How do you maximize the power of social media to get more speaking gigs, increase your fan base, and grow your influence? Today I talk with?Phyllis Khare, social media consultant and speaker?extraordinaire, as she shares tips for maximizing the value of YouTube, Twitter, and other social media platforms for aspiring and seasoned speakers.
Phyllis Khare is the author of two comprehensive books on social media marketing;?Social Media Marketing eLearning Kit for Dummies?(a 4-color book with a DVD and online learning environment) and co-author (along with the fabulous Amy Porterfield and Andrea Vahl) of?Facebook Marketing All-In-One for Dummies?? See all her publications here?http://bit.ly/BooksByPhyllis.
Phyllis has been a featured guest on?Social Media Examiner,?eMarketingVids?and many Twitter Chat Events. She?s been a writer for the magazines published by GSG World Media with an online reach of over 14.5 million for each magazine. And she has a regular column??The Social Media Report??in?iPhone Life?magazine at?http://iphonelife.com.
Alex: All right. Hello fellow speakers. My name is Alex. I?m the PublicSpeaking Guy. Today we?re going to be talking about how to leverage the
power of social media as a speaker to get more speaker gigs, to maximize
your visibility, and to improve your online presence and speaking business.With us today we have Phyllis Khare. Phyllis is a speaker, trainer,
author, and social media consultant. Her umbrella expertise is
online marketing, but her focus is social media marketing. She?s
an energetic speaker, always entertaining, and I have the
pleasure of knowing her personally.Phyllis, thank you for being here.Phyllis: It?s great to be here, Alex. Thanks for having me on your G+
Hangout, it?s very cool.Alex: You should feel special because this is the very first Google+
Hangout interview we?ve done, so congratulations to you.Phyllis: Thank you.Alex: So, just out of my own curiosity, and I ask speakers this a lot,
approximately how many presentations a year would you say you
do?Phyllis: I actually don?t do a lot of live speaking presentations right
now because I?m trying to build up more of a Web online
presence, and not travel so much. And I think you?ll find a lot
of speakers are trying to do this right now, too; the travel bit
is getting to be a little bit hard, so what I did last year is
going to be different from what I do this year.
I?m probably only going to live speak maybe once a month, and the
reason, again, for that is the travel is just too crazy, and
it?s just making it hard. So, Web presentations, and G+
presentation, and panel discussions are more of where I?m trying
to put my focus in this next year, so it?s kind of cool that
we?re doing it this way.
Alex: Yeah, cool. It makes sense. I mean, these tools are getting so good
that a lot of the information you can communicate very clearly,
and even have more flexibility and features to work with.
Phyllis: Right, because even right now if I wanted to, I could pull up
something on my screen and share my screen in a G+ Hangout, or
upload a document to give out to people. The functionality of it
is really great.
Alex: Cool. So let?s get to it. In terms of being a speaker, what ? and I
want to find out just you, personally ? how do people usually
find out about you and your business, and what role does social
media play in that?
Phyllis: Well I actually spent a long time developing my platform, my
social media platform, and branding myself, so that work that I
did for many years?
Alex: How long is a long time?
Phyllis: Online? A long time is five years. But I have been online for
many, many more years than that. But in the past five years the
focus has been in social media marketing and online marketing,
and so I?ve branded myself that way.
But the point being is people find me because I have content online
that has a lot to do with social media, I have two books,
Dummies books, that I?ve written that are online and come up in
search. So it?s really all about search. It?s how you come up in
those search results when people are typing in keynote speaker
or speaker for social media or whatever they?re using as their
search term, more I would come up in a higher ranking because of
that work I?ve done in the past.
Alex: In terms of speaking and presentations, do you have content online
that directly relates to that?
Phyllis: A little bit. I have text content that way. I?m trying to re-do
my video reel, and I just, you want that to be really, really
good, so I?ve been taking my time with that one. It?s just that
one little piece that I keep tweaking before I put up online.
And honestly, it?s one of those things where I should just put it up
and quit trying to fool with it, because I really think a
speaker?s video reel is what helps people make a decision if
they?re going to hire you or not.
Alex: Being able to see the person, and get a sense for what they?re like,
that really helps. Let?s talk about a little bit about that. The
video, you?re saying the video?s really important. How? Having
a video on your site, they can see you, all of that ? but, is
there something you do on YouTube, is there something more that
you can do to leverage the platforms to get people to see what
you are like and to get more speaking engagements, maybe people
contacting you?
