We talked a bit about Twitter here on the Inspiring Speakers Blog last week. So are you tweeting?
Because you really should be.
Twitter is a social network, but more importantly it is an information network. It’s a space where people from all over the world can share what they know, what they want to know, what they’re interested in and what’s happening around them. It’s an amazing way to discover the latest news and information about the subjects you care about – in 140 characters or less.
To get started, visit the Twitter website and sign up for an account. I strongly recommend using your real name as your Twitter handle or username. Since Twitter is about sharing real knowledge with real people, it’s important that those you follow and those who are following you know who it is they’re really connecting with. So no @shygirl1982 or @MotivationalMan Twitter handles, OK? Let the Twitterverse know who you really are.
The next step is to find Twitter users who you want to follow. Start with people you know who are already using Twitter. Twitter can search your email and Facebook address books to see who of your colleagues, friends and family members already have Twitter accounts. Hit the “Follow” button next to their name and – there you go – you’re following their Twitter feeds.
Keep in mind though, that above all else, Twitter is a platform for the dissemination of information. Sure you want to keep up to date on your sister’s wedding plans and the antics of your college buddies, but Twitter is so much more powerful than that.
Look to connect with Twitter users who you may not know in person, but who you find thought-provoking and interesting. Search for people and professionals who you admire, organizations that inspire you and news outlets you read. You can connect with celebrities even! And once you’re following these people, organizations and outlets, go a layer deeper and find out who they’re following, and who their followers are following. With over 500 million registered Twitter users and approximately 250 million tweets per day, the possibilities are truly endless.
For a couple of places to start, why not check out some of the people and organizations we’ve talked about here on the Inspiring Speakers Blog. There’s @TEDNews for all the news about the TED Conferences, TED Talks and the TED Prize. And how about following Brian Clark at @copyblogger for tips and resources about content marketing and online publishing. And don’t forget to follow us! Keep up to date with what Inspiring Speakers is doing via our vice-president Richard Andrews’ Twitter feed at @InspireSpeakers.
Once you’re following a number of people and organizations, your Twitter feed will really start to fill out. You’ll find yourself inundated with information about all sorts of fascinating things. Take the time to really read through your Twitter feed. Click on hashtags and links. Check out pictures. Discover new Twitter users.
Once you’re comfortable with the platform, it’s time to start tweeting for yourself. You may want to ease into it by retweeting or responding to posts that others have written. Or you may prefer to jump right in and start sharing what’s been inspiring you. There are so many things to tweet about: Ask questions. Hold polls. Share links to noteworthy web content. Promote events. You’ll soon find that you’ve built yourself a network of new friends, colleagues and associates who are interested in your message and in what you have to say. So get tweeting today!
For some Twitter resources, visit our Speaker Resource Centre where you’ll find three eBooks on the ins and outs of Twitter. And be sure to leave a comment here or on our Facebook page with your Twitter handle. We’d love to know what you’re tweeting about!
Since yesterday’s post was on the use of pauses in public speaking, I thought today’s Inspiring Speaker Friday post should feature a speech by someone proficient in using the power of the pause.
So here is President Barack Obama speaking on November 4, 2008, in Chicago, Illinois, upon winning the presidential election.
As I’m sure you noticed, Obama has truly mastered the power of the pause. He uses all sorts of pauses in this speech. Most obvious are the lengthy pauses, such as the 14-second-long one at the end of the section beginning at minute 7:33 and the 11-second-long one at the end of the section beginning at minute 12:19. In these instances, Obama is pausing at the end of a paragraph – or at the end of a thought – to allow the audience to take in what he has just said. By pausing for a significant amount of time, he lets the audience know that what he’s said is important, and he gives them time to process his ideas and react.
There are also smaller pauses within the body of Obama’s paragraphs. Take the section of the speech beginning at minute 6:07 for example.
“But above all – pause – I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to. Pause. It belongs to you. BIG PAUSE. It belongs to you. BIG PAUSE. I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. Pause. We didn’t start – small pause – with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was not – tiny pause – hatched – tiny pause – in the halls of Washington. It began in the backyards of Des Moines – pause – in the living rooms of Compton – pause – and the front porches of Charleston. It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give $5 and $10 and $20 – small pause – to the cause. It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generation’s apathy – pause – who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep. It grew strength from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold and – small pause – scorching heat to knock on doors of perfect strangers, and from the millions of Americans who volunteered and organized – pause – and proved that more than two centuries later a government of the people, by the people and for the people has not perished from the earth. This is your victory.”
