Source: SAP Web 2.0

I participated in a webinar this past week, the topic was “Managing Social Media Campaigns”. Before the speakers began the moderator conducted a poll of the audience. The question was “What is the current social media usage in your business.” The audience was given a multiple choice answer like this;

a) not at all
b) some social media
c) using 3 or more social media tools

Now I had never seen a moderator conduct a poll before a presentation, but what was unusual was that the audience was asked to use Twitter to provide their responses. Using the hashtag #thiswebinar, the audience then tweeted  their answers. Using the powerpoint presentation, the moderator could instantly gauge the audiences experience and share with the speakers. The information was then gathered and displayed within the presentation so that everyone could see the results of the poll.

This was a webinar presentation unlike anything I had ever experienced before. Are we not used to a one-sided presentation, the speaker talks and everyone listens? No engagement, no connection.

The integration of social media turned the presentation automatically into a conversation. Taking a poll at the start of the presentation was great information for the speakers to know their audience. It also set the tone of the presentation by involving the audience, and fostering particiaption.

Fostering participation has always been a challenge in a traditional presentation. Not in this presentation. The audience were also encouraged to tweet their questions for the speakers. The questions then formed the Q&A period, which was lively and conversational. There was no waiting, or the awkward silence when no one in the audience speaks.

This was one of the most interactive and engaging webinars I have ever been a part of.  The speakers really enjoyed it, especially in the webinar environment when you do not see your audience, and the audience had fun with tweeting and they became very engaged.

Do you want to make your presentations more interactive? Looking for a way to include social media tools that move your one-way presentation into a two-way conversation? Now you can have the Web 2.0 experience in your PowerPoint presentations. SAP has created a PowerPoint Twitter Tool that embeds directly within your presentations real-time tweets from your audience.  The tweets display either as a ticker or refreshable comment page. Now your Q&A period becomes engaging and conversational. The PowerPoint Twitter Tools offers six Twitter elements:

- PowerPoint Twitter feedback slide
- PowerPoint Twitter ticker bar
- PowerPoint Twitter update bar
- PowerPoint Twitter voting — bar charts and pie chart
- PowerPoint Mood meter
- PowerPoint Crowd meter

This FREE PowerPoint Twitter Tool requires only PowerPoint for Windows and Adobe Flash to run.

You can get details, see more screenshots, and get the download to try out the tool by heading over to the blog SAP Web 2.0.

More on Presentations and Social Media

How Speakers Should Integrate Social Into Their Presentation
Twitter-heckled Key Note Speaker

I would love to hear from you. What do you think of Powerpoint presentations using Twitter? Do you think this is a good idea? Or not?

Vanina does a great job of breaking down the specifics of a social media strategy. This is also an excellent example of document sharing with SlideShare. I have talked with many of you about the power of document sharing during my seminar. Consider publishing your documents like Vanina has on SlideShare and find out how you reach a larger, and interested audience for your information.

How to use slideshare publicly or privately:
1) Sign-up for an account at www.slideshare.com
2) Create your profile, and company details.
3) Upload Powerpoint presentations, add audio for a Webinar presentation
4) Upload Word docs.
5) Upload PDFs.

Now you have a central repository for all your document sharing, either internally (you keep your documents private) or display on your website and start viral document sharing (if you make your Slideshare public).

Start a blog

In traditional terms, you could say a blog is similar to writing an article. But unlike articles that were reserved for published journalists and professional writers, the blog is open to everyone. You, and your company are unique. Your knowledge, expertise, experiences and interests are unique to you and your company, and sharing that information is the essence of what blogging is all about.

Have thoughts, or an experience you would like share, please feel free to comment.

Your company has a website. You hired a graphic designer or even an advertising agency.  The marketing team and executive spent hours brainstorming, countless meetings with the design team, you spent the budget plus some, you had a million changes and finally it is LIVE! The website is fresh, it looks slick, the website tells your customers about your company, its products, services, who to contact, and the company mission statement, and did I mention that was 5, 3, 2 years ago or even last year.

The world of Web 2.0 and Social Media has been embraced by millions of people. Graphic Designers,Tech Geeks, Entreprenuers, Consultants, Marketing, Public Relations, and Business professionals and regular folks. But it still remains to be elusive and confusing to billions.

Facebook has 200 million users (would be considered the 5th largest country)
Twitter has 44.5 million users
Earth has 6.7 billion users

That is the paradox, the numbers. No matter how many people are on the internet. There are more people offline who are only learning about the internet. Why is that? The reason is the internet is still in the phase of early adopters.

You know the guy who always has the latest camera, iPhone or Blackberry, GPS enabled car, computer software program, gaming platform? We all know someone like that. He is an early adopter. He is keenly aware of the newest gadget coming out, and he must have it before everyone else. The internet is similar to a gadget. The internet is relatively young, therefore everyone who has been a regular user of the internet is considered an early adopter.

Email started with early adopters, and now it is a common occurrence in everyones life, even if you don’t have a computer. You at least have an email for your friends, family or work can reach you. The internet is moving into its middle age, where everyone must have contact with it for at least one use. Even your grandmother. Whether it is banking, or filing your income taxes.

But like email, the internet and social media are not a “fad” and it isn’t going anywhere. In fact, it is continually growing. For any business today this is the time of initiation, programming the pattern of your customers behavior that fosters a connection. Having your customers connected to you through the internet on a regular basis is loyalty.Loyalty is what community, networking and social media is built on.

That is what the millions of people, early adopters, are discovering. Being engaged on a daily basis with the products, services and communities they choose to be a part of. No longer are marketing efforts outbound, or pushed from the company. Rather the content is created, and loyalty built by the inbound customer, the connection is pulled back to the company.

As a marketer this is unheard of. The traditional marketing mix is predicated on pushing the message outbound to our customers. The process of creating a platform for social media that allows customers to interact, request, engage and ultimately share your information with their friends changes everything marketers have been taught.

You wonder why you need to be on the internet? Why should you create a Social Media strategy? Because your customers are there. Now what are you doing that allows them to reach out to you?

Why would you want “fresh” content on your website?

1. Fresh Beats Static: Fresh content, that is to say new, timely content, lets casual visitors to your website know that you are an active on-going business. For example, if you had to choose between two vendors, and all you had to base your decision on was the information on their websites, which company would you choose: the company with the static information that could’ve been written ten years ago? or the company with news and information updates from the last week on their website? Chances are you’ll go with the company that has the new info on their website.

2. Search Engines Like Fresh Content: Search engines, like Google and Yahoo, give higher rankings to websites that have more frequent content additions. And, as everyone knows, the higher your website ranks on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), the greater the number of people who will potentially view your website, and thus increase your chances of making a sale or getting a new client.

3. Fresh Content Attracts Return Visits: If the regularly-updated information on your website is useful to your potential customers, they will learn to return to your website again and again for more information goodness. Once again, it’s all about numbers: the more times you can get a person to return to your website, the greater the likelihood he or she will become a new customer or repeat customer.

4. Fresh Content Keeps Everything Fresh: The habit of posting fresh content on your website ensures that your website will never get stale or just plain wrong in those other, not so frequented, but equally important areas like the “Contact” page or “About Us” page. Today’s businesses are not static: Phone numbers change, new people get hired, and product lines and services get expanded or deleted. If any of these things are mentioned on your website, your habit of posting fresh content will ensure you catch these discrepancies when they occur.