and mean it), then tell them how to get in touch with you. This is where you can pimp yourself and your site. Make sure the audience understands that you want the session to be the START of a connection between you and them, not the end. Encourage them to email you if they have any questions, and I always give out my Twitter name and tell the attendees to please follow me, and I will follow them back.

12 – Let the audience ask questions. Even if it means you cut your presentation short, the audience deserves to ask you questions. And this is a little trick I picked up (actually it’s more about being considerate of your audience), but if someone in the BACK of the room asks you a question, walk TO that person and answer them. First, this keeps them from having to shout at you, and two, it means you don’t have to shout your answer back at them. Also, it makes other audience members around her more likely to ask you a question as well.

Doing things like this and thanking the audience for coming might seem trite, but by doing this you are showing the audience that you care about them, and are genuinely grateful that they came. This makes them far more likely to pay attention to you, and be interested in both you AND what you have to say. Simple common courtesy goes a long way.

After the event:

13 – Stay connected. One of the first things I will do is check feedback on Twitter. I will thank those that leave feedback, and pay close attention to what they are saying. Which points resonated with them. Did I do something that someone didn’t like? Did a particular story really hit home for attendees?

But the bottom line is that I am living proof that introverts can not only have successful speaking careers, but that you can learn to ENJOY it. Seriously if you had told me in high school and college that I would love speaking, I would have thought you were insane. But I really do, and I think you can as well. Fellow introverts, what tips for speaking do you have?

Pic via Jeremiah

When I travel I am obsessive about having all my paperwork and directions in place beforehand.  I even print out two copies of my boarding passes.  So last fall when I was traveling to Chicago to speak at the Marketing Profs Digital Marketing Mixer, I knew exactly what to do.  Fly into Chicago, leave the airport, go across the street to the shuttles, find the one for Hyatt, and they would whisk me off to my hotel.  No problem.

I land, leave the airport, find the Hyatt shuttle, get on board and then get the bad news.  Apparently there are TWO Hyatts in the area, and I don’t know which one I need!

So I fire up Social Scope on my Bold and ask my buddies on Twitter if anyone knows which Hyatt is hosting the Mixer.  A few friends are kind enough to tweet me replies that tell me which one it is.  Awesome!

Then someone sends me a DM with the name of the Hyatt I need, as well as its address and phone number!  And the phone number shows up as a link I can click on and dial directly from my phone.

Whoa.

As valuable a tool as Google’s search engine is, it would be impossible for it to do a better job of getting me the information I needed right then, than my network on Twitter.  This is the new reality for businesses that are attempting to reach a customer base that is increasingly hyper-connected, and in turn utilizing those connections to turn inward for its information needs.

Our search engine is no longer Google, it’s our own social networks.

So if you’re a business that’s invested in SEO, how can you connect with your customers if they are increasingly turning to each other instead of a search engine?  Here’s some ideas:

1 – Understand WHY we use social search over search engines.  For the most part, we turn to our networks when we want real-time information.  Help, advice, etc.  For example, if I’m about to go see a movie, I might tweet my followers to ask them if Iron Man 2 lived up to the hype or not.  Or if I’m at an event, I might look for the event’s #hashtag on Twitter of Facebook page to see who’s attending and maybe where everyone is headed after the days sessions are over.

What can you do? Help people find you.  If you’re planning an event, make sure you create a hashtag for the event and communicate that early on to everyone.  Because if you don’t, the attendees will pick their own, and it might not be the one you want.  Publicize your social sites at your business and post new information about your products and events at these sites.

2 – Be accessible and be responsive.  If your customers are connecting via social media, then you should be too.  But ‘being there’ isn’t enough, you have to find me.  If I mention you are your competitor, you need to be aware of that conversation, and jump in if you can.  Now that doesn’t mean you reply to every SINGLE brand mention, but if I mention your company and it’s obvious I am asking a question or wondering about something, there’s an invitation for you to reply and give me the information I am looking for.  At least.

What can you do?  Be aware, and be engaged.  Closely monitor online chatter about your brand, especially among the more popular social sites like Twitter and Facebook.  Interact where you can, but understand that there’s sometimes a fine line between being helpful, and being a pest.  View every brand mention as a chance to help, not to sell.

