Social Media is changing the world! Is that statement too strong to make? Not really because with Twitter, Facebook and Youtube being so easily accessed and used from mobile phones we are seeing dictatorships crumble, corruption exposed and a whole lot more. It is becoming people power rather than the former media power and control that the world is used to.

Social Media is now where most of the people are at least for some time each day. Business are waking up to the fact that people are tweeting whilst they watch TV and new TV’s are now having social media platforms accessible and usable in their operation. Businesses woke up years ago that they had to promote their products on TV as that’s where the people were. Now is the time for social media as well.

Social Media – a different approach

There is a difference however in how a business can be promoted via TV advertising and social media promotion. With social media there needs to be more interaction with the people rather than advertising for advertisings sake. With TV you can target viewers according to age and other matters as within reason a certain group will be attracted to a particular TV show. When you watch daytime TV for instance there are ads targeted to people who may have had an accident and are looking for a lawyer. They are likely to be at home during the day as are older people.

Social media can still be targeted to certain groups but not in the same sort of ways that are used in TV, Press and Radio commercials. You need to be able to interact and create what is called a relationship marketing method. There are no hard and fast rules and it is the way the people use the social media channels that dictate the best way to bring your product or business to the attention of social media users.

The Social Media Bootcamp

Many business owners do not have the time to learn by trial and error. They also don’t have the resources to employ someone to do all their social media marketing for them.

With this in mind I created The Social Media Bootcamp. This is an online course that will show you how to use Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Linkedin, Youtube, Blogging, WordPress and more in your business.

The course is available for just £69 for a whole years access. You will be taught using high quality videos and other methods including live and recorded webinars. To give you complete peace of mind and to be able to join all the other satisfied members of the Social Media Bootcamp I offer a 30 day money back guarantee. You have to nothing to lose when you try out the Social Media Bootcamp.

Banners Broker

Banners broker is a revolutionary way of promoting your business using banners ads and getting double your money back by using the Banners Broker Ad-Pub Combo method.

How does this work? When you join Banners Broker as an Ad-Pub Combo you will be both an advertiser and a publisher. As as advertiser you will buy banner impressions and you will be able to display your banners targeted both by the most appropriate category such as ‘business’, ‘health’ etc and by location. You can target right down to a particular city so that your banners will be displayed on websites most geographically suited to your requirements.

The publisher part of the package is explained in the section below “Banners Broker – The Clever Part”

You can also be just an advertiser in which case you would just spend money on banner impressions or if you have a website with sufficient traffic Banners Broker will pay you as a Publisher for space on your site. Register by clicking here or on the banner on the right to the link in the section below.

Banners Broker – The Clever Part

As an Ad-Pub combo customer Banners Broker will purchase for you Inventory – that is you will have a share in the advertising space on websites that Banners Broker are using to display banner ads. You will share in the revenue that Banners Broker generate and they will pay back double what you have spent on banners ads. This is not a multi level marketing scheme or any other such scam. You can join Banners Broker with an initial purchase of just $25 although I would advise starting with more. Anyone can register with Banners Broker at no charge with this link or click on the banner on the right. You will be given 1000 Free banner impressions to use for your business or affiliate product. By registering you can can have full access to the website and can watch online live and recorded webinars to find out more. However I shall be delighted to help you with any questions that you have if you use the link to register.

Banners Broker allow you to keep doubling your advertising inventory or take 50% out in cash and keep generating more revenue from the advertising inventory that you now own. It is a remarkable system and has to be seen to be truly appreciated.

Banners Broker – It Works

I have been using Banners Broker since the start of November 2011 and have been impressed by the results and also from seeing the results of those that have been using it for longer. This certainly is a company that has vision and is enabling people to join something that is a $500 Billion Dollar a year industry with little start up cost. It could easily turn into a business that generates more than the business you are using the banners impressions to promote! I would urge you to take a close look at Banners Broker as soon as possible and I am sure that you will be amazed at how well it works.

I will help anyone that registers using one of the links on this page to know how they can use Banners Broker in the best way to promote their business and generate revenue through the publishing system. Banners Broker do not require you to have a website or even your own business.

One of the great features of online marketing and customer relationship building is to be able to use an autoresponder.

An autoresponder replies to people that send you an email or complete an enquiry / order form. They are very popular with Internet Marketers because a customer order or enquiry can be followed up with an email or series of emails automatically. When a person enquires about a product they may not always buy immediately and so a series of emails can help build a relationship and bond of trust that helps the person to become a customer. Emails can be designed to suit each enquiry and be sent out at specified times and intervals.

