There's a reporter on the phone. Now what?
In today's competitive technology market, it's important to tell a compelling story while remaining on message, especially when the media calls. Joanne Connelly, President and CEO of ConnellyWorks, Inc. - a full service technology marketing communications agency - and former Editor of Federal Computer Week, knows it's critical for companies to be able to respond effectively when the press is calling.
Marketing budgets have grown for the sixth successive quarter and have risen in Q1 to the greatest degree in seven years, according to the Q1 2014 IPA Bellwether Report, published today (17 April).
All areas of marketing saw growth, with main media advertising being the primary beneficiary of the uplift, recording a series record net balance of +11.7%.
Originally posted on Evvnt Industry News by Adam Parry.
We've all been there: the speaker is nearing the end of their presentation, heading towards the fifteen minutes they've set aside for 'questions and discussion'. Then, as the slide with 'Any questions?' appears on the screen, you could hear a pin drop. Tumbleweed rolls by and everyone stares at their feet. So why isn't your audience eager to stick their hands in the air and get involved? In reality there will be a number of reasons, so we've outlined a few tips on how you can avoid the post-presentation silence and have your audience desperate to ask questions...
Know your audience
You'd hope that every presenter would have an understanding of the types of people that will be in the audience and what they will be interested in, yet we often sit through sessions that aren't quite what we expected. When you're invited to speak at an event make sure you ask the organisers what type of people will be there, what their reasons are for attending and their pain points. If you know who you are speaking to, you can get the content right resulting in a much more engaged audience. If you're addressing something that they can actually relate to, they're much more likely to fire a question your way.
Break the ice
First impressions are everything. If you can get the audience on your side right from the off, then things will be a lot easier further down the line. I recently caught the opening session at EMEC 2014 in Istanbul, where Dave Sharpe energised the audience by asking people to take out the most peculiar thing they carried in their bags and showed it to the rest of the audience. It was a simple request, but really lightened the mood and had the audience laughing. From that point on people were engaged and switched on.
Keep them engaged
If you can get away with it, don't simply introduce yourself and talk at the faces in the crowd for an hour. If you can drop in activities and votes throughout your talk then the likelihood is the audience will feel more energised to participate in the discussion by asking questions.
Make sure everyone can ask questions
You might be happy to stand up in front of a room full of strangers and talk, but not everyone feels the same. According to the National Institute of Mental Health an amazing 74% of people are afraid of public speaking, so you need to get round this somehow. Try using an audience interaction tool to give everyone an equal chance at asking a question or adding their two-penneth without having to speak out loud.
Of course, there are hundreds of ways to engage with your audience (and many books have been written on this very topic!) but following the few simple tips above will go a long way to ensuring some level of audience-based discussion will take place.
Why not tell us what you think about this story and leave a comment below!
Image credit: freedigitalphotos
Originally posted on Eventbrite Blog by Mark.
There's exciting news from the Twitter camp this week, as they announced a Facebook-style photo-tagging feature is being rolled out.
The feature will allow you to tag up to 10 people in any photos that you share on Twitter, who will then be notified that they've been tagged. Users can alter their notification and tag settings, so they can untag themselves or not allow their profile to be tagged at all. For more info on how it works, check out their dedicated help page here. As part of the same announcement you can now upload up to four photos at the same time to any one tweet, making it easy to create a nice montage of photos. Best of all, tagging photos doesn't affect your character count so there's still the same amount of space for your witty captions!
Originally posted on Social Tables by Shira Gorsky
In the not-so-distant past, marketers had to rely on traditional media and reporters in order to get their news out... now everyone can market their event or conference via social media and even transform their attendees into undercover marketers. The difficult part is how to motivate these guests to use their social networks to expand the reach of your event.
Here are some tips and tricks:
Facilitate Sharing - Create awesome photo opportunities through photo booths, décor, and especially fun presentations of food that are among the most shared photos in the social media world.
