I had a great time last week speaking at the Cleveland AMA (American Marketing Association)

It was my second visit in three years.

Normally in the past I was a social media speaker, and that was how they advertised the event.  Buzz Marketing and Social Media training.  However, that topic has become so common and over done that I have become more of a lead generation speaker to give my audience more value.  In the beginning of the presentation I asked if anyone would be upset if I did not spend much time on social media and instead focused on how to generate leads from the Internet.  There was actually a sense of relief.    The fact is, most people are tired of hearing about Facebook and Linkedin.  The presentation on using the web to build a sales and lead generation process was really well received.

For a while now, when I speak about Social Media I would focus on Blogging as a lead generation tool and the big three – LinkedIn, FaceBook and Twitter.  These three seem to be worth your time and others are novelties for people that really want to explore these kinds of tools and play with social media.

This week FaceBook bought Friend Feed.  FriendFeed is one of the few other social media tools I occasionally talked about because it is good at aggregating things.

With them moving to FaceBook eventually, it just becomes more clear that the three main social media tools along with blogging and lead generation are the best topics you can speak on, if you are a social media speaker.

If you are looking for a Social Media Speaker and you want to get a great speaker and a great value for your audience, make sure that you are not booking a Social Media Speaker that is only going to talk about free internet traffic sources.

Free Internet Traffic from social media sites is great, but if your website or blog has not been optimized to convert visitors to leads, you are really wasting your time.  High traffic does not matter if your conversion rate is zero.

Here are some questions to ask your potential Social Media Speaker:

1. How do you make money with social media?  Does the speaker’s answers fit with your audience and industry focus?
2. How many different social media topics will you cover in one hour.  Hint: more is not better – anyone can give you a laundry list.  Far better to go into greater depth with fewer social media tools.
3. How do you capture leads from social media?  If they talk about relationships and do not talk about particular lead capture tools, then you are not talking to an expert.
4. Lastly, ask how much your Social Media Speaker makes in a given year from social media.  If they do not know, then they are not marketing speakers at all – marketing speakers know they have to measure results.  And if they are not making much money, then they do not really know what they are talking about.

Interview your potential Social Media Speaker for your Social Marketing Workshop or event.  Make sure they are not just covering the basics that almost everyone knows by now.

Are you looking for a Social Media Speaker that knows a lot about Buzz Marketing?

If yes, consider giving me a call and lets talk about how to use Social Media tools to create a buzz and drive up lead generation for your business.

Buzz Marketing is actually a very important part of SEO as well.  If you want SEO results, you will get great results if you can anticipate buzz in advance and use Blogging, Social Media and SEO to lay the groundwork to benefit from future buzz.

A simple example of this is knowing that a special is coming up on TV.  Maybe something on 20/20 that ties in with a product you sell.  Well, you can start a week before the program and create a web of information with social media and information, so that when people watch the program (which is creating a buzz) and then they go online to search, you will reap the benefits.

This is just one way a Buzz Marketing and Social Media Speaker can help you grow your business and lead generation.

Ron McDaniel is a Social Media Speaker located in Akron Ohio.

Akron is within two hours of Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Toledo, Columbus, Erie, Canton, Youngstown and many smaller cities.  While Ron will travel to many locations to conduct his social media seminar or speech, he is willing to speak in the two hour radius at a greatly reduced rate – due to less travel and time needed.

Ron is one of Ohio’s premier Social Media Speakers and has done Internet Marketing Presentations in Nevada, Los Angeles, Florida and has even taught outside of the US in Guadalajara, Mexico.

To find out if Ron is available for your next event, email him or call.

I am a Social Media Speaker that about one year ago realized that what businesses really crave it to understand how to increase sales with social media.

Since that time, we have revolutionized the way social media tools are used for lead generation.

Of course, that is the first trick.  As a social media speaker, I walk an audience through the lead generation funnel and then the sales funnel.  You do not use social media to sell.  You use social media to increase interest and encourage people to choose to become a lead for your company.

If you start out with that understanding, using social media and content marketing can completely transform your business.  Social Media is sales is very possible as long as you do not see it as a direct sale.

Finding a Small Business Speaker that can speak on social media might not be as easy as it seems.  Here are the things you need to consider as your assess which Social Media Speaker to hire.

1. Small Business Owners rarely want fluff.  That is why I only speak about social media in the context of how to use them to generate leads for the business.  I don’t know many small businesses that want to hear about things that will waste time and not generate more sales.
2. Fewer is better – Yes, you can speak about 100’s of different social media tools, but people would rather know a few effective tools and how to use them well. 
3. Stories of success – Your small business speaker needs to be able to convey stories of how other businesses have generated huge leads or transformed their organizations using social media.

I have presented to 1,000’s of small businesses across the US and have watched people become authors and grow their business just by starting out doing a little with social media.  Give me a call and lets talk about your next event.