Brandy Henry: Your Business Instagram with Toastmasters District 7

Toastmaster is a general term referring to a person in charge of public speaking events. A toastmaster is usually responsible for organizing the events, keeping them on schedule, and arranging the order of speakers. Typically those events include different banquets, civic functions, and service organization meetings.

Toastmasters International is a non-profit educational organization that helps its members develop and improve their public speaking, communication, and leadership skills. It offers educational programs that teach you how to address the public concisely and clearly in everyday contacts, official talks, and professional presentations.

It is represented by over 16.800 clubs with 358.000 members in over 140 countries. With the Toastmasters education program, you can:

• Improve your public speaking skills;
• Build leadership skills;
• Maximize your potential;
• Build self-confidence and self-awareness;
• Work on networking in a safe and supportive environment;
• Practice writing speeches and presenting in a group setting;
• Gain a competitive advantage in the workplace;
• Enjoy unlimited personal growth

What is the Toastmasters Club?

There are different Toastmasters clubs out there. They vary from regular clubs with a diverse membership to specialty clubs that have a particular focus. There are also corporate clubs with a focus to help management and staff improve their speaking skills. Most clubs have around 20 members and meet once a week for an hour or two.

The Toastmaster club is a learn-by-doing type of club. During the club meeting, you practice speaking by presenting a prepared speech, talking on a specific meeting role, or participating in ‘Table Topics.' This segment gives speaking opportunities to members who were not assigned a speaking role during the meeting. They need to think fast and provide appropriate answers to questions on non-specialized topics.

There are several meeting roles, but they can slightly vary from club to club:

• Ah-Counter – notes any overused words or filler sounds;
• Grammarian – helps other members improve their grammar and vocabulary;
• Timer – monitors time for each meeting segment;
• Toastmaster – meeting director or host;
• Topics-master – selects topics for the meeting;
• Meeting speaker – prepares and presents a speech during the meeting;
• Table Topics speaker – helps members develop their impromptu speaking skills;
• Evaluator – provides feedback to meeting speakers;
• General Evaluator – evaluates everything that takes place during the meeting

How Much Do Toastmasters Cost?

Anyone over the age of 18 can join Toastmasters. There are several steps you need to consider if you want to join:

1. Search for clubs in your vicinity – if you live in an urban area you will have many options to choose from;
2. Every club has a unique style and club culture. Before settling on one, visit several clubs to find the one that best suits you;
3. Membership fee – Members pay international fees of $45 every six months. There is a new member fee of $20.

Why Join Toastmasters?

Joining Toastmasters is a perfect opportunity to practice your public speaking skills and learn how to become a better communicator and leader in a safe and supportive environment. Everybody joins toastmasters for their personal reasons, and some of them are:

• Overcome fear. – The best way to combat anxiety is by confronting it head-on. Practice makes perfect. With each meeting, you will feel more confident and less anxious when speaking and presenting in front of a group.
• Gain self-confidence. – By frequently attending Toastmasters meetings and practicing public speaking regularly, you will grow your self-confidence and learn how to deliver a speech in front of an audience. Confidence is crucial because, without it, you will appear nervous and unsettled, which will make the audience feel uncomfortable as well.
• Hone leadership skills. – At the meetings, you will have the opportunity to take on various leadership roles and practice leading your club in a risk-free environment. As a result, you will become a more confident leader regardless of your company's size.
• Upgrade improvisation skills. – With Toastmasters, you will learn how to provide fast and intelligent answers to unexpected questions. No matter how much you practice, sooner or later you will come across a question you are not prepared for. With regular practice, you will improve your improvisation skills and abilities to think on your feet.
• Develop your listening skills. – By listening and evaluating other speakers, you will develop your listening skills. A good listener is a characteristic of a great leader. Toastmasters will allow you to listen, provide feedback, and motivation to other speakers while sharpening your leadership abilities at the same time.

Are you in need of communication skills coaching?

Brandy W. Henry is the social media manager for Toastmasters District 7.

Toastmasters International is a worldwide nonprofit educational organization that focuses on the advancement of communication and public speaking skills.

District 7, established in 1940, includes Oregon, a small part of Washington State, and Northern California.

Toastmasters International’s goal is to help people from different backgrounds become confident speakers, communicators, and leaders.

Learn more about how Toastmasters International can help improve your public speaking by listening to this episode of The Thoughtful Entrepreneur above and don’t forget to subscribe on  Apple Podcasts – Stitcher – Spotify –Google Play –Castbox – TuneIn – RSS.

