Twitter Battering of Keynote

Heather Buckley — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 17:23:08 +0000

The bad presentation given at the HighEdWeb Open and Connected Conference last week certainly made the headlines. My immediate response to the issue was ‘that’s a great lesson in how important it is to Know your Audience’. The feedback, traffic and mentions Twitter-heckled Key Note Speaker – Know your Audience! has attracted made me realise that from a Social Media perspective there are many more lessons to be learned. Those interested in building up their online presence using Social Media may be interested in our one day Social Networking Training course, or even our SEO Training course.

Here are some of the opinions expressed in the aftermath of the event.

Some people are pointing out that many of those writing about this event were not even there (including me – I’m in Brighton in the UK)
Some of those twittering real-time were not even in the room.
The conference as a whole was well received and that only an hour of the whole event hit the headlines, which is a shame for the organisers.
The main people who started the negative twittering were only a handful.
It has all been blown out of proportion by us bloggers.

Well yes, yes , yes, yes, yes and yes. But isn’t that what makes it all so interesting from a Social Media perspective?

The story is so interesting it got picked up immediately by those interested in Social Media
The extensive use of twitter allowed the story to be disseminated real-time and proved that if those who are well connected send out a message to others equally well connected it soon accelerates and is received by an incredible range at incredible speed.
The blog post I wrote about it has been linked to and visited more in the shortest amount of time than any other page I have written.
If your content is interesting, topical and current enough then the bigger influencers will use it and your reach will extend very fast.

One of the comments “conspiracy theory about the keynote: it’s a test of the power of the back channel; social experiment” might not be so far form the truth even if not intentional.

I have heard that someone twittered the poor guys number and he has bee receiving texts and calls about how bad he was – that is cruel and it is sad. Did he deserve it – I don’t think so, should he have been more prepared – definatetely.

Silicon Beach Training offer Presentation Training, and an Advanced Presentation Skills Course. We also have a Presentation Skills Free Resources section.

Twitter-heckled Key Note Speaker – Know your Audience!

Heather Buckley — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 11:19:06 +0000

Two days ago a Keynote speaker at the Social Media Conference “HighEdWeb 2009: Open. Connected” Showed how dangerous it can be to give a presentation without knowing your audience. Apparently he is not on Twitter and was talking about the effectiveness of Snail Mail Campaigns, and using not very good and outdated PowerPoint Slides. The organisation hosting the event seem social media savvy enough and encouraged attendees to use the tag #heweb09 to follow the back channel discussion.

(See our range of Social Media Training courses to learn more – including a new leading edge SEO training course)

Oh dear – The Social Media conversant audience soon started to tweet about the speakers outdated comments . The audience being well connected caused an avalanche effect as tweets and re-tweets flooded twitter escalating it to the trending topic of the day!

Tweets this presenter could learn from :

Gold font on gray background w/ 1990 drop shadow makes babies cry. Should we stage intervention
“Videos are not automatically good”
hella drop shadow
Someone turn up the contrast
Ugly slide and I can’t hear u
too much background music
OH: it’s always relevant when you use popular hip hop songs from 5 years ago
We’ve had two keynotes, neither of whom build websites…
KAZAA OMG. how old is this video? Kazaa has been dead for years
im currently reminded of towelie from south park, I have no idea whats going on right now
blah blah blah out of business blah blah blah here watch a video
Can anyone hear this guy? Or read his slides?
conspiracy theory about the keynote: it’s a test of the power of the back channel; social experiment
We’ve moved to 10 years ago now…
I think the sound guy has fallen asleep
talking quite, music loud, are they trying to get to go have a quick nap before the 1:30 presos??
Anyone else confused by that video?
I think I’m about to have a seizure
ok. slides with paragraphs of information make me turn around, and tweet about how such things are bad
Watching keynote. Clearly I’m not the only one that sucks at Powerpoint. I was smart enough to not use it though.
Why is this guy here?
18things flashing and beeping. That’s why we need movement on the homepage . Right
Someone needs a class on PowerPoint… Sound levels in videos … And being relevant to your audience.
You know a presentation is relevant when it mentions Xanga.
watching people try to figure out how they can get out, starting to see the OMG I AM TRAPPED looks on faces
Did we go back in time 4 years? Knew all this already. Something new please!!
Worst designed powerpoint ever. Ever.
Oh he wants frequent and immediate feedback. Anyone?
ha ha this reminds me that myspace is the trailer park of social media. ha ha

Presenters beware – twittering will be around for some time, if you have a large audience be sure you know them well and give them what they want. Even if you know all this and are a great presenter following your audience reaction on twitter can only be a good thing, feedback is a good thing and now it is happening real time.

Those interested in building up their online presence using Social Media may be interested in our one day Social Media Training course. Silicon Beach Training offer Presentation Training, and an Advanced Presentation Skills Course. We also have a Presentation Skills Free Resources section.

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Twitter Battering of Keynote

Twitter-heckled Key Note Speaker – Know your Audience!