We all know social media can boost thought leadership—but, have you ever thought about highlighting your speaking experience on social media? For speakers, social media platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter can be used to highlight your past speaking engagements, show off your presentation skills, and draw a larger audience to your content. 

If you’re a speaker who is not active on social media yet—you should be. Here are a few reasons why:

• 72% of adults in the U.S. use social media, and posting on these platforms can increase views on your speaking videos.

• 77% of consumers would rather purchase from a company where executives are active on social media.

• 96% of all B2B companies want more content from thought leaders in their industry.

Figuring out how to highlight your speaking experience on social media can be challenging, but we’ve got you covered. Here are our tips:

• Post quality content: Just like any other kind of social media post, you want to post quality content so your followers and connections are engaged. Have an awesome clip of you speaking at a conference? Definitely share that! Have a grainy video from a session you did when you didn’t feel 100%? Maybe pass on sharing that on social media.

• Personalize clips for the platform: We recommend that speakers share past speaking clips on LinkedIn and Twitter because that’s where their professional connections are—such as event managers, other executives, and past co-presenters. The two platforms are different in many ways, such as the length of videos. Videos can be 10 minutes long on LinkedIn native videos, and 2 minutes and 20 seconds on Twitter. As you’re trimming videos for each platform, make sure you include the best parts of your talk within the allotted time.

• Tailor content for your audience: Each social media platform has its own voice and audience, and thought leaders should personalize their written content for the specific audiences they have on those social media sites. For LinkedIn, you’ll want to keep it professional by focusing on what thought leadership you showed during the speaking sample, and sharing how those insights are relevant to your industry. Twitter limits users to 280 characters in each post, so make sure to be concise. 

• Use hashtags to reach more people: Use the event’s official hashtag and any associated hashtags in your posts on Twitter or LinkedIn to boost engagement and gain a wider audience beyond your followers and connections. For example, if you spoke about artificial intelligence (AI) and entrepreneurship at Mobile World Congress Barcelona 2021, you would use hashtags like #MWC22, #AI, #entrepreneurship.

• Tag the right people and companies: Social media is all about making connections, and getting other people and companies involved in your post can help draw more users to your speaking video. Tag the event’s handle on Twitter and its profile page on LinkedIn to show the event organizers that you’re sharing a video from their conference. If you spoke on a panel or fireside chat, tag any associated speakers to spark a conversation with them and their followers.

These tips will help you show off your speaking skills and boost engagement on your posts featuring speaking samples. Want to share thought leadership via speaking at events and podcasts? Get in touch!