5 Ways Businesses Can Harness Social Media - My Business2012 Presentation

It was both a pleasure and a pain to be at the Business 2012 business show earlier this week. Whether you loved it, hated it – or were too cold for your brain to work to even think straight – I like to look for the positive wherever possible.  

The show itself was much smaller than I anticipated it would be – however, many people that I deal with, both personally and for my client, The Made Simple Group – were there – so it was a great way to touch base and catch up – and in many cases, but a face to a voice.

I also got the opportunity to showcase a 30 minute presentation each day – Harnessing Social Media – promoting different ways businesses could be using social media platforms for business.

The seminar halls in the main showroom held just 50 people – and I was delighted to deliver the course to a packed room, where all seats were taken, people were sitting on the floor – and spilling out of the doorways.

You can see the video of me in action here

And if you want to view the slides – then you can view this video slide show of the presentation.

The venue could have been leveraged so much better – the large seminar halls, which had a larger capacity (200), were largely empty. I read lots of tweets stating that people were delivering presentations to an audience of 3 or 5. Soul destroying.

However, those speakers should take comfort in the fact that it was less so to do with who was speaking but more so to do with the layout of the seminar halls and the lack of accurate information in the Show Guide.

What also surprised me was how ‘salesly and self promoting’ some of the seminars were. I decided to check out a few people delivering social media and marketing seminars – and I have to say – I was really glad I did.  I won’t mention any names, but of the three I attended, the marketing spin was awful. Throughout the seminar the ‘sales pitch’ was teased at – and then of course, came the sales push. Here’s my form – fill it in, time limited etc etc – you get the picture.

I am aware that lead generation is key – and that measuring ROI on such events can be tricky – but for me – it seemed a bit desperate.

I stand proud of the fact that I wasn’t ‘overtly selling’ my services – or the services of Business Training Made Simple – but rather, delivering some genuine shared experience, tips and practical advice as to how people could be harnessing social media in business.