Phyllis: Yes, absolutely. And again, it?s all about search. So you have
to understand how Google finds keywords on YouTube, and they
find it in your title, and they actually weight the title to the
front of the title, so your biggest keyword needs to be your
first word, and then you need to line them up, and you
absolutely need to have your name in the title of your video.
So for myself you might have, ?Social Media Tips on Rocking YouTube -
Phyllis Khare.? I?ve used my three biggest keywords there. And
then in the description of the video, you need to think of that
just as you would for a blog post. The keywords, all your
keywords need to be in there, it needs to have tons of content
that people might be search for.
The tags, when you upload a video, absolutely need to be your
keywords that people use to find you, and you always need to use
?speaker? as one of those keywords.
And then on top of that, a lot of people don?t realize it but, if
they transcribe their videos, and then upload that transcription
? that will end up being the closed captioning on their video ?
that basically doubles the SEO juice on that video. So they
really need to take that extra step and do that, to really,
really use the search possibilities that YouTube has.
Alex: The caption thing, I know it?s not perfect?
Phyllis: Don?t use the Google caption thing, don?t use their built-in
thing, absolutely not. Because you know how crazy that could be.
Alex: There are a lot of parody videos.
Phyllis: Yes, exactly. Don?t use that one. No, no. You actually, the way
I work, and here?s a little tip: before I do a video, I
basically type out the script, and then I shoot the video. Now I
don?t always hang to the script, but I?m pretty close to it.
And then, after I?ve recorded the video, you go back to the script,
listen to the video, and change your script so that it matches
you video. You have to do this in Notepad, basically, you really
can?t do it in Word.
So you do it in Notepad, and then you go to your video page and you
can, under ?captions?, you can upload a file. And you can?t
upload a ?captions file,? because that type of file has to have
time code on it, it?s just a straight-up text file, and you can
upload that and YouTube renders it together with the video and
then it looks awesome.
You have to upload your own closed captioning script.
Alex: I see.
Phyllis: Don?t use your built in one at all.
Alex: What happens if it doesn?t match up? Does Google do something?
Phyllis: Well it?s interesting. You have to, I actually had this happen
the other day where I had the video, I uploaded the caption
file, and then I edited the video. I just cut out three seconds
in the beginning, and then YouTube had everything misaligned. So
I had to delete the caption file and re-upload it, and then it
re-rendered, and then it was fine.
Alex: Wow. Okay. So let?s talk about the keywords. You were saying that,
one, the keywords in the title are weighted towards the
beginning.
Phyllis: Yes.
Alex: You?re saying you should absolutely have ?speaker? on there, and your
name, and whatever topic you are known for, or whatever topic
you want to be known for. What other keywords, in terms of
speaking, are good?
Because sometimes I have this problem, I don?t know how to, what
keywords to use. Public speaking, public speaker, professional
speaker, presentation?
Phyllis: You have to go to Google Keyword Tool or something, and use
that to come up with some things. But you have to think about
what people, the people who are booking you at the event, what
they?re looking for. If you?re a keynote speaker, you need to
put ?keynote speaker.? If you are a panel moderator, you need to
put that in that.
You have to think about what the presenter is looking for, and what
matches you with that format, and make sure that keyword is in
there. I don?t know if that helps, but the Google Keyword Tool
really helps if people have a question about that.
Alex: Okay. That?s cool. Those are really good tips. Let?s switch gears a
little bit. In giving a presentation, there are a lot of, a lot
of these tools are empowering the audience, and if you?re giving
a presentation online, or if you?re giving a presentation live,
the audience, now, can go and echo your message. They can tweet
about it, they can comment on it, whatever.
What tips can you give me, and people who are listening now, for
maximizing that exposure, and making the most out of that power
that the audience has?
Phyllis: Right. Well, first of all, you need to make sure the presenter
has an official hashtag, and hopefully they do, and if they
don?t, you need to ask them to create one.
And if they don?t create them and they?re not that tech-savvy, then
what you can do is create your own, and then you can go ahead
and, what you do at the beginning of your presentation, you can
have a slide if you?re using slides, a slide at the beginning
that shows that hashtag. And if not, at least your Twitter
username.
And hopefully your Twitter username is the same across all the social
things. You don?t want to confuse people by saying, ?On Twitter
I?m ?just a bird?, and on Facebook you?re ?a big flock of
birds.?? You want to have something that?s consistent, and
usually that?s just your name.