3 – Make it mobile.  As smartphones become cheaper and mobile devices like the iPad and Touch become more popular, more and more people will have a device with them that can send and receive data at all times.  And this ties back into the need to turn to our social networks for real-time information.  I may not have my laptop with me (or even if I do, there might not be an available wifi connection), but if I have my Bold with me, I have access to my social network, and can get information from them.  Or if I have an app, like say the Yelp app on my Bold, then I can use it to get restaurant reviews right from my phone.

What can you do?  Give me the ability to access your information on mobile devices.  Or give me information that I will need to have with me if I am out and about.  A good example of this could be a local news station that provides a smartphone app that will alert me via my phone when there’s severe weather in my area.  Or that will text me when there’s a weather warning in its viewing area.

4 – Have FUN with it!  Most of you have probably heard of FourSquare, the service that lets you communicate to your network where you are at any given time.  Jimmy Choo used FourSquare last month in London to have a real-time treasure hunt.  They had a pair of shoes ‘check in’ at various locations across the city, moving every few minutes.  The first person to ‘catch’ the shoes at their current location, won them!  Great example of taking an innovative approach to social media marketing, but also doing so in a way that entertains and excites customers!

What can you do?  Think about the ways that customers are using social media, and tap into the functionality of the tools when crafting your social media marketing.  Keeping with the location-based theme, you could do similar treasure hunts but instead of using FourSquare, you could use Flickr, posting different pictures of the location where the item is hidden.  Or tweet clues to where the prize is hidden.

What about you?  Have you noticed that you are turning to your social networks more for information instead of Google?  If companies have connected to you via your networks, how did they do so?

“May I take your order?”

“Yes, I’d like a small Twitter presence, with 200 followers.  And a Facebook Fan Page, but could you upsize that to 5,000 fans?  And I’d like to add a side of 3 updates a day to each, and a daily status report.”

Amazingly, I got an email earlier asking for exactly that.  This person wasn’t interested in a social media strategy, they wanted to know what I would charge them to create a Twitter presence with X number of followers, and a Facebook Fan Page with X number of fans.

This request really scares me for two reasons:

1 – That many companies think that number of fans or followers alone is a metric that indicates a successful social media effort.  And they do, the above request is far from the only one I’ve received.

2 – A shady agency or consultant looking to make a fast buck will be all over this request.

Folks this apparently need to be repeated: The number of fans/followers your social media presences has is meaningless.  If you want to have 500 followers on Twitter, then just start an account and follow 2,000 people (the follower limit for new accounts).  You should eventually get about 500 follow-backs.

But unless those 500 followers either do business with you, or have some level of influence over the people that WILL do business with you, then they are all but worthless to you.

In the opening exchange, what’s the magic word that’s never mentioned?

Strategy.

Getting 5,000 fans on a Facebook fan page is NOT a social media strategy.  Getting 200 followers on Twitter is NOT a social media strategy.  Facebook and Twitter are tactics used to execute a social media strategy, getting on Facebook and Twitter is not a social media strategy.

If you want to know more about creating a social media strategy, I wrote just the post for you, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Creating a Social Media Strategy (But were afraid to ask).  But please, don’t put the cart (tactics) before the horse (strategy).  And please don’t believe that more fans/followers = a more successful social media effort.  30 engaged and excited current/potential customers on your Facebook fan page will trump 300 disinterested followers ANY day of the week.

Pic via Flickr user Tony the Misfit

Remember that game where a group of people sit in a circle and one person whispers a rumor to the person next to them?  Then that person whispers it to the next person, and so on until the rumor has worked its way around the circle.  Then the last person tells everyone what the rumor is, so they can see how the story changed from start to finish.

I was thinking about this game when Kevin Smith recently had his very public spat with Southwest Airlines.  I’ve already covered what happened and my thoughts over at The Viral Garden, and don’t want to rehash everything here.  But I think this case is an interesting study in how the number of filters or channels a message goes through can have a serious impact on when a company responds, and how they respond, and perhaps most importantly, WHAT they believe they are responding to.

