Most keynote speeches disappear the moment the speaker leaves the stage. Even when you deliver a great keynote speech, few people will share their takeaways on social media. Here’s how to fix it.

If you're not afraid to be on stage, you shouldn't be afraid to ask for promo. Be direct, inspire and lead by example to get more people talking about your presentation; during or after the event.

• Create your own social media content others can share.
• Warm up the audience before your talk.
• Make it super easy for people to share their takeaways.
• Follow-up actively after the event.

Turn your keynote into a content machine for yourself

The more content you create yourself, the easier it becomes for others to share their own take. They either get inspired by your posts, or they could just reuse/prepost your content to amplify your reach. Give the right example, and more people will follow. Two ways to do this are by recording the full keynote and by preparing social media posts based on your keynote's content.

How can you do this practically?

If you want a recording of your keynote, hire a professional to create a clean, stable recording. No one wants to share a low quality recording. Afterwards, post the full recording on YouTube and post clips on LinkedIn, Instagram Reels or TikTok.

You can also repurpose your best lines and slides to create social media posts like quote graphics, LinkedIn carousels and short audiograms.

This lets you extend the lifespan of your keynote by months and also serves as marketing material for future presentations.

Seed the conversation before you speak

You don't have to wait until after the event to start posting about it. Well before, you can post a short video or carousel with a few bold claims or questions you’ll address. It's also interesting to ask people what keeps them up at night, so you can tweak the presentation according to their needs and current struggles.

Example: “At [Event Name] I’ll explain why 90% of B2B content fails (and how to fix it). What’s your biggest struggle with content right now?”

Make your keynote shareable

This will feel like kicking in an open door, but if you want people to share your talk, you first have to make your talk worth sharing. If your presentation is full of long, boring slides, no one is going to take photos. 

If you share big quotes or interesting charts the cameras will click. What also helps is to do (live) polls and show the results of those.

But even when your presentation is super interesting and shareable, many people will still need a nudge to actually talk about it on social media. So it’s best to make your content snackable and include a conclusion.

But even then lots of photos get lost in iPhone photo galleries.

So instead of just making it very easy to take photos, you also have to make it easy to share those photos right away.

For example, with a QR code that prompts them to write about your keynote. Your listeners scan the code, share their photo and their takeaways, and they get a polished post to share on LinkedIn. This is exactly what Will can do for you.

It’s very simple and you can even make the QR code yourself, for free. Find out how to create QR codes that help you spread your keynote on social media. 

Follow-up after your presentation

Don’t go silent the moment you leave the stage. Your work is only half done. If you want people to keep talking about your presentation, you need to give them a reason to.

First of all, engage with your audience's posts.

Leonel Vidal Díaz, International keynote speaker

A quick “thanks” or a thoughtful comment goes a long way. It makes people feel heard and appreciated and it encourages others to share their take too.

Secondly, go beyond liking and commenting. Not everyone in your audience has a huge following. But when you amplify their voices by reposting their content, you create a ripple effect. Their followers see your talk. Your followers see the social proof. This also works as future event marketing. You’re showing how people engage with your content, which makes event organisers take note.

Finally, don’t forget to post your own recap. Summarise your talk in a short LinkedIn post. You could even add a CTA: ask your audience if they caught the talk, what they found valuable, or what they’re still struggling with. You’re not just asking for feedback, you’re already sparking the next round of conversation. (Yes, you could include Will in that CTA as well.)