My Social Media Presentation Experience in Newport

Last night Jason and I had the honor of visiting Newport to discuss social media and social networks with seventy-five business owners. That was in a nutshell: scary, rewarding, exhilarating, nervous, thrilling, insightful and intimidating. All at the same time. I have to admit that I was expecting a lower level of web savvy business folks from the Oregon Coast. By show of hands many are already blogging, using Twitter, Facebook, and video for their businesses. I was impressed and had my work cut out for me.

I am really thankful the group was so engaged. They started asking great questions right away and never slowed down. The two way dialogue helped the presentation remain relevant to the audience but made time management very challenging. I felt myself wishing for more time to share with the group throughout the entire event.

Looking back there are few key things I took away from the event.

I loved the questions, feedback and contributions throughout the entire session. I generally dislike one-way presentations when I am in the audience so I would hate to do that others. The audience engagement was immediately gratifying to me.

I needed to do a better job with my time management. It forced me to speed through some great live examples. What got me was using word scrambles to deliver an overly large glossary of terms. I don't fault myself for trying to innovate though.

At the end of the session I forgot to do a few things that embarrass me as a marketing guy. If I could go back I would have measured the ROI for the audience. I would have asked the group to indicate by show of hands...

"...if you learned something new tonight?" "...if you believe that social media can help your business?" "...feel that social media is an affordable and manageable business tool?"

Slides from the discussion (most are part of that dang glossary!):

Links and examples from the presentation (including some we didn't get to cover):

Tools and Services: http://search.twitter.com/ http://reader.google.com

Comical video skit on customer relationship, "You want coupons." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZDXfB0Rd4Q

Video for business example: Red Horse Coffee http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQm9D9ox1TM

Blogging for business http://www.eroi.com/online-marketing-resource-center/resources-blogs

Monetizing social media http://bacn.com http://tv.winelibrary.com/2006/11/09/the-wine-videos-that-sum-up-wine-library-tv-instant-classic http://www.zappos.com

Social Network on Ning http://corvallisparents.ning.com

Lincoln County Technology Solutions Alliance http://lincolncountytech.ning.com http://sbmlincolncounty.ning.com  

When you are attending a presentation what do you like or dislike from the audience perspective?