Where can I get an Autoresponder?

There are many companies offering an autoresponder system. Probably the two most well know are Aweber and Mailchimp. Aweber is available on a monthly subscription as is Mailchimp but Mailchimp does allow you to have lists totalling up to 2000 subscribers free. I have used both Aweber and Mailchimp which are both good autoresponders. For those that want something different and extremely affordable I can recommend Talk Fusion which is a video email system with an autoresponder and many other facilities for less than the cost of other systems.

Using an Autoresponder

It is important that you use an autoresponder responsibly. It is extremely easy to set up emails and blast them out to your list so be careful that you target your list wisely and send them information that is pertinent to the reason they joined your list. If you need help with understanding the use of an autoresponder please contact me.

I can do this for those that join my subscriber list and the form is on the right of the page. Your email address will not be passed on to any third parties and will be my way of sending you information that can help, train and inspire you. You will be given access to information and special web pages that will be password protected that will not be available to general visitors to my website. Enter your name and email onto the form now. To make sure that your request is genuine and not to annoy anyone you will be sent an email immediately that will ask you to confirm your registration.

Now 2012 is under way and people are generally back to work it would be good to hear from you. What are your plans for 2012?

Please leave your comments in the box below.

I am sure though that you will appreciate that free advice does not pay the bills. To make my time of value and fair to all if you join my subscriber list I will be able to help you with free advice through video news letters and access to password protected areas of this website. The form is in the right hand column for you to enter your details.

If you want help with social media I can refer you to my great value online course – The Social Media Bootcamp

Please register using the form today and you will benefit from my advice!

You will hear some people on Twitter, Facebook and other types of social media bewail the fact that users are placing advertisements in the feeds. These people look back on the days (not so long ago) when social media was all about individuals making friends and sharing information, photos and videos. However the word has got out to businesses that they need to be where the people are and that is on social media websites.

Should this surprise us? Definitely not! Businesses are simply doing what they have always done. It started with printing, then radio followed by TV and then came along the Internet and the ability to have a website. Of course now most of the Internet users are more regularly to be found on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. It has taken a while for businesses to recognize this but now that they have they are here to stay.

The fact that businesses are now using social media as promotion tools is something that users will just have to get used to. The fact that businesses will post to Facebook or Twitter on holidays or weekends is no different to them advertising on TV and other media on such days and we are all used to that kind of marketing.

Social media will continue to change as it is driven by the users and we will need to accept that. After all if we don’t like it we don’t have to use it or we can restrict the people we communicate with to a select non-commercial list.

In this series of public speaking tips I will cover the use of an outline in your talks.

Your talk is going to be composed of a number of ideas or points and your outline is going to be your reminder of those thoughts and how you are going to deliver them to your audience.

Your first task will be to decide on the purpose and theme of your talk, occasionally this may have been set for you already but most likely it will be your choice. Your next step is to research your subject and collate the information that you are going to use by noting down the main points that you want to talk about. Once you have collected all the information that you want your audience to take away with them write this down in one sentence. This sentence is the theme of your talk. It is what your talk is all about.

Once you have established your theme now take a look at the main points and decide which order they should be delivered so that they will make sense to your audience. You will then have to add sub points that help explain your main points. Please read this article carefully as these public speaking tips can really help you with your presentations.

Public Speaking Tips – Type of Outlines

There are two types of outline, topical and sentence. You will probably use a mixture of the two rather than one or the other.

A topical outline is an outline created by first writing down the theme at the top of the page. Then write down the main point under that with the sub points indented that go with each main theme. For example this could be the outline of a chocolatier that is giving a talk to prospective customers.

Theme: What is so special about chocolate?

History of chocolate
when first made
when discovered by Europeans

Ingredients
types of chocolate
what is most popular?

Marketing
how chocolate ads have changed over the years
is chocolate sexy?

Benefits
are there any benefits to eating chocolate?
why does it make us feel good?

Why buy my chocolate?

This is a very simple outline and as you can see it lists the main points that the speaker wants to talk about but the outline would only be of use to that speaker because the notes are there to recall from his memory what he wants to say. This is not a manuscript to be read and shows that the speaker must prepare well so that he knows his subject. Of course if you feel apprehensive about remembering any fine details these can be added in the appropriate part of the outline. This can apply when there are many facts and figures to relate and you need to make sure that you give them correctly.

Public Speaking Tips – a sentence outline

A sentence outline is made up of complete sentences that express each main and sub point but you should try to condense them so that each sentence will approximately equal a paragraph of the talk. You are probably already thinking that your outline is likely to be made up of both these components to make sure that you don’t forget anything.