Here you can really see how the use of pauses creates a rhythm and cadence in the speech. Some of the pauses are for the mere purpose of slowing the speech down, so that the ideas can be absorbed. Others are intended to add emphasis to certain words and ideas. Those tiny little pauses before and after the word “hatched,” for example, change the sentence from a statement of fact to almost an accusation against Obama’s opponents. It’s amazing really, what small silences can achieve.
Obama truly is an adept speaker. And as if his mastery of pauses weren’t enough, did you notice how he incorporated the art of storytelling near the end of the speech? Someone’s been studying his public speaking lessons!
The following quote, which I included in yesterday’s post on brevity and simplicity, got me thinking a bit more about the use of pauses in speech-making.
“The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.” – Mark Twain, American author and humourist (1835–1910)
Pauses have many uses in public speaking. At their simplest, pauses allow you to regulate the pace of your speech. If you find yourself rushing through your material, speaking too quickly or jumbling your words, pausing for a moment will allow you to slow down, catch your breath and reset your pace.
Pauses also allow you time to gather your thoughts. Should you lose your train of thought while speaking, pause and take a moment to think about what you’ve just said and what direction you’d like your speech to continue in. Don’t worry about what the audience may think about your momentary silence. Chances are if you need time to catch your breath and gather your thoughts, they do too.
Then there’s cadence. Just as commas, periods and other punctuation marks help create an ebb and flow in writing, so do pauses help create a cadence and rhythm in speaking. And this is perhaps the most important use of the pause. Pauses focus attention and create emphasis. By pausing before a thought, you indicate that what you are about to say is important. By pausing after a thought, you allow the importance of your message to sink in.
Don’t believe something as insignificant as a pause can be so powerful? Last year, the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research conducted a study to determine whether the way we talk influences our listeners. By analyzing the success rates of telephone interviewers who attempted to get people to participate in telephone surveys, the study concluded that those who spoke quickly (but not too quickly) and who paused regularly in their speech were more successful in convincing people to participate than those who spoke fluently without pauses.
“When people are speaking, they naturally pause about four or five times a minute,” lead researcher José Benkí says in an article about the study published in Sampler, the magazine of the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. “If interviewers made no pauses at all, they had the lowest success rates getting people to agree to do the survey. We think that’s because they sound too scripted.”
“People who pause too much are seen as disfluent,” Benkí continues. “But it was interesting that even the most disfluent interviewers had higher success rates than those who were perfectly fluent.”
So it pays to pause. And as public speakers, you are better poised than most to harness the power of the pause. “Any field where people are trying to persuade or trying to invite people to participate in something…could profit by these findings,” says Benkí in a podcast on the Sampler website. “If you speak in front of groups of people or in front of other people as part of your work…I think it’s a helpful reminder that varying your rhythm, pausing occasionally and being mindful of the context are important from the audience’s point of view.”
While I was researching yesterday’s blog post I came across a number of inspiring quotations about brevity and simplicity. But since the post was concerned with keeping things short and sweet, I couldn’t bring myself to include them all.
I thought today I’d do a roundup of some of the quotes that didn’t make the cut. There are some real nuggets of gold in here. Enjoy!
On brevity…
“There’s a great power in words, if you don’t hitch too many of them together.” – Josh Billings, 19th-century American humourist (1818–1885)
“The more you say, the less people remember. The fewer the words, the greater the profit.” – François Fénelon, 17th-century French Roman Catholic archbishop, theologian, poet and writer (1651–1715)
“Good things, when short, are twice as good.” – Baltasar Gracían, 17th-century Spanish Jesuit and writer (1601–1658)
“It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.” – Friedrich Nietzsche, 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and philologist (1844–1900)
“Be sincere; be brief; be seated.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945), 32nd president of the United States of America, on public speaking
“Make sure you have finished speaking before your audience has finished listening.” – Dorothy Sarnoff, American operatic soprano, musical theatre actress and self-help guru (1914–2008)
“The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.” – Mark Twain, American author and humourist (1835–1910)
On simplicity…
“Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.” – Charles Mingus, American jazz musician, composer and civil rights activist (1922–1979)
“The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words.” – George Eliot, British novelist, journalist and translator (1819–1880)
“Use the smallest word that does the job.” – E.B. White, American writer and co-author of the widely used writer’s style guideThe Elements of Style
“Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.” – W.B. Yeats, Irish poet and playwright (1865–1939)
Here’s an idea: Why not practise your succinctness by signing up for a Twitter account? It’s the perfect platform for brevity as Twitter updates must be 140 characters or less – and that’s including spaces and punctuation. Learn how to make the most of your tweets with one of the eBooks in our Speaker Resource Centre:
• Newbies Guide to Twitter
• Using and Dealing With Twitter
• Twitter Secrets
And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter at @InspireSpeakers. To your tweeting success!
