The floor is yours

Would you like to be the keynote speaker in a room full of 100 of your ideal clients?

What would your talk be called?

Who would be in the room?

In terms of our LinkedIn for Real People theme - speaking on a stage in front of people in real life is the equivalent of stepping up and 'speaking' in the form of video or audio content on LinkedIn.

Only you get to put yourself on stage and don't need to wait to be asked. ??

This month I will be speaking in front of two very different audiences:

Alliott Global Alliance? - at the EMEA Regional Conference in beautiful Sofia, Bulgaria where I am going to talk about the four pillars of LinkedIn and then host a panel with Robert Daniel , Nicole Marmor , Jakub Joska and Aleksander Widawski

And a week later, on stage at TubeFest hosted by Matt Hughes in Birmingham, England where I am going to share how we get leads from our YouTube channel.

Speaking on stage elevates your presence in front of your network. What if you could replicate that experience right here on LinkedIn?

Turns out you can.

How can you be a speaker on LinkedIn?

Here are four ways to create your own stage and get in front of your ideal clients.

1. LinkedIn Audio
2. LinkedIn Livestream solo or interview
3. LinkedIn Livestream panel
4. LinkedIn Video

LinkedIn Audio

I'll start with this one as it is the one I do least.

LinkedIn Audio are audio-only conversations - no video, no chat and you control who gets to join you in the audio. Think of it like having a live podcast where the listeners can raise their hands and get to speak too. LinkedIn say these are informal ways to get involved - you can be working away while tuning in.

The downside for many users is that you cannot record the audio. You could probably your mobile phone to record it yourself if you want to repurpose the content but pretty sure this is not part of the plan!

All audio events are public - so anyone can join. Imagine hosting a business breakfast and anyone can come in off the street and raise their hand with a question - that's how this would look.

If you want to build your profile using audio events, I recommend you set up a consistent day and time to host these and invite your network to join you.

LinkedIn Live - solo or interview

The second stage you can build for yourself is a LinkedIn livestream.

This is the nearest thing to speaking on stage at an event or conference on LInkedIn. People can see you. You set up the event in advance and invite people to attend. The audience can add comments and you can choose to respond to them or not. The audience can also network with each other.

You can take the livestream and repurpose it elsewhere. We stream live onto YouTube and LinkedIn at the same time. Then take the transcript and use it to write an article or LinkedIn posts.

In the same way you can deliver your keynote at multiple conferences to different audiences, there is no reason why you can't deliver the same talk to your LinkedIn audience multiple times. Each time you will be speaking to a slightly different audience and each time people will ask different questions.

To set up your livestream, you do need a third party software tool. We use StreamYard for this.

LinkedIn Live Panel

For a lot of us, we start out speaking on stage as part of a panel rather than the solo speaker. Have you been invited to be part of a panel at a conference? It is slightly easier in my opinion.

Here's how I normally set these up -

• We discuss and agree questions in advance
• The host knows who is coming to the panel and why
• The host is in charge of making sure everyone gets a fair chance to speak and moves things along
• You are on stage but not alone!

On LinkedIn, the equivalent is setting up a livestream with your guests.

I recently worked with VPS to host my first panel on Learning and Development within their industry. We created a LinkedIn live event on the company page and I invited three members of the team to be Speakers at the event.

Each person then was able to invite members of their own LinkedIn network to attend the event. We now have a 40 minute recording of expertise that my team are able to create multiple pieces of content for the client.

In terms of analytics, while the first event had approximately 62 attendees, half of whom turned up live - and two days later we can see the event has been watched by over 200 people.

If you were speaking on stage in front of 200 people, would that work for your business?

LinkedIn Pre-Recorded Video

The fourth way to be a 'speaker' on LinkedIn is to upload video content of yourself speaking. Some guidelines are to keep the video under ten minutes long, and ideally speak directly to the camera.

I have created video content before that walks the viewer through 'how to' do things on LinkedIn but these tend to work better for me on YouTube.

Learn what you feel comfortable doing - if you were speaking in person do you prefer to use slides that demonstrate something or deliver training? Or are you happier speaking about a topic you want to share with your audience. LinkedIn works the same way.

Check your analytics after and see what your audience likes too. In real life events, this is your feedback form of sorts.

This short 90 second video has been watched by 628 viewers. A slightly larger conference perhaps then.

If you would like some inspiration, we have a blog showcasing 8 people who are using video on LinkedIn to raise their profiles and showcase their expertise. Have a read here - https://louisebrogan.com/linkedin-video-experts/

Are you ready to build your own stage?