Case in point, Kevin had the tools available to DIRECTLY communicate with 1.6 million followers on Twitter.  For Southwest, they had to have the flight attendants and pilot, and gate attendants all communicate with their PR dept, and at that point the message MIGHT have gotten in touch with someone that could respond to Kevin via the same tools he was using; social media.  So it’s obvious that Kevin could get HIS message out much quicker than Southwest could.

And to be fair, Southwest is very active in social media.  But even with that, their natural communication infrastructure dictated that their response to Kevin’s message couldn’t come as quickly.  All of the above people, the attendants on the plane and at the gate, the pilot, and perhaps others, all had to be consulted to get their version of the incident with Kevin.  Then when all the information was collected, the PR dept had to issue the appropriate response for Southwest.

So how does a company address this and get timely and accurate responses out via social media tools during a crisis situation?  I think it comes down to a two-part solution:

1 – Reduce the number of channels that a response must pass through

2 – Reduce the amount of friction in each channel

When there is a crisis situation, a timely, accurate and valuable response is essential.  Companies should be aware of social media and how these tools work, if for no other reason than to understand how their customers are utilizing these tools to create and share content.  Now granted, if you’re running a 1-man fruit stand, understanding how your customers could be using social media might not be your top priority.  But if you are a Fortune 50 B2C company that is ignoring how your customers communicate via social media, you have a ticking time bomb on your hands.

So companies (especially larger ones) should invest the time to educate their employees on social media tools, what they can and cannot do, and how their customers are using these tools to communicate with each other, and to create content about their company.  They should also create a social media policy so that employees understand not only how to use social media tools, but what usage is acceptable, and if any is not.  Many of your employees will be using social media anyway, so it’s best to put some guidelines in place to govern their usage on company time.  This will also give employees that aren’t familiar with social media and incentive to become active in using these tools to connect with customers.  IBM has a great social media policy, if you want an example to look at.

Next, companies should create internal tools that allow employees to connect with each other.  Tools like Yammer give employees a quick and easy way to connect with each other, and collaborate on projects.  Companies like Dell and LinkedIn have internal blogs and wikis set up that let their employees connect with each other and share information quickly and easily.  This helps reduce friction in the channels, but can also reduce the number of channels, if it allows a front-line employee to instantly connect with the appropriate person that can respond to a developing crisis situation.

But at the end of the day, the key to addressing a developing crisis situation via social media is to utilize the same tools that your customers are, in the same way.  If there’s a firestorm erupting via blogs, your customers will expect you to respond via those same blogs, not via a carefully-worded press release 4 days later.  If your company can educate its employees about how to use these tools, both external AND internal communication will be greatly improved, as will your ability to deal with future crisis situations.

PS: Thanks to Beth Harte for recommending I write this post.

One of the most frequent questions I get about social media is the cost. What will launching a blog/Facebook fan page/Twitter presence cost me? What will a social media strategy cost? The answer is never clear-cut and depends on several factors, including:

• What are your goals for using social media?  This greatly determines the tools necessary to achieve those goals
• What are your resources?  Can you handle everything in-house, or will you need to outsource some of the work?  All of the work?
• What is the length of the project?  Obviously, a 6-month project will cost more than a 3-month project.

From my point of view as a consultant, I am looking at how much work is involved, and what type of work, when I give a quote.  One word of caution; If you contact a consultant or firm about doing social media work, they SHOULD ask you several questions before they can give you a price.  If a company contacts me and asks “Ok, what’s it going to cost us to launch a blog?”, then I can’t answer that question without more information.  And here’s a tip; If you ask a consultant/agency how much it will cost to launch a blog/Facebook fan page/Twitter presence for you and they immediately quote you a price, that is a big red flag.  They can’t answer that question until they know what your resources and goals are for using social media.

Now, I know what you are thinking.  “Yeah that’s great Mack, but give me some prices!”  While it’s almost impossible to give any company an accurate quote without talking to them about the above and so much more, I’ll share some ranges with you to give you an idea of what to expect.  And I will caution you that these are my prices, some agencies/consultants will be more, some will be less, and you should consider this a guide only.