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0:00
Welcome to the thoughtful entrepreneur Show. I'm Josh Elledge, founder and CEO of up my influence.com. We turn entrepreneurs into media celebrities, grow their authority, and help them build partnerships with top influencers. We believe that every person has a unique message that can positively impact the world. stick around to the end of the show, where I'll reveal how you can be our next guest on one of the fastest growing daily inspiration podcasts on the planet in 15 to 20 minutes. Let's go. So Brandy W. Henry, thank you so much for joining us. You're a social media manager. We know each other through Toastmasters District 7 we've done some work with and you're a strategist in your own right. And one thing that you do and why I was really excited to have you on is that you help people be comfortable on Instagram ran The I need a little bit of help, because I'll tell you some of my biggest challenges is that it's time and its energy. You know, by the time I get around to, you know, it's it's always the tyranny of the urgent, so I'm always doing the things I have to do. And then by the time, you know, I have an opportunity to do a live stream on Instagram or post some video or something like that, which I'd really love to be doing more regularly. I just don't have the energy. I just I already don't want to do it. Like I've been talking with people all day long. And then it's like, five, six o'clock and I'm like, I don't have it in me.

1:42
Yeah, again. And then there's the decision fatigue. Yeah,

1:47
yeah, right. Right. What do I talk about?

1:50
Right. Okay.

1:51
All right. So help me out. Help me Brandy. What do I do?

1:55
I were you what I would do with your page is definitely focused on short video snippets. If some point during your day when you're out and about or maybe on the weekend or if you have 30 minutes, sit down and record several short snippets where you give a drop of information that is helpful to your followers. And that shows some of your personality. save those most people, save them on their phone. And then throughout the week, upload them maybe Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Tuesday, Thursday, only login to engage and respond to people who have said, Hey, great video or have a question and answer them and maybe screenshot that question to answer on a future episode. Where you can take that feedback and integrate it into maybe your newsletter into your podcast into other areas. And thank the person for the question. Give them a shout out on another platform. And if you can just have that routine of the Monday Wednesday, Friday. Posting Those videos responding to people Tuesday and Thursdays, keep it to 1520 minutes.

3:08
You go in your golden

3:10
Okay, so um, so in terms of like, let's talk about technically like how we do this. So can I use so for example, someone showed me and I cannot believe I never saw this has been on my phone forever, but the app and you tell me what you what apps you like, but for actually producing the content, clips and clips will allow you to have the transcription or subtitles on the video automatically, which I think is pretty big.

3:40
That's really great. If you want to take that step. I definitely think you should do it. The very first thing to remember is if your phone on your camera will allow you to record in one to one or square. You start you want to reach cord so that you're recording it. Where? Okay, yes, no, I got that setup right now. Great. Not your full phone. That one to one. Okay good. Great. Make sure that when you holding your phone for most of us we need to hold it a little bit up otherwise people are looking up our nose. Oh yeah, that's it's not flattery. Yeah, right right. There we go.

4:30
Got a square. Hold it up just a little bit there. I'll see that does that looks much better. I look I look slept more slender too.

4:39
Yeah, and yeah, we all look better.

4:41
Yeah. Yeah, okay, good. Good. Good. What else what else do you want? Do I miss? Yo.

4:51
What's on? Oh, go ahead. I got a little blurry. What was that? Yeah, how long do I make the videos I would keep them between When three minutes if you want to post them to ID TV, it's okay to post it to your feed. only keep it under a minute. Uh huh. And what's

5:10
the difference between what's the difference between so I see like, I ggV upload a video between 15 seconds and 60 minutes long. We were not going to do we're not going to do 60 minutes. So what's the difference between doing putting a video on my story? I ggV or as as a post, if you're

5:29
going to record a short video on your phone through your camera square format, and you haven't over a minute, but under about 10 minutes for most of us that goes to IG TV with very first minute showing up in our feed. So Oh, yes, and it takes a little longer to upload to IPTV those first few times are a little scary because you think maybe your phone's going to lose the material or you're going to disconnect from Wi Fi. Even though Wi Fi, it takes a little bit of time to upload it TV, you're under a minute, you just upload it straight to your feed and maybe add a few pictures afterwards that highlight what you did over the weekend or during the week or with a special client you met with or somebody you helped. And you're drawing people into your bigger story, you're giving them a bit of advice, you're helping them see the story arc of what it is that you do in the world and the difference you're making. And then the next day you log back in and respond to people who have commented.

6:34
Nice. Okay, so what happens if I'm a busy busy entrepreneur and I just don't have time which of these things what can I What do I What do I have to do? I want to create a workflow and and a system here where I can do only what I can do and have somebody else do everything else. What or how can I delegate

6:57
if you have an assistant who you trust can talk in your voice that makes sense? Who can represent your brand, the way that you would talk? then definitely have that person help you with responding and to comments and making sure they're answering all those direct messages. You know, just like you're out and about the world. If you say hi to somebody or pay them a compliment, and they just walk by or they don't acknowledge you, that doesn't feel good. So if you're trying to build a following and dedicated people, and you're not acknowledging them for commenting or acknowledging you, they're going to stop commenting, and you won't show up in their feet anymore. Yeah, you have an assistant, who you trust to talk in your voice. Have them do those responses.