In today’s world of news feeds, sound bytes and 140-character-or-less Twitter updates, time is of the essence.
Today’s audiences are impatient. They want information, they want entertainment and they want it now. Brevity has never been more valued – and more important.
So what does this mean for public speaking? It means you have less time than ever to get your audience’s attention, and less time than ever to keep it.
Here are some tips to help you be brief:
Know how long you’re meant to be speaking for. If you’ve been asked to speak for 30 minutes, plan your speech so that it takes only 25. Not only will your audience appreciate your brevity, you’ll have more time to answer any questions they might have.
Never talk longer than your allotted time. It’s disrespectful to the audience and even more so to the event organizers. Plus, there’s nothing more distracting – or annoying! – than watching people check their watches for the time while you’re trying to focus on your speech.
Be articulate. Don’t waste words. Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, once said: “The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.”
Simplify your ideas and simplify your language. My Grade 8 English teacher, Mr. Ray, often reminded his students of the acronym KISS: “Keep It Simple, Stupid.” Impressive words are of no use to you if your audience won’t understand what they mean. Remember novelist C.S. Lewis’s advice about writing: “Always prefer the plain direct word to the long vague one. Don’t implement promises, but keep them… Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say infinitely when you mean very; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.”
Speak steadily and at a reasonable pace. Speaking quickly will not shorten your speech. Rather you’ll be more likely to stumble over your words and lose your train of thought. So take your time and pace yourself.
Still not convinced that less is more? Look no further than one of the most famous speeches in America’s history: President Abraham Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address.”
Abraham Lincoln. “Nicolay Copy” of the Gettysburg Address, 1863. Holograph manuscript. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress Digital ID# al0186p1
At just 10 sentences and under 300 words, Lincoln’s address is one of the shortest, yet most powerful, speeches of all time. (Click here for the transcription.) And to think it was delivered seven score and eight years ago!
For more tips and tricks on how to keep your speeches short and simple, check out Patricia Fripp’s teleseminar recording “Create Clear, Concise and Creative Keynotes: Make Every Word Count” in our Speaker Resource Centre (scroll down – it’s the ninth seminar on the page).
And when in doubt, just remember Mr. Ray and keep it simple, stupid!
Last week on Social Media Monday we wrote about blogs. More specifically, we wrote about why you should really have one of your own.
So it’s seven days later and you’ve signed up for a blog service, you’ve chosen your blog template, you’ve added links to your website, Facebook and Twitter accounts. Now what?
First and foremost: Content is key. Without quality content, your blog is nothing. It’s harsh, but it’s true. So start brainstorming – because you’re going to need a lot of ideas.
The unique aspect of blogging – and of the online world in general – is its immediacy. New information and fresh insights are available every day, right at a reader’s fingertips. A reader may stumble upon one of your blog posts one afternoon and find it interesting, so they’ll check back the next day and the next, to read more of what you have to say. And if your blog hasn’t been updated, they’ll forget about you – fast. And so there is a constant pressure to keep current with what’s happening in your area of expertise and to be continually expanding your interests and updating your knowledge and writing about it all – even faster.
Even if you don’t update your blog every day, it can be difficult to come up with engaging and creative new content on a regular basis. Luckily, Copyblogger, a website that offers design, traffic and conversion solutions for WordPress, has just created a helpful infographic titled “22 Ways to Create Compelling Content When You Don’t Have a Clue.”
