Do I live-tweet and then Storify basically every educational talk I attend?
Practically.
I first met Karen Yankovich last year at Mahwah Regional Chamber of Commerce's Social Media Day (I'll be giving a workshop on personal branding at this year's event, on June 15) and we stayed in touch via social media. I took her free LinkedIn webinar last year, knowing full well that it would end with a sales pitch for the paid course. And you know what? I learned so much in that free hour that I went for it. And I've used the specific knowledge I gained in that longer webinar to make at least ten times what the webinar cost me, in less than a year.
Karen's been working with PR pro Christina Daves on their Get Seen, Be Heard program, which is all about the potent 1-2 punch of social media + PR. One of my professional goals right now is to establish industry expertise and become a more in-demand speaker. The time for this was right for me. Yet I still somehow entered today's free webinar expecting to just do the freebie, see how those lessons worked for me for a little while, and then maybe do the paid course this fall or something. But a) they may not be offering it in the fall, because this isn't a pre-recorded course, it's live, so it's happening when it's happening; and b) they're masters of making it sound so good that you just can't not. And I do believe that I will once again turn my soon-to-be-learned knowledge around into a more-than-tenfold profit.
Anyway. Here are some jewels from this afternoon's freebie. I expect I'll be getting plenty of blog fodder out of the full course, too (though don't worry, Karen & Christina, I won't give away all your secrets!).