Ep. 25. Build a platform

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The applause from your speech may have faded, but the connection you make with your audience doesn’t have to. Engaging online can help you deepen and broaden your audience relationship, while building a growing network that may become one of your most valuable assets: your platform.

Links: It’s been a few years since Platform by Michael Hyatt came out. It may not include the latest news on social networks and mobile engagement, but the principles will still be sound years from now. Strongly recommended. There are newer books, but this is the one I keep coming back to.

Cliff Atkinson’s The Backchannel is nearly a decade old and a lot has changed; I’d love to see him revisit it. But he has some excellent advice on engagement specifics, including handling the Twitter backchannel during your presentation (which I didn’t touch on in this episode — it was already the longest yet!) By the way, Cliff is the author of the utterly essential Beyond Bullet Points.

And here’s my blog post for speechwriters on how to call on your social network to help you craft your next opus.

Music: “Upbeat” by John Luc Hefferman. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Photo: jesse orrico on Unsplash