It’s got a lot of great ideas about how to craft fresh content for your blog, from something as simple as compiling a list of your 10 favourite blog posts from other blogs to the more complicated “mashing two unrelated subjects into one post, usually something your readers want to learn more about and something they are familiar with,” for example “What Batman Can Teach You About Blogging.”
Copyblogger also offers tutorials on copywriting, content marketing, search engine optimization, email marketing and keyword research, plus they offer a free 20-part Internet marketing course.
And of course, we offer a wealth of blogging resources right here at Inspiring Speakers. A good place to start is our Speaker Resource Centre’s teleseminar list, where you’ll find a number of seminar recordings on creating blog content.
Three to consider are:
• “How to Start a Blog: A Step-by-Step Guide” by blogger and Internet marketer Tom Gray, which you’ll find here (scroll down to the seventh seminar on the page).
• “Exposing Your Expertise: Creating and Leveraging Powerful Web Content” by consultant and professional speaker Philippa Gamse, which you’ll find here (scroll down to the fifth seminar on the page).
• “Creating Fresh Content From Your Audience’s Knowledge, Stories and Questions” by The New York Times best-selling author Tim Sanders, which you’ll find here (scroll down to the seventh seminar on the page).
Have you already got your blog well underway? Share a link to it in the comments section here or on our Inspiring Speakers Facebook page. We’d love to know what you’re writing about!
If you’ve been reading the news or watching TV this week you’ll know that the 84th Academy Awards are happening this weekend. All the hoopla got me thinking about last year’s awards, and about the film The King’s Speech in particular.
Did you see it?
Cinema has a great history of creating, portraying and interpreting inspiring speeches. From Mel Gibson’s call to war as William Wallace in Braveheart to Robin Williams’ “Carpe diem” speech as John Keating in Dead Poets Society to Sean Astin’s heartfelt speech as Samwise Gamgee in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, the film genre has featured a wealth of great speeches.
But The King’s Speech is different – it doesn’t just contain an inspiring speech, the entire film revolves around the challenges of public speaking.
The King’s Speech is a historical drama based on the true story of Albert Frederick Arthur George, better known as King George VI (played by Colin Firth), who struggled throughout his life with an irrepressible stammer. Nicknamed Bertie by his family, George VI was the second son of King George V and the younger brother of King Edward VIII. Bertie was not expected to inherit the throne, and so for much of his life his stammer went largely unremarked upon by the public.
However in 1936, not even a year after becoming king, Edward abdicated the throne to marry the divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson, thrusting Bertie into the role of king. Bertie was now required to make speeches to the public – and his stammer went from an inconsequential quirk to a matter of great embarrassment.
In an attempt to cure his stammer, Bertie reluctantly began working with an Australian speech therapist named Lionel Logue (played by Geoffrey Rush). The two men worked together to overcome Bertie’s stammer in time for the king to make his first radio broadcast concerning Britain’s declaration of war on Germany in 1939.
As every one who has ever made a speech knows, public speaking can be nerve-wracking at the best of times. When you add on the task of overcoming a stammer, King George VI’s speech-making feat was really rather remarkable.
Here is a clip of the culmination of the film: Colin Firth as King George VI, delivering the king’s speech. Inspiring, not so much because of the speech’s content – although that’s good too – but because of the challenges the speaker had to overcome just to present it.
If you’d like to see how close Colin Firth came to mirroring the speech made by the real King George VI, click here for a fascinating comparison.
And in case you’re wondering, at last year’s Oscars, The King’s Speech went home with the awards for best picture, best director, best actor and best writing for an original screenplay. Rather inspiring indeed.
I thought today I’d tell you a bit more about our newest resource here on the Inspiring Speakers website.
Our Speaker Resource Centre has long been a valuable source of information on how best to market and promote yourself as a professional speaker. Our eBookstore offers a number of training resources to help you leverage social media, develop and sell your own information products, expand your client base, hone your marketing skills and optimize your website. Some of our most popular eBooks include:
• Google: Traffic Tips, Tactics and Strategies
• Understanding SEO
• How to Write Quality Targeted Content
• Facebook Pro
• Twitter Secrets • Google Analytics: Uses and Tips
This week we’ve added a new section to our Speaker Resource Centre, a series of teleseminar resources for building your speaking business. Here you’ll find recordings of teleseminars and webinars presented by experts in the professional speaking business.
