I attended a meeting of chamber of commerce people and towards the end an announcement was made that a speaker from out of town would be presenting for one-hour on Social Media the following week. This was not a chamber sponsored event but an event sponsored by two members.
Social media seems to be a buzz word these days. Most everybody has heard of the phrase but few have a good grasp of what it is or better yet how to apply it to business.
I attended that free one-hour Social Media presentation and discovered I knew more than the presenter. I fired off a few questions that I knew the answers to just to test the speaker. Afterwards one of the three presenters told me he was worried about me merely because I had so much knowledge on the subject.
Their whole presentation was a farce because they were not trying to teach anything about Social Media but rather they were trying to get you to plunk down $150 for their 6-hour seminar on how to use Facebook and You Tube.
Last week I got an email via a group I belong to on LinkedIn to attend a presentation on Saturday morning. One of the four speakers would be presenting on Social Media. She was a bit of a letdown as she only spoke with authority on Facebook and had limited LinkedIn knowledge.
That free presentation cost 5 hours of my time and $20 in gas. So I’ve created a personal checklist to verify the validity of a Social Media presenter.
- Do they have a Facebook account?
- Do they have a business page on Facebook?
- Do they have an active LinkedIn account?
- Do they have an active Twitter account?
- Have they posted any videos on You Tube?
- Do they have a blog post?
If they have at least 4 of the 6 then I will consider listening to what they have to say. Along the way I have learned to listen to people with fruit on the tree. In other words, people that walk the talk.
