Getting value from panel events and podcasts

Panel discussion at MIPIM 30th edition event on 'UK: Regeneration & Waterfront Developments.' The stage features four seated male panelists and one female moderator standing at a podium. A large screen above displays the panel title and participant names and roles: Moderator Stacey Meadwell (Freelance Editor), Cllr Jon Collins (Leader, Nottingham City Council), Steve Dunlop (Chief Executive, Scottish Enterprise), Mark Sitch (Senior Partner, Barton Willmore), and Cllr Huw Thomas (Leader, Cardiff Council). The event branding and social media information are also visible on the screen.

Panel events and podcasts are powerful platforms for raising your profile as a thought leader to a broader network, expanding your brand reach beyond your own social media connections and email list.

These powerful formats help your audience connect with you or your team’s expertise on a more personal, human level. It can help build connections and brand trust, and open doors to other opportunities and conversations.

Panel events and podcasts foster brand storytelling in a way that builds trust and familiarity, especially compared to more polished written communications.

But you and your business want to come across well and get the most out of the experience or event. Here are just a few tips to get you started.

Invited guest: Delivering your message effectively

Tip 1: Align your messaging with the theme and audience

Do some preparation ahead of your panel or podcast appearance. The audience has turned up or downloaded the episode to hear a conversation on a specific topic, so make sure your messaging aligns with the overarching theme.

If you go off topic or fall into a marketing pitch, you risk damaging audience engagement or, on a podcast, being edited out.

Equally, to engage the audience, make sure you are speaking their language. What is their level of technical knowledge? Use plain English with a clear point of view, as it will always land better than jargon. 

Tip 2: Give the right answer

Listen carefully to the question you are asked and answer that. There is a danger of being overprepared and answering a question you anticipate rather than the one being asked, or giving too much away too soon.

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LinkedIn live video events: The what, how and why

Photo by Alexander Dummer on Unsplash

LinkedIn live video events are a low cost and easy way to reach and engage with your audience. But so few businesses are using it.

I do one of these live streams events with Ayo Abbas every month themed around a particular topic – we call it the B2B Comms Breakdown – and get a good response.

There are other benefits too but more of that later.

It’s a video streamed live to your LinkedIn feed – your personal account or company page. Think of it as a sort of mini webinar/online talk.

You can ‘live stream’ solo or with guests/co-hosts. 

People watching can add comments or ask questions, just as they would on a normal post, so it’s interactive.

LinkedIn doesn’t have an inbuilt live stream video function (yet), so you use an external platform.

Ayo and I use StreamYard, which has a monthly fee, but it’s relatively low cost, particularly given what you can do with it.

Once your LinkedIn account is connected to StreamYard, the two work together; LinkedIn pulls through the event information from StreamYard.

From the LinkedIn event post, people can click to attend, and you can also invite people directly from your 1st degree connections.

Find LinkedIn’s full getting started instructions here.

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Video: Post-event content strategy – are you making the most?

Watch for examples of a post-event content strategy

I’m no stranger to events having been moderating panels and round tables for more than a decade (and doing event write-ups).

But there is one thing that organisers regularly miscalculate with their post-event content strategy:

How much content the discussion will generate.

Why is a write-up from a panel event or round table valuable?

💡 Bigger audience – content can extend your event’s reach beyond the people there.

💡 Longevity – your event lives on in your content beyond the ‘thanks for coming’.

💡Promotion – A good write-up can help build interest in your next event, maybe a bit of FOMO.

💡 Time-saving – It’s relatively easy content you don’t have to write from scratch.

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Video: Making LinkedIn enjoyable and worthwhile

A short video on making time on LinkedIn enjoyable and worthwhile

Video summary:

If using LinkedIn is a chore, it will make it harder to be consistent, and without being consistent, you won’t get the full benefit of being on the platform.

To make LinkedIn more enjoyable, work out what you want to get from it. Getting business is an obvious one, but it doesn’t have to be the only reason.

You might want to build your network, learn about a particular topic, or be part of a specific community.

Once you know what you want to get out of the platform, then you can plan what actions you need to take to deliver.

But be realistic. If you want to post more to increase visibility but find coming up with ideas and finding the time to create posts tricky, then setting a goal of posting five days a week is likely to be unachievable.

Setting realistic targets to deliver the results you want will make LinkedIn more enjoyable.

Full transcript:

Two key tips for LinkedIn: Make it enjoyable and be realistic.

Now to make LinkedIn enjoyable, it helps if you get something out of the platform.

It doesn’t have to be just about getting business; that’s an important reason to be on LinkedIn and why many people are on LinkedIn. But there are lots of other reasons to be on LinkedIn.

It might be that you want to learn more about a particular topic or you want to build your network, or you want to be part of a community and be able to talk to people doing similar things to you or in the same industry.

These are all legitimate reasons for being on LinkedIn but think about what you’d like to get from the platform. And then set a strategy for how you’re going to achieve that.

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Personality in B2B content and why its good

Some thoughts on showing personality in B2B content and if it’s ‘professional’

There seems to be a fear about showing personality in B2B content. Either that it doesn’t sound professional or makes people feel exposed.

Showing some personality can be using a particular turn of phrase or choosing more conversational words in your writing.

Or perhaps using an anecdote or talking about a personal experience or how something made you feel, something that shows some of your personality.

What is ‘professional’?

First of all, being professional isn’t about sounding or dressing a certain way.

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