Blog:

Launch a blog from the ground-up, outsource all content creation (including customer interaction) – $3,000-$6,000 a month

Launch a blog from the ground-up, outsource all content creation at first, eventually take over – $3,000-$6,000 a month for 3-6 months

Launch a blog from the ground-up, outsource some content creation till you can handle all – $2,500-$5,000 a month for 3-6 months

Restructure an existing blog to improve your efforts – $3,000-$6,000 a month for 3-6 months

Limited coaching to improve your existing blogging efforts – $1,500-$4,000 a month for 3-6 months

Twitter:

Launch a new presence on Twitter and outsource all content creation and customer interaction – $2,000-$5,000 a month

Launch a new presence on Twitter and outsource all content creation at first, gradually taking over – $2,000-$5,000 a month for 3-6 months

Restructure an existing Twitter presence to improve your efforts – $1,500-$4,000 a month for 3-6 months

Limited coaching to improve your existing efforts on Twitter – $1,500-$3,000 a month for 3-6 months

Facebook:

Launch a Facebook Fan Page from the ground-up, outsourcing all content creation and customer interactions – $3,000-$6,000 a month

Launch a Facebook Fan Page from the ground-up, outsourcing most of the content creation at first, gradually taking on more – $3,000-$6,000 a month for 3-6 months

Launch a Facebook Fan Page from the ground-up, outsourcing some content creation at first, till you can handle all – $2,500-$5,000 a month for 3-6 months.

Restructure an existing Facebook Fan Page to improve your existing efforts – $2,000-$4,000 a month for 3-6 months

Limited coaching on improving your Facebook Fan Page – $1,500-$3,000 a month for 3-6 months

Social Media Strategy:

Comprehensive Social Media Strategy, assuming outsourcing of all content creation through all channels (not recommended) – $5,000-$12,000 a month

Comprehensive Social Media Strategy, assuming outsourcing of most content creation at first, with company assuming more responsibility as project proceeds – $4,000-$9,000 a month for 4-12 months

Creation of a Social Media Strategy, with limited coaching and assistance with execution of the strategy – $3,000-$6,000 a month for 3-9 months

Restructuring of existing Social Media Strategy, with limited coaching and assistance with strategy – $2,500-$6,000 a month for 3-9 months

Limited coaching on improving the execution of an existing Social Media Strategy – $2,000-$5,000 a month for 3-6 months

Social Media Strategy Audit – $2,000-$5,000

Thanks to Anita for leaving a comment that reminded me to include this.  This is a service I offer to companies that gives them an audit of their existing social media strategy, as well as that of their competitors and the marketplace, to give them a suggested course of action for social media, moving forward.  This is for companies that aren’t sure how to proceed with social media, and want to know what sort of resources they will need to use social media effectively.  I have been getting several requests for this service over the last couple of months as companies begin setting their budgets for 2010.

Again, these figures should be considered a guide to get you started.  Obviously, the more work you need, the more the cost.  For example, if you have a team of 10 bloggers that I will be coaching, it’s probably going to cost more than if I am working with 2 people.

One final point: In general I don’t advise companies to outsource their social media efforts.  If you need to outsource some/most of your efforts at first till you get up to speed, that’s fine.  But if you hire someone to create and execute a social media strategy for you and outsource EVERYTHING to them, then you’re locked into needing to pay them big money for as long as you use social media.  And what happens if they are hired by a company?  There goes your social media strategy.

I understand that some companies need to outsource.  But in the long-run, your efforts will be more effective, and cheaper, the more you can handle yourself.  I was talking to a company recently about their launching a blog.  We were discussing if the company had the resources to keep and MAINTAIN a blog.  The CEO said he could that he had a great passion for his products, and the people that use them.  I pointed out that the PASSION was the one area that can’t be outsourced.  I can show you how to craft content that will be more valuable to customers and show you how to encourage interaction, but I won’t be able to match the passion or understanding that YOU have for your business.  That can’t be outsourced.

PS: If you’d like to get a custom quote on a social media project that you are considering, please email me!

NOTE: If you found this post via a Google search, this post first appeared in 2010.  The prices and services in this post have been updated for 2011 and you can find those prices here.