How To Get Speakers To Share Your Virtual Summit

Worried that your speakers won't share about your virtual summit? I get it. We rely on our speakers to get our summits out into the world and hit the goals we've been dreaming of. And sometimes, reality can fall a bit short of our expectations.

Let's dive into 8 ways to encourage your speakers to share about your virtual summit, as well as how these tips worked for me in my most recent event.

How to get summit speakers to share

Speakers not sharing is one of the biggest complaints I hear from summit hosts. They get all of these awesome speakers, do a ton of work to make the summit happen, and then no puts in the work to spread the word.

When this happens, it's easy to get defensive and blame the speakers. But in reality, it's almost always a problem with your process, not with them.

Here are the most effective methods I've used for getting my speakers to shout about my summits from the rooftops.

1. Pitch the right people

Choosing speakers who have the same audience as your summit so that they resonate with who they're talking to and what the goal of the summit is.

They'll work harder for your summit if they want to be in front of the audience.

2. Set your sharing expectations

It's tough for speakers to meet your expectations if they aren't aware that any exist.

Include expectations you have around sharing in your original pitch email. Let them know that in advance so they can share any issues and concerns with you before they are signed on as a speaker. You want happy and engaged speakers.

Be sure to position it positively. It's going to be more worthwhile for everybody if they each do their part.

3. Enforce your expectations

After your expectations are set, you need to enforce them - but do it lightly.

As the promotion period draws near, remind them that it's coming by announcing that the promotional resources are ready and include a reminder on how to create their affiliate link.

As the promotion period goes on, give shout outs to people who are doing well. Email those who need reminders and include a reminder of their requirements, why it's important to share, copy/paste scripts, their affiliate link, and an offer to do the promo for them (for example, do an Instagram Story takeover).

4. Give your speakers a reason to share

If your speakers won't benefit from sharing, don't expect them to put in any effort.

The affiliate income is a great way they can start seeing rewards right as their promotion starts.

You could even spice things up with a sales contest where the top 3 affiliates would win prizes such as a month of HelloFresh, Bluetooth speakers, an Echo Dot, or the like.

You could also give a bonus of either a percentage or dollar amount for those affiliates who do share and hit a certain number of referrals. 

5. Make it really easy to share:

The easier you make it for speakers to share, the more they will.

Give them swipe copy both for emails you want them to send and for social media posts.

In the swipe copy, include both straight promo copy as well as value-add material that naturally ties into your summit. It's not all straight pitching.

Give them graphics of all different sizes:

• Vertical for Instagram stories and Pinterest
• Square for Instagram feed and Facebook
• Horizontal for Twitter.

Give them a sharing schedule. Give them a schedule of exactly when you recommend sending each email and posting each script on social media. Add reminders for them to include their affiliate link. 

6. Offer to promote for them

To make it an even easier ask, offer to do some promotion for the speakers who aren't doing a whole lot of sharing.

Let them know you would come to add value to their audience and tie it to the summit.

For example, you could do an Instagram story takeover, a live training in their Facebook group, a podcast interview, or a guest newsletter.

7. Don't be gross with sharing requirements

Lately, I've seen summit hosts asking their speakers to share 5+ times about their summit.

Don't be gross and pushy about this. Understand that some people speak to their audience differently than you. Some people have different boundaries when it comes to promotion than you do. Keep that in mind.

8. Make peace with reality

Some speakers will not share, and there's nothing you can do about it. It's not worth your energy to worry about it!

Your job is to get them excited and make the process easy for them. When you do that, you will increase the likelihood that they'll share. So focus on that over enforcing rules and requirements.

Support the speakers that are stepping up and put the rest of your energy into hosting an incredible event.

Resources

• 12 Secrets To Your First Profitable Online Summit
• Episode 19: Choosing Speakers That Will Get You (And Them) The Best Results
• Episode 21: How to Get Happy And Engaged Summit Speakers
• Summit Host Hangout Facebook group 

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