Today I had the pleasure of being the guest speaker at the Dayton Area PRSA chapter’s June luncheon. The Dayton chapter was my first exposure to PRSA as I had never joined while I was working in NYC. I was on that chapter’s board for two years as membership chair, during which time we grew from about 60 to nearly 100 members. It was always a fun chapter, very warm and friendly, and I was pleased to see that remains true to this day. It was great to be back in Dayton and I hope to see many of those folks joining Twitter and starting to blog as a result of our conversation today.
I presented about social media for PR pros, which is definitely my sweet spot. I seem to be doing a lot of this lately and I love it. I presented about social media twice in June (the other time was for a private conference of consumer affairs professionals – very cool bunch of people) and a couple of times in April (once for clients, and another time at a conference for communications and development folks in higher education). I already have two dates booked for later on this summer to talk about more of the same – once for a client group and then for a SOCAP Ohio meeting.
It’s exciting that so many people are hungering to hear and learn more about social media. It’s so fun to be able to do it – I feel very lucky that my job not only allows me the time to give these talks, but also encourages me to get out there and do it. In the immortal words of one colleague, they are only too happy to “pimp me out” as the agency’s social media speaker. It’s a win-win, clearly. Who wouldn’t love talking about something they’re passionate about?
In many ways, presenting is like blogging. I like the part where I’m standing up to share information and opinions and stories and best practices, but my favorite part is when people ask questions or speak up during the Q&A, or come up to me afterward to let me know what they thought or found useful. It’s the dialogue and interaction that excites me! Same with blogging - of course I love to write, but my favorite part is when others comment and interact with me and each other. That’s what it’s all about for me.
I am extremely interested in continuing to grow and get better at both things, presenting and blogging, so in that spirit I’m going to ask something of you. If you’ve seen me present about social media or PR in the last few months, will you leave a comment here with something you liked or learned, and also something you wish I’d said or done differently? And if you’ve never seen me present, then please let me know what you thought about someone else you’ve seen or heard present about social media – one thing you thought was great, and one thing you thought was missing.
Thanks in advance!
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8 responses so far ↓
1 April Casperson // Jun 19, 2008 at 9:31 pm
Lara, great post. Thanks for the higher ed/development shoutout! One idea? May be hard to implement before an event, but see if the host organization emails out a list of the links you are going to talk about. Then attendees can do prep work and research before you arrive. Even for the social media n00bs, they can click through your suggested links and see a glimpse of what you’re going to be talking about.
Love your tweets, by the way.
2 larak // Jun 19, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Thanks, April – that’s a really good idea. Ideally, I’d like to do a deeper dive type of presentation too where instead of just a glimpse at about 101 social media sites (like the presentation I gave to your group), we delve into a handful and actually go live to the site and explore it together. I think that’s the type of workshop I want to do for our agency next internally – maybe practice on them and then take it to some outside groups. Thanks!
3 David Mullen // Jun 19, 2008 at 10:59 pm
First, mad props on the new site. It looks great! And that url is quite memorable.
Saw a guy present once…
Like – we all had laptops and went to each site with him. He had people actually create a LinkedIn profile, for example and start to populate it. Same with twitter, etc.
Missing – some of what he shared had nothing to do with social media. it was more pure entertainment with nothing “social” about it. Things like Joost.
I like April’s idea. Going through a LOT of social sites with folks who aren’t comfortable with any one of them may make the scene seem overwhelming for them. Doing a deeper dive on, say your 6 favorites, may seem less intimidating for many.
4 Catalysta // Jun 19, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Lara- I love your site. What a nice husband you have for doing all the dirty work!
I have to say- I’ve never seen you present, but I have asked you questions and I love your open, honest feedback. I can always count on your for some optimism and some feedback on how I can work.
I like that you always have stories and facts to back up what you say. You’re never a person to go in and answer with an “ummm.”
Not sure if you already do this but sometimes it’s great to be an expert at a few of the applications. Really know the Ins and Outs and then slowly keep expanding to become an expert at all. So many times I see people going nuts and creating 100 profiles just to say they have one, but then they never DO anything with it. I personally think you are well on your way to becoming the Go-To Social Media gal because you are not bias and you always have substantiated facts to back up your opinions. I know you’re the first person I think of when I have a question about the wide world of social media!
5 larak // Jun 20, 2008 at 7:56 am
Thanks, David! I like this idea and will have to explore it further.
6 larak // Jun 20, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Megan, you’re the best. I am a big fan of your new blog and appreciate you giving me some comment love over here on mine! I’ll keep learning and I know you will too. Remember, TFFs have to stick together.
7 Andrea Hill // Jun 23, 2008 at 9:15 pm
>presenting is like blogging.
it’s interesting you’d say that. I used to be a comfortable public speaker, and then when I hit my 20s, all my confidence went out the window. I’ve been blogging for a few years, and recently I was tapped to do a few presentations on accessibility, and I jumped at it (and have since volunteered for some other internal speaking engagments). I wonder if it’s related to my level of comfort with the subject… I definitely agree with you about the Q and A, though. For me, that’s a sure sign you’ve engaged people..
8 larak // Jun 24, 2008 at 6:51 am
Andrea, thanks for your comment. I’d love to hear you speak sometime. I agree that comfort level and passion about a subject make all the difference. And there’s nothing worse than giving a presentation, then opening it up for Q&A and hearing nothing but crickets chirping! I’ve had that happen before – not recently, thankfully.
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