I always people to use a hashtag and to use my username so I can find
it later on, and I favorite those tweets and then I can pull
those tweets into a widget on my WordPress blog of my favorite
tweets, so people can see, from the event, what people are
saying about what? Now that?s done afterwards, unless you have
a tech person who can do that on the fly.
Alex: I see. Just to re-cap here. You?re saying, you give them your hashtag
or your name, then after the presentation you go back on
Twitter and you search for those ? you find all the comments
that people given through your presentation ? and you put those
into WordPress so that they show up on your site.
Phyllis: Yeah. [inaudible 12:43]
Alex: So they?re kind of like mini testimonies.
Phyllis: Right. Exactly.
Alex: That you can leverage.
Phyllis: That?s exactly what they are. I was at an event here in
California the other day, Digital L.A. gave an event, and they
have a big board on the screen that shows all the tweets from
the event, and they push the hashtag and it?s really fun to see
yourself up there.
But the thing they did at the end, is they took people who tweeted
the most, and they did an analytic filter through them and
showed their clout score, and showed their followers, and showed
the whole bit, and ranked them on leader board. So there?s
technology around that can really rock that space if your
presenter is really tech-savvy, but if they?re not, then you
kind of have to do this on your own. You just kind of have to
take it into your own hands and do it by yourself.
Alex: What are some your favorite tools that you use consistently for
presenting and maximizing your exposure?
Phyllis: As far as creating a marketing buzz about an event or follow
up, I use HootSuite Pro. I think it?s a really wonderful, just
basic thing that anybody who?s using social media for marketing
needs to have, but they need the Pro version because the
calendar interface, I think, is very intuitive and helpful, and
also you can bulk upload tweets.
For example, if you have an event coming up, you can create a hundred
different tweets, and on an Excel file template that they give
you, you can organize all of that, and then upload it just like
that, and then it immediately populates the calendar.
And then from there you can move them around, you can drag and drop
them if they need to be in a different space. Then that way you
have your marketing done, and then that way you can spend you
time on Twitter and Facebook and whatever in personal
conversations and not have to worry about, ?Oh, am I marketing
this event enough?? That?s my number one tool that I use.
TweetChat, I love TweetChat and I love Twitter chats, and I love to
rock that space; that?s another one. And one that, I don?t know
if anybody know about but I?ve used for a long time, and that?s
called ManageFlitter. It?s ManageFlitter, F-L-I-T-T-E-R. It?s
especially good for Twitter and managing and following,
unfollowing, and all of that.
But they also have this really great space in there where you can
take your G+ profile URL, and put it in there, so that any time
you post on G+ it will post it to Twitter. It will auto-post it
to Twitter.
Alex: Great.
Phyllis: So that?s a really, really handy tool that a lot of people
don?t know about, and I?ve have that set up for a really long
time. A funny story ? I set it up, and forgot I had it, and I
was on Twitter and saw all these posts from G+, and said, ?How
magical is that? How did I do that?? And I had forgotten.
I try and test out a lot of tools, and so that one was actually just
a real quick little test and I forgot about it, but it turns out
to be one of the handiest ones that I have.
Alex: Cool. I have another question here, which is something I?m curious
about, that I?ve been curious about a lot of different
speakers? A lot of times, people who want to get into the
speaking business, they hear that if they write a book, or if
they have something published, then they can use that to get
more speaking gigs and increase their creditability.
You?ve written two Dummies books ? Facebook Marketing All-in-One for
Dummies, and Social Media Marketing eLearning Kit for Dummies ?
so my question to you is two questions: one, how did you get
those published? How do you, you know, for someone listening now
who?s saying, ?I would love to do that as well,? how did you
make that happen, and, what effect has that had in your speaking
and consulting business?
Phyllis: You got about an hour? Because that?s a very, very big
question. But I do want to say, right off the bat, that I wrote
Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies, with two other
writers. That?s Andrea Vahl, and Amy Porterfield. And we divvied
up the book, because it?s a 600-page book ? I don?t know if
you?ve seen it but it?s this thick ? and we wrote that book, we
revised that book twice, and then we completely rewrote that
book very recently and have the second edition on that book. And
it just about killed me.
There?s nothing worse than writing on social media because it changes
so much, and there?s a gap in the timeline with a traditional
publisher when you have turned in a chapter, and then it sits,
or is in printing or is in editing for three months, and then
when it?s finally published, the social site has redesigned its
interface, it?s moved something around, it?s changed some
quality to it, and then all of a sudden your book is out of date
again.
