There are many ways to boost attendance at your speaking engagements. I’ve done hundreds of engagements since I started my social media training business in 2013.  I’ve tried a variety of ways to increase attendance – whether at my events or as a guest speaker.

In my experience, using the 12 tips listed in this blog post have substantially increased attendance at my events. These tips apply whether it is an in-person or virtual event.

 

Preparing to Promote Your Speaking Engagement

  • Make sure your title is short, catchy and understandable. You need to grab people’s attention right away, and that’s what the title will do for you.
  • Include a short description of your talk with key words woven into it. Bullets are a great way to get more white space, which is critical when you promote it on social media.
  • Customize your bio information to fit the subject of your talk. Make sure that you show you have the professional background to speak on the topic, but don’t get carried away with credentials and generic info about yourself.
  • If you’ve been invited to speak at someone else’s group, ask for feedback on your promotional info from the person who invited you to speak.

 

Promotion of the Speaking Engagement via Social Media

  • Create excitement and anticipation by posting on social media about your talk a few weeks out from the event. Be sure to post again a day or two before the event and more often if you wish.
  • If you are the guest speaker, find out from the person who invited you when and where they are posting about the event. Go to the social media site(s) where they are posting and comment on their post(s). Also, share their post(s) and be sure to tag that person when you do that.
  • Be sure to respond to any comments on these posts, as doing so continues to build excitement about the event.
  • Encourage others in the group (your own or the one you are speaking at) to share posts about your speaking engagement on social media.

 

Promote the Speaking Engagement Via Your Newsletter or Blog

  • Write an article about your speaking engagement in your newsletter (if you have one). This would apply whether it’s your own group where you are speaking or you’re the guest speaker at another’s group.
  • Dedicate a blog post to your upcoming speaking engagement.
  • Whether it’s a newsletter article or blog post, write about the organization where you are speaking.
  • Tell the readers why it would be valuable for them to attend your talk.

 

How About You?

How have you promoted your speaking engagements? How has using social media to promote them worked for you? What other means have you used to draw people to come to these talks?

About Joyce

Joyce Feustel helps people, especially those age 45 and up, to become more effective using social media, especially Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter. She works with business owners, nonprofit organizations, job seekers, consultants, and many others. Find her at www.boomerssocialmediatutor.com.