Some of the presentations I’m most excited to explore are:
• “Let Me Illustrate My Point: Illuminating Your Presentations With Simple Drawings” by award-winning author, illustrator and marketing consultant Mike Artell.
• “Is Twitter a Presenter’s Nightmare or a Dream Come True?” by Cliff Atkinson, the author of the bestselling book Beyond Bullet Points.
• “Using Stand-Up Comedy Secrets to ‘Funny Up’ Your Presentations” by Judy Carter, who has shared the stage with some of America’s top comedians, including Jerry Seinfeld, Jay Leno and Robin Williams.
• “Slide-ology: Lessons From an Academy Award–Winning Slide Strategist” by Nancy Duarte, who we wrote about here on the Inspired Speakers Blog just last week.
• “Impact and Income Beyond the Stage: Leverage Your Speaking Career Into an Expert Empire” by Josh Shipp, the subject of the fascinating Inc. article “The Art and Business of Motivational Speaking.”
Plus, there’s over 200 more! Take a look at the list of teleseminars and webinars. These resources are sure to empower you to take your speaking business to the next level.
There’s this quotation about speech-making by Dale Carnegie that I just love.
“There are always three speeches for every one you actually gave. The one you practised, the one you gave, and the one you wish you gave.”
It’s so true! No matter how many times you practise a presentation, when you’re up there on stage it just comes out differently somehow. Whether it’s because you’re nervous or because you experience technical difficulties or because you get an unexpected reaction from the audience, like laughter after an anecdote you didn’t realize was funny – your speech just never goes exactly as planned, does it?
So who was this wise man Dale Carnegie, anyway? Well, he was the author of the oh-so-famous book How to Win Friends and Influence People, one of the best-selling self-help books of all time. You’ve heard of it, haven’t you? It’s such an important book that even though it was first published in 1936 – over 70 years ago! – people are still buying it, reading it and talking about it today.
In fact, Carnegie was one of the very first public speaking professionals. He began teaching workshops on public speaking at a New York City YMCA in 1912 and by 1916 he was speaking in front of sold-out crowds at Carnegie Hall. Inspiring, or what? He went on to create Dale Carnegie Training, which still operates today offering courses based on Carnegie’s numerous writings, including topics such as leadership training, communication skills and building self-confidence.
I highly recommend you read both How to Win Friends and Influence People and his book on public speaking, Public Speaking for Success. While Public Speaking for Success was first published in 1926 under the name Public Speaking: A Practical Course for Businessmen, it has since been updated several times and is still incredibly relevant today. Enjoy!
Last Monday we talked a bit about the importance of creating online content. Having an online platform is vital for marketing yourself as a professional speaker today.
As a professional speaker, you most likely have an area of expertise. So don’t just speak about it – write about it!
Start with a blog. You can sign up for a free blogging program, such as Blogger or WordPress. These blog-publishing services are simple to set up and use, and they offer design templates and linking capabilities so you can connect them to your personal website with ease.
Signing up for and starting your blog is the easy part, it’s creating content that’s more challenging. Write about what you know and write often. The more content you publish online, the more opportunities there are for people to discover you and your message.
It’s also important to make the most of the tools your blogging platform offers, for instance tagging keywords in your blog posts so that they come up in Google search results and enabling comments so that readers can comment on your ideas and so you can foster discussion.
And read blogs, too! Follow blogs written by other authorities in your area of expertise and comment on them regularly. By fostering communication with experts in your field, your blog and your ideas will get disseminated even further.
It’s so important to embrace all aspects of social media. So once your blog is up and running, make sure you’re advertising it through your other social networking platforms. Whenever you write a new blog, post a link to it on your Facebook page and ask your Twitter followers to have a look at it as well.
Inc. is an online magazine geared toward entrepreneurs and business owners, and it is replete with information about running a business, sales and marketing, and technology and innovation – all of which can be applied to the business of professional speaking. Check out this short article they recently published titled “8 Tips for Effective Social Blogging.” It’s got great advice on how to encourage interaction and feedback and on how to use applications and schedulers to streamline your blogging activity. So give it a read and start applying their tips to your blog today.
And don’t forget to check out our Speaker Resource Centre here on the Inspiring Speakers website for eBooks on every aspect of social media marketing you can think of.
