For every business owner, upping engagement levels with consumers should be an absolute priority. If this is something that you need a bit of guidance with, this week’s guest, Jon Yeo, has some golden words for you. Jon is the curator of TEDx Melbourne, Melbourne’s local offshoot of TED.com (the website that brings video talks of ideas worth spreading to the world). TEDxMelbourne events get bums on seats AND they get people talking – in the last year alone, the events garnered 2 million social media mentions.
How does Jon do it? By knowing the ins and outs of his target audience (not just abstract demographic info), by creating relevant and engaging content consistently, and crucially, by speaking to his audience on their own level. Jon believes that we should be speaking with our target audience, not to them, and I couldn’t agree more.
Plus, I share three incredible success stories from the Small Business Big Marketing Forum, and end the show with my favourite Inspirational Quote of The Week yet. Let’s get stuck right into another episode of Australia’s #1 marketing show!
Episode Timeline
- 2.30 I share an epic win from the Small Business Big Marketing forum that showcases why injecting personality into business is so important.
- 4.50 Another win from the forum – this time a book cover design courtesy of a 99Designs contest.
- 8.00 How Leanne from resistitbands.com got her publicity into gear by being proactive.
- 10.00 Some actionable tips for gaining publicity for your small business.
- 12.30 Hitting a wall with setting up a website or SEO? Get in touch with Netregistry pronto.
- 13.30 Introducing Jon Yeo, the volunteer curator of TEDxMelbourne.
- 16.30 What is TED anyway?
- 20.00 Exploring the power of economy through short, succinct bursts of content.
- 23.30 The importance of content not just being high quality, but also shareable.
- 25.00 Why TED is an organisation for thought leaders and people with big imaginations.
- 27.00 How does Jon choose the speakers who end up on the TEDxMelbourne stage?
- 32.00 An inside look at Jon’s very own Speech Development Programme.
- 36.00 Why business owners need to do more than tick the boxes. Inject your personal style into your marketing.
- 40.00 How does Jon get bums on seats for TEDxMelbourne events?
- 49.00 The importance of getting out of your comfort zone once in a while.
- 52.00 My top five takeaways from chatting with Jon.
- 55.45 Inspirational quote of the week!
Resources and Links Mentioned in this Episode
- TED.com: the official website
- TEDxMelbourne: the official website
- Jon’s favourite TED talk: Weird, or just different? by Derek Sivers
- My favourite TEDx talk: A shark-deterrent wetsuit, by Hamish Jolly
- Ep 197 – The power of content, with Melissa Maker
- A cool video from comedian, Chris Rock.
- Netregistry: Get your online marketing sorted!
- www.99Designs.com/sbbm: For logo design, brochure design, and more. Grab your exclusive listener upgrade at this link.
- Join the The Small Business Big Marketing Forum today!
- Transcription Services provided by GMR Transcription
Tweetables
My Top 5 Learnings
This week, I have FIVE top learnings from my chat with John:
1. Be relevant and engaging. Create marketing that speaks to consumers on their own level.
2. Understand your prospects really well. Find out about their lives, not just broad demographic info.
3. Don’t speak at your audience, speak with them. Create two-way conversations for dynamic engagement.
4. Go to a TEDx event in your area, and open your mind.
5. Take a public speaking course. Public speaking has boosted my business, and it could do the same for yours.
Over to you!
Let me know YOUR #1 takeaway from this episode by leaving a comment below.
My guest and myself personally read and respond to every comment.
Grab My 10 Marketing
10 thoughts on “213 – A TEDx curator takes us behind-the-scenes of this worldwide phenomenon”
This was a great episode Timbo & Jon – I listened on the plane home from Qld today and wrote lots of ideas & learnings – more than just 5 Timbo 🙂
Create unique experiences you can’t get outside of your community; You can’t put a price on high level networking; Never Say Never – the moment you limit yourself is when it goes to pot! Wow could go on & on…. Loved it!
great interview timbo – particularly like how you finished with the richard branson quote! Would love to know specifically what Jon did to get 900 tickets sold in under two weeks – was it just email marketing to his lists that drove it, or where did the bulk of sales come from? obviously building the brand that is TED sells it, but interesting to know the mechanics sometimes.
great interview timbo – particularly like how you finished with the richard branson quote! Would love to know specifically what Jon did to get 900 tickets sold in under two weeks – was it just email marketing to his lists that drove it, or where did the bulk of sales come from? obviously building the brand that is TED sells it, but interesting to know the mechanics sometimes.
Timbo, I was looking at joining toastmasters for networking and public speaking that will help me for my podcast i will be launching. Then you released this podcast Ted.com What would you recommend, learn from Ted or toastmasters? Thanks StevO (ps did you get my email?)
Pete, the TED brand would have had a lot to do with it, however I agree with you, the mechanics would be interesting to understand. I’ll put it to Jon.
Love it, Leanne. I always find it hard to keep my learnings to five, but I need a limit otherwise each episode would be twice as long! Thanks so much for sharing yours.
Steve, certainly watch a lot of TED and TEDx talks if you want to improve your speaking. Re podcasting, my tip is to identify a couple of TV show hosts you respect and see how they go about it. Parkinson is my hero. I also like Mike Sheehan. Both are solid interviewers. And nope, didn’t get your email.
Hi Steve, the answer lies in specifically what you want to do with your speaking. If it is only for a podcast (and you are comfortable with that), you can’t beat just having a red hot go. If you want to get comfortable as a speaker on stage Toastmasters is a great first step as that is what it is designed for. TED (or TEDx) on the other hand is really about elevating your thoughts to “ideas worth spreading”. My focus for my speakers on the TEDxMelbourne stage is to create “messages with impact” by keying in on relevance and engagement. The program was designed for TEDxMelbourne and is now used internationally. It is also used by the National Speakers Association and was demonstrated at the recent national Toastmasters event. So it is proving to be very flexible in it’s application
Hi Peter,
When I took over TEDxMelbourne it had 53 people on a mail list. There are 2500 TEDx events per year around the world. Few reach our level. While the brand now carries its own weight, our event is one of the most successful in the world. I think that key to this, and touched on in the interview, is the intimate knowledge we have with our community and how we talk to them rather than talk at them.
It’s difficult to fully explain in text. A good example is we can set a date, venue and topic and know specifically who and how many people will be there. We can connect specific groups with our partners and know what drives our community. By knowing our community, we become a trusted partner in their hopes, dreams and aspirations.
We do that by sitting with our community, asking them questions and seeing how they respond to our interactions.
In principle, it is the same metrics as for speaking – relevance and engagement. We work closely with partners, speakers, volunteers and community to “change the way they feel about the world they live in”.
With this in mind we craft our messaging (including email), events and interactions to support this. Our data (and many marketers believe) shows that email is our primary mechanism for sales. How we do that is possibly another conversation. Maybe another chat Timbo?
Thanks Leanne. Another key we focus on is always pushing the boundaries – to “change the way people think and feel about the world they live in”. If we can do that, we know what the edge of innovation is and we know what (new) is possible.