When you have created your outline practice your talk using it and make any changes necessary to help you deliver the talk. Once you are confident with the talk itself take a close look at your outline and make sure that it is easy to read. The layout needs to be clear enough to be read from a reasonable distance so make sure you use a good typeface. You don’t want to have to spend time looking at it to find your points as your attention should be on your audience. If you can shorten it do so as much as you can to reduce the temptation to keep looking down. Here is a tip for you. If you don’t feel confident to use a condensed version of the outline you could have 2 outlines with you and revert to larger one if necessary.

Public Speaking Tips

I hope that you are enjoying this series of public speaking tips. Public speaking can be learned and always improved so please read all my public speaking tips and also send for my free ebook The Art of Public Speaking.

In this article for public speaking tips I would like to explain the use of volume and power.

Volume and power can quite understandably be confused. Loud volume is not necessarily power in the context of public speaking. Volume is the level of sound whereas power is the intensity of the voice. It is possible to speak very quietly and yet have power in your voice.

Public Speaking Tips: Volume

Photo: Courtesy of Digitalart

Volume is something that a speaker needs to master. Volume is used more than simply to be heard. The first step though is to make sure as speaker that you can be comfortably heard. Too quiet and your audience will struggle, too loud and you could make them feel uncomfortable. There are of course different levels of volume required when a microphone is being used.

The use of volume makes a talk more interesting and can be used to put across feelings like happiness, sadness, excitement. Varying the volume to suit the topic can certainly help make a talk come alive for your audience.

Volume also needs to be changed to suit circumstances. For example if an outside noise interferes with your environment you may need to speak louder to overcome it and then lower your volume once it has passed.

Public Speaking Tips: Power

The use of power is one of the public speaking tips that many people find difficult to master. Power as I have already mentioned should not be confused with volume. I am sure you have seen those  gangster films where ‘the boss’ wants someone dead. He will say often in a very low tone “waste him” and there is a great deal of intensity and power in the way it is spoken.

We can use power in our talks to emphasise points without being loud. Simply being loud also does not necessarily create power. Power in the voice tends to come from deep down in our throats, much deeper than where loud volume emanates.

Speakers that are naturally quiet will need to exercise their voices to improve their volume and avoid straining their voices. As with all of my public speaking tips you are going to have to practice getting the use of volume and power right. You can practice by reading out loud and making your reading sound interesting by using volume and power as appropriate. Record your reading and listen to it, making notes where you can make improvements.

Look out for more public speaking tips from Roland.

I always enjoy sharing my public speaking tips with you. In this post I would like to explain the use of gestures and how you can use them in your presentations. Gestures give life to a talk by animating the speaker and more. Visualisation can be achieved by using the right kind of gestures.

Public Speaking Tips: Gestures

The use of gestures is one of those public speaking tips that when applied can really raise the ability of a speaker. Gestures fall into a number of categories and I will explain these for you now.

Facial, Hands and Body

By using your hands and body you can help your audience to see a point by enforcing it with gestures. Your face can usually be relied on to convey emotion.

Public Speaking Tips – Examples of the use of Gestures

The use of gestures in the right way is vital and gestures with the hands and body will usually fall into two types. These are descriptive and emphatic.

Descriptive gestures are used for emphasising things like size, shape, speed and so forth. You could for example shape your hand movements to represent a circle or point for a direction. We often do these gestures naturally when speaking informally but often when if front of an audience we can clam up. Emphatic gestures are for as the word would indicate emphasising for example words such as “no” a swift horizontal arm movement would do this well.

Facial gestures can be used to represent happiness with a smile or laugh, deep thought with a furrowed brow and so on. With the use of facial gestures we have to make sure that they are appropriate, a smile when talking about someone’s misfortune may not be appropriate and would detract from what we are saying, possibly causing offence. As with all my public speaking tips they will only work if you practice them. In view of the fact that we may be nervous when speaking especially as a new public speaker gestures are something that we should think about and practice.

Gestures can show that you are enthusiastic, relaxed, confident and well prepared. A speaker who looks stiff and uncomfortable will not put their audience at ease.

Gestures need to be a natural part of our speaking skills. New speakers will often stand upright and then you can see that they now have a gesture to use, do it and then return to arms by their side. It’s good to practice in front of a mirror or record ourselves on video so that we can see that we are applying these public speaking tips.

If you find these public speaking tips useful and would like more help you might like to take a look at my analysis service.