At a recent roundtable panel  of chief information officers, a brave young man came to the audience microphone and asked the panel, how do you like to work with vendors.  The audience and the panel chuckled at the question - though the many vendors in the audience (myself included) leaned forward, eager to hear the reply.

"The internet works both ways," said one of the panelist.  "Do your homework."

That got me thinking...with the free flow of information on the Internet, there are more and more ways to research your audience.  Social media has added yet another twist to the equation.  But we mustn't forget the "old school" ways of finding out about our audiences either.  Here are nine ways you can find out more about any audience - be they client, prospect, an organization or just an interested party.

Old School Approaches

Organizational Web Site

If you are speaking to an group with a website, a visit to their web page is an absolute must!  A hit to the "Press Releases" tab and BAM there is the information that the organization wants the general public to know about itself.  The "About Us" page often will include the history of the organization, bios of key members of the organization, organization goals and vision, guiding principles, and more.  Everyone assumes that you have read their web site, so read it!   You may walk away knowing more about the organization than half its members!

Networking Events

Go to the places where your audiences hang out.  Attend chamber events, professional associations meetings, open networking events, and anywhere else the people you're trying to reach are likely to be.  Listen to the topics presented.  Find out what they care about.  Look for the "n & n" clues - places where they nod and take notes as they listen.  Find out what messages resonate with them.

Google

This is probably obvious.  You probably already googled the organization to find their web site.  A Google search will also reveal articles from other sources about the organization and potentially Facebook pages, LinkedIn groups, Twitter accounts, and YouTube video that we'll cover in the Social Media section below.  Look for happy customers.  Unhappy customer.  You never know what may show up.  But you're sure to get additional information that can help you get to know your audience better.

The Person Who Owns the Meeting

If you're speaking to an organization - as in a formal presentation for a professional association or a sales demonstration for a prospect - talk to the person who invited you.  Find out from the person planning the program why they decided to bring you in and why they believe the audience is interested in what you have to say.  Ask the meeting organizer what they hope the audience will feel, see, or do differently as a result of the meeting.  This will help you get to know the motivations of the person planning the meeting and what they think is important for the group.

Additionally, ask the person planning the meeting about the group.  Find out demographic information such as gender, age, roles, etc. of the people who will be attending the meeting.  Find out what do they have in common.  How are they different.  Knowing about the background of the people you'll be speaking to will help you to know how to approach the material, what examples or analogies will work best with the audience, etc.

Ask for Names and Contact Information of Some Meeting