Alex: Right.
Phyllis: Writing traditional books is a very difficult thing to do if
your subject matter is subject to change a lot. I would first
step back and say, ?What am I branding? What is my field?? Is it
something that has some evergreenness to it, or is it always
changing?
If it?s always changing, I honestly would not pursue traditional
publishing, just for that reason. I think it would be better to
self publish and really rock that space like Guy Kawasaki is
doing now with his APE project. I don?t know if know about that
. . .
Alex: Yeah, I do.
Phyllis: . . .but you should definitely look into that. I would step
back and look at your business first and see how much crazy it?s
going to be every time something changes. That?s number one.
The second thing is, just because you write a book does not mean
people are going to call you to be a speaker. Not going to
happen. You still have to market yourself just like anybody else
does.
In a way, yes it?s a lot of cache to have two Dummies books under my
belt, but I still have to market, I still have market, I still
have to convince people to pay me, I still have to send out
contracts and collect on that, I still have to do all of that
bit. And, honestly, straight up, and I?m pretty sure almost
every Dummies author will tell you this, you don?t make any
money in royalties, I hate to tell you this. You just don?t.
Think about if it?s worth it for the advance they give you, and then
realize that you have to leverage it into something. It?s not
going to leverage you, you have to leverage it into something
else.
Alex: I see. Two questions: How did you get the book published? Did you
contact them, did they contact you? How did you make that
happen?
Phyllis: It?s a great story. And this is where you need to have a lot of
wonderful friends, because I was very into social media, social
media marketing, I was deeply into Facebook, I was almost like a
research librarian, I was just really into all of it, and my
group of people knew that?s what I was into. They also knew that
I was really into WordPress and websites, and I knew a lot of
information about.
Then I get a call one day, out of the blue from a friend, and her
name?s Ellen Finkelstein, who?s published? if you go on her
Amazon page it?s like three pages of books that she?s written or
edited for Wiley and other publishers.
But she called me up and she said, ?Hey, I just pitched you to an
acquisitions editor to create a book about WordPress and
websites.? And I went, ?Woo hoo! Okay. I?m game, I can write
that book.?
And so she connected me with that acquisitions editor, and for Wiley
what you have to do is, and I don?t know if a lot of people know
this or not, but you have to completely write the table of
contents three layers deep, fully, and turn that in before they
even think about you.
You also have to prove you have a good social platform. They don?t
want to take on a writer who has two people follow them on
Twitter and no friends on Facebook. That?s going to weight
against you tremendously. And, then you have to write a sample
chapter.
And, you have to format ? the thing about Dummies books, is they
make you do all the formatting, which is probably one of the
hardest things I?ve ever done. You think, ?Oh, all I have to do
is write the chapter.? No, you have to format it.
We figured it out, one time, that it basically takes an hour to write
a page for a Dummies book, between the research, the double-
checking, the formatting, and just the actual writing.
Alex: So 600 hours for this 100 page book.
Phyllis: For just that one book, and we did that several times. It?s a
lot of work, it totally rewired my brain. They have a particular
structure for Dummies books, I don?t know if you?ve picked one
up recently, but what you have to say in the intro, and what you
have to say next, and how you do this, and how you do your
steps, and what you say after that? It completely rewired my
brain.
Maybe you?re game for that, maybe you?re not. It was very difficult,
But anyway, to finish the story. I turned in all that
information for the WordPress project, and I was very excited
about it, it was an awesome table of contents.
I did a little research, and the woman who had been writing the
Dummies books for Word press seemed like the logical person to
do this project. And I said to the editor, ?Well what about,?
I?m just going to call her Sally, ?What about Sally? She seems
like she should write this book.? And the editor said, ?She?s
too busy. She?s writing two other books. Don?t worry about it.?
So I turned everything in, and about two days later she writes me
back and says, ?I?m so sorry. Sally?s available and is going to
write the book.?
Alex: Oh, no.
Phyllis: And I can?t tell you have many hours and hours and days and
days I had spent on this. So, I thought for a minute and I said,
?Okay. I?m going to take the high road on this.? I wrote her
back and said, ?That?s okay. If there?s anything else you need
help with, I?m available. I?m happy to help. Thank you very
much.?
