5 Ways Professional Speakers Can Use the New Facebook Features to Promote Their Brand

If you are a professional keynote speaker, you should be present all over Facebook, regardless of what you speak about. This article is meant to help professional speakers to make the most out of their Facebook page and/or their company’s Facebook page. If you don’t already have a page about yourself and your speaking career, make one right now!

Many users have complained that the newest Facebook features that have been added in the last several months, such as Timeline, are hard to get used to. Several people have shared their frustration with the fact that they must reevaluate how they manage their brand on Facebook. What most people are failing to realize is that these new Facebook features provide an INFINITE amount of possibilities for anyone looking to promote their brand or business on Facebook. In fact, professional keynote speakers are some of those that are most likely to find more business, exposure, and bookings than they could have ever imagined. The problem is just learning how to take advantage of all the new updates Facebook has to offer. I could go on about it for days, but for today, we’ll stick with 5 tips.

#1 Take Advantage of Timeline

That giant picture is there to help you. It doesn’t have to be a giant picture of just you. Instead, use it to build your brand in as many ways as possible. Check out how professional speaker Terry Brock used his Timeline:

 As you can see, Terry uses it to display his credentials and build credibility with fans and possible customers. He shows a couple of pictures of him on magazine covers dedicated to speaking (which really increases his importance, in my opinion), as well as some more images that give us a better idea of what he does. He’s not outright selling himself (as Facebook doesn’t allow brands and companies to use Timeline for advertisements) but he is giving us enough information to know what he does and how good he is. Try creating a type of display for your Timeline similar to Terry’s – it’s all about showing, not telling, people why you are the best in your field.

#2 Use Milestones to Show Off (People Won’t Even Realize You’re Doing It!)

The new Milestones feature on Facebook allows you to share the most important events in your professional career on your Facebook page. This means that even if you just recently created your Facebook page, you can still add information from years before you were even on Facebook. This is your chance to share with everyone every award you’ve won and every impressive conference you’ve ever spoken at. By sharing all the experience you have as a professional speaker, you’ll increase the chances that you’ll be contacted by meeting and event planners.

#3 Pinned Posts

Pinned posts are essential to a professional speaker’s Facebook page. If you have an upcoming event that you’re speaking at, write a post about it on your page complete with details about the date, time, type of event, and registration page for those interested. It’s best to include a picture. You can then “pin the post” to say at the top of your page for 7 days. That way, when someone comes across your page, they will immediately see your popularity as a speaker and they can easily find out the next place where they can hear you speak. This ensures that your events get good press, and that meeting & event planners know you’re a sought-after speaker.

#4 Use Featured Posts to Spice Up Your Page and Keep Content Interesting

The most important part of having a relevant and successful brand on Facebook is content. Your main goal should be to keep people interested in what you have to say. You’re not going to do that by writing endless posts telling people to follow you on Twitter  or hire you for an upcoming event. Instead, you have to provide them with FREE value that keeps them coming back. For example, if you are a motivational speaker targeting people in-between jobs, create a short video that you can post on your page giving people useful information (such as ways they can improve their resume, or tips to succeed in an interview). Use the “featured post” to highlight your video, photo, or other piece of useful information so that your fans are more likely to see it, comment on it, etc. If you share information that is relevant and of value to your audience, without asking anything in return, they’ll keep coming back to you. The more that people engage on your page (with comments, likes, etc), the higher you show up in users’ Newsfeed. This is known as “increasing your Edgerank.”

#5 Use the Recommendations Tab – It was practically made for professional speakers!

Facebook now allows every page to have a Recommendations tab, where customers can share their opinion and experience on your product or service. Psychology has proven that we do business with people we know, like, and trust, so one of the best things you can do for your brand and business is to show people that you are a trusted and well-respected speaker. This is why the Recommendations tab is so perfect. Always be asking people to recommend you on your page; you should specifically focus on those you have formed a strong professional relationship with, and you can also ask people to do it at the end of a presentation, on your Twitter account, etc. Once you build up the trust of potential customers, the speaking engagements will come pouring in.

So there you have it!

Obviously Rome wasn’t built in a day, so just following these tips is not going to completely change everything for you. But they will help you get off to a good start! When we looked at the infinite number of possibilities that Facebook offered for brand promotion, we knew it was extremely overwhelming, which is why Boot Camp Digital, a leading provider of social media and internet marketing training, created a step-by-step action plan for those looking to get real results from Facebook marketing.

You can check out our Facebook Marketing online training program here. We provide beneficial resources, as well as a 90-minute online training presentation by Krista Neher. As Krista is an international professional keynote speaker on social media, she clearly knows how to make the most out of Facebook marketing, especially when it comes to speakers. You can register for our online Facebook Marketing class now for a limited-time discounted rate! The best part is that even if you can’t make the live training August 10th, the video and presentation will stil be available on-demand after the presentation. Act now to not only save with our special promotion, but to watch your results skyrocket and land every engagement you’ve ever wanted!