7:48
Now, you know, so I'm just kind of someone who's listening to our conversation right now. So, you know, just by virtue of like, what we do in the media and stuff like that, you know, we have a acquired over 14,000 followers on Instagram, however, my engagement, you have higher engagement than I do. And you've got about one 10th of the followers that I have. I'm doing something wrong in terms of engagement. How can I be getting better engagement, Brandi?

8:22
Definitely show up, maybe spend one day a week, go and comment on other people's posts or have some of that so that Yeah, you know, you're showing interest in them as well. And it'll also give you a better idea of who is following you and what their interest might be because you're getting to know them. Definitely, you know, all those responses are important. And when you go on line, or you go on Instagram, you might make a rule for yourself that you don't look at anything else till you've committed or on three, the First three posts. Yeah. And get in the habit of acknowledging other people. Instagram changed the algorithm about four months ago to where it is really heavily engagement oriented. And it is demanding that you pay attention and that you are sincerely going back and forth with the people.

9:23
Wow. So okay, so don't just broadcast on Instagram, but actually, really, yeah, because I think they don't want it to be. You know, a lot of people can treat Twitter like this where they just they're just blasting out stuff non stop and they don't engage. So Instagram really wants you to do stuff. Yeah. That's right. It's really weird to I actually have one. I have one post it got 978 likes 20 comments. I don't know what I did there. But Once in a while, like there's that one. And there's another one that was just went bonkers. And I'm like, what I do what I do? Like sometimes that happens, right, right?

10:11
It does. And there might be something similar about those it might be, you know, when it's you out in the world with your family. Yeah, yeah, Instagram is still a visual platform. And we as humans are drawn to the story of other humans and your may have been telling a story.

10:31
Yeah.

10:33
Do you provide? Do you provide help coaching? What do you do?

10:37
Yeah, I often, most of the time, I'm sitting one on one, either literally or online with somebody and helping them understand the Instagram platform, helping them with content, helping them some people, you know, it's still what's the difference between my story and a story, you know, all this lingo overlaps and it's confusing. What's you know? An understanding how do I will if I have Facebook? Why do I need Instagram and helping them, break that down and come up with a plan and structure their time find a time in their day or in their week when they can spend 1520 minutes to build their platform on Instagram, and come to a point where they're comfortable and they can enjoy it. And we always start with that mission statement. What is your purpose for being there? What what are you bringing? What is the story you're willing to share? And stay above any kind of snarky? Enos stay above any kind of like negativity and stick with that mission? Yeah. What about in purpose? I really love that I'm going to do that. And what about someone who's like, gosh, you know, for me, for me to take the time or to get you know, my assistant to help out with this. Like, I want to make sure there's a good business plan for doing so.

11:57
How is Instagram good for business?

12:00
So Instagram is great for business because you're going to build that following or those thousand true fans or more. From there, what you're going to do in your stories feed when you do do stories, you know, you hold it up. And in the moment, you're taking a little story and you're telling something, invite people, to follow you to build out your newsletter, you know, to become a subscriber through the link on your profile. So by giving them little bits of information, drawing them into the story of what it is you're doing in the world. And then once a week or so, come on two stories. And at the very end, after a few clips, you know, you're giving them some good information, telling them a little bit more about yourself, say, hey, I'd love to give you more, you know, connect with you more, please follow the link on my profile, sign up for my newsletter, and I'd love to have you. Mm hmm.

12:54
Well, this is all really really good. Brandy, I want to thank you so much. This has been super, super helpful. Instagram is absolutely powerful. I, you know, I've spoken at the Social Media Marketing World a couple times, I think, honestly, you know, if I were to invest or if this is tough, you know, but in terms of platforms, if you're looking to connect with your audience and your audience or consumers, Instagram is a really, really great platform, I see it as a great platform for showing a lot of behind the scenes kind of stuff as opposed to, you know, maybe YouTube, you're being a little bit more like, you know, this is where we put the show. And Instagram would show you know, well, here is us making the show and what we do and behind the scenes and, you know, kind of like, you know, okay, I got a private you know, a couple minutes with your real quick, let me tell you what, you know, what our day has been like, you know, yeah, that's really great.

13:53
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

13:55
Well, cool. So again, go check out Brandy on Instagram. Brandy W. Henry, that's your Twitter handle. And then of course you can also go to Brandy W. Henry.com Instagram strategist, particularly with being comfortable and getting engagement. Brandy, thank you so much for joining us.

14:18
Thank you. I I'm really glad to have help. And that's what I'm here for.

14:24
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