The 5th World Conference on Media and Mass Conference was recently held in Kuala Lumpur's Seri Pacific Hotel. Organized by The International Institute of Knowledge Management (TIIKM) from Sri Lanka, the event from 4th to 7th April 2019 welcomed speakers and participants from more than twenty countries from North America, Europe, South Africa and Asia.
It was my first time delivering a keynote address before a panel of an international audience which primarily consists of Professors from reputable universities around the world. Titled "Engaging Your Audience with Zero Budget Facebook Marketing" I started the talk by inviting participants to network digitally, checking out each other's personal Facebook profile. I wanted to make a point on how crucial our personal Facebook profile has become, despite it being just a "social media platform". Friends and strangers are checking out our profiles daily and jumping to conclusions, which sometimes could be far from the image we wanted to portray or far from being accurate. Participants got pretty excited and I lost a few minutes, trying to get everyone to settle down and return to their seats, haha!
Then I proudly introduce a banned food item from all hotels in the nation, Malaysia's King of Fruits, Durian and how "engaging" this fruit is from its looks, its taste, its smell and its texture, a must-try for everyone who wants to claim that they have visited Malaysia. Being the most expensive fruit, a durian farm is truly valuable. The metaphor of a durian farm was used to relate to our social media networks. Our networks are highly valuable and the value is only experienced if we consciously take effort to nurture it and harvest from them. The talk centered around three steps, abbreviated with C. E. H. We must Connect, Engage then Harvest. This was the approach I have used and successfully helped my first book on entrepreneurship "Now or Never - Start a Business with only RM199" to be on Malaysia's largest English bookstore chain, MPH Bookstore get onto its Top 10 Weekly Bestseller list for 21 weeks. It was also 2017's Best Business Nominee alongside books by Richard Branson, Jack Ma, Tony Robbins and Tony Fernandes.
All social media users who have a message to share are suggested to get their audience to know what they do, like them as a person, trust them and remember them. From there, there are multiple Facebook features that help us maximize our exposures such as "See First", "Life Event" and "On This Day Memories". From my survey on this group of audience, Facebook is still the leading social media platform in this group of global audience followed by Instagram. LinkedIn came in third followed Twitter then WeChat. Only two had a Snapchat account. WhatsApp falls under a different category of platform and almost everyone uses it. While most watch videos on YouTube, only 10% of the 100+ audience, primarily consists of educators are uploading videos.
To engage our audience, I offered a formula cutely abbreviated as #MEMEPO.
When you want your post to receive due attention, check whether it is: 1. M - Motivational
2. E - Educational
3. M - Moving/Touching
4. E - Entertaining
5. P - Public Service Announcement 6. O - Opportunities
Examples were also shared (you may download my presentation slides at the bottom of this page).
Saving the best for last, I had enough time only to share three out of the many tactics I employed to help me reach my major goals, securing speaking engagements, trainings and selling my books.
Three tactics I used to help me generate business on Facebook without appearing to be selling: 1. Sell via a Process - Asking someone to buy your product upfront seldom do well on social media, unless it is a paid advertisement. An effective way you can adopt is engaging your audience in the process. I demonstrated how asking the audience to buy my online Zero Budget Facebook Marketing program led to only ONE person keen. Then an indirect approach was used, showing the process of producing the videos and ending with asking, "Who would like to watch my online videos for free?" More than 15 were keen. Hence I can work on these potential customers compared to only one.
2. Sell via Birthday Hack - Facebook tells your friends that it is your birthday. Typically everyone would wish you on your Timeline. It brings very little value to you. Now, stop everyone from posting on your timeline. Change your settings to "Only Me" on posting on own timeline. On your birthday, post a #MEMEPO post to share your past year and your future aspirations so everyone who wanted to wish you knows what you would do. If written well, you will receive opportunities from you Facebook friends.
3. Sell via Survey - Too many have made the mistakes of being too focus on themselves, their product or their service. To be in business, we exist to serve our audience/customers. Take book writing for example. Why write a book without knowing if it will be well received? Conduct a survey first, do your ground work by asking a series of strategic questions so you know if you are solving a real problem, whether there is a demand for your book, who your competitors are and how much your potential customers are willing to pay. You may download my slides at the bottom of this article for details.
Would you consider learning from the globes' top academicians and professionals? Next year The 6th World Conference on Media and Mass Communication will be held in Italy, 28th to 30th May 2020 in Cagliari, Italy. You can find out more, click here: Visit The 6th World Conference in Italy in 2020
It was a joy to be given such an opportunity, thanks to Oshadee Withanawasam, Co-Founder, CEO and Chairman of TIIKM and Isanka P. Gamage, Co-Founder and Managing Director of TIIKM, the conference organizer. How did we meet? We were referred to each other through a global business organization Business Network International (BNI). If you are a professional or are in business, I hope you have multiple networking groups that you work closely with.
Click here to download a copy of my slides titled "Engaging Your Audience with Zero Budget Facebook Marketing" presented at the 5th World Conference on Media and Mass Communication 2019.
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