About two seconds later she wrote back and said, ?But how would you
like to write the book Facebook Marketing All-in-One for
Dummies??
Alex: Nice.
Phyllis: I?m like, ?Yes.? And then she said, ?But since you?re a new
writer, you need to bring a rockstar to the table as a co-
writer.? I thought, ?Oh my god, okay.? This is why you want to
have developed a social platform before you start writing books,
because now I had to look at all of these people that I knew
online, and see who I would love to work with who had a bigger
social platform than I did. And that was Andrea Vahl.
And so I called Andrea and I said, ?Hey, do you want to write a
book?? and she said, ?Woo hoo! Yes!? And so we were on board to
write the table of contents, and to write the sample chapter,
when the acquisitions editor came back and said, ?Oh, we just
had a surprise entry from some other writer for this same book.
Now you?re in competition with somebody else.?
Alex: Wow.
Phyllis: And I just went, ?[God].? And I wrote her back and I said,
?Hey, this is a big book. Why don?t we just combine forces and
write it all together?? And she said, ?Oh, great idea.? and
pitched it to this other person who we will call ?Bob,? and so
Bob joined the team.
I was signing the contracts, which, by the way, were about this thick
? you should always read your contracts, you will not like what
they say ? I was signing the contract when Bob emailed
everybody and said, ?You know, I don?t think I want to do this.?
So, had to rip up the old contracts, and go through the process
of finding another writer.
At that point Wiley really wanted to have three writers. We all made
a list, and at the top of the list for everybody was Amy
Porterfield, and so we contact Amy and she came on board. That?s
how we ended up with Amy and Andrea and me writing that book,
and it was hellacious, is all I have to say.
Alex: Wow. How long was that whole process?
Phyllis: Months.
Alex: ?from when you pitched the WordPress, until you?
Phyllis: Oh, god. It had to have been easily five or six months, easily.
Alex: Until you started working on the book?
Phyllis: Yes, and then it took us nine months to write the book, and
then it took Wiley three months to publish it. So there you go.
Alex: I assume by then you had a lot of things that were outdated?
Phyllis: Yeah. We were changing things right up to where they gave it to
the printer, and literally Facebook did this major change, I
remember, one year in January, and we had just turned in the
final things and we said, ?Hold the press!? and we made the
changes that they had.
We spent most of January rewriting a major portion of the book, and
then it was really great because that book was as current as
possible in that field for a long time.
And even this time around, when we did the second edition, we caught
a lot of big things right as we were finishing. I remember
Andrea basically, I could see her kind of waving the chapter in
the air, ?The ad section is changed!? and she had to change the
whole section because of a big change that Facebook had made
that day.
It?s crazy business, this publishing bit.
Alex: The next question is, once the book was published, how did you
leverage it to get business, to get speaking engagements? What
was that process like?
Phyllis: You have to use it in your marketing. You have to put it on
your website, front-and-center. I had to completely redesign my
website that featured the books. All my coaches said you needed
to put that front-and-center so people saw it, they didn?t have
to look on a tab to find it.
You have to? you just have to push it like you would do anything,
like any new product. You have to talk about it, you have to
link to it, in all your social bios you mention it. You can, in
your email signature, everything, you definitely have to do
something.
Alex: Has it brought you new business that you wouldn?t otherwise have
gotten? That you feel like you otherwise wouldn?t have access
to?
Phyllis: Yes. Yes. And not only that, it?s opened doors to having
conversations with other writers, which, in my mind, is really
an amazing thing. I?m part of a group of very important writers
in the field of social media and marketing, and we get together
and do G+ Hangouts like this and talk business, and talk
marketing, and develop business between each other, and I think
I would not have been? that door would not have been open to
me if I didn?t have these two books.
Alex: Very cool. Phyllis, thank you so much for being here and talking
about this.
Phyllis: No problem.
Alex: Somebody watching right now, how would they find out more about you,
and your services and what you do?
Phyllis: The biggest thing is you can Google me. You just have to spell
my name correctly. It?s P-H-Y-L-L-I-S K-H-A-R-E, and if you just
Google that you?ll find my Facebook and website and Twitter and
LinkedIn and G+ and everything there, and feel free to connect
with me any way you want on any social site that you like. And
I?m available to answer questions or anything. I?m happy to
help.
Alex: Great. Thank you so much Phyllis. Once again, I?m Alex, Public
Speaking Guy. Until next time. Bye.
Phyllis: Bye-bye.
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