SmartBlogs on Social Media

With our Word of Mouth Supergenius event now a couple weeks away, I thought I’d share a few ideas on how to get your speakers talking about your next conference based on what we’ve learned from this event.

Your event speakers are a great group of talkers because they’re usually well-connected and already have ties to the crowd of attendees you’re trying to attract. Yet, it’s also a challenge because they’re busy and are regularly being pitched to promote something.

How to do it:

• Give them a topic other than “I’m speaking at this event.” There’s nothing really blog-worthy about saying you’re speaking at an event. There’s got to be something exciting, fun, and valuable to get them talking. We surprised our speakers with some funky T-shirts and are thrilled with how they’ve shared them.

• Give them lots of ways to share. Give them plenty of blurbs, images, discounts, and details to share with their networks. We also interviewed each speaker, which proved an easy way for them to share their big ideas without asking them to invest a ton of time in writing a lengthy post.

• Give them plenty of reminders. Because everyone’s busy, plan to give your talkers a few friendly nudges now and then leading up to the event. Your speakers want your event to be a success as much as you do, it just may not be the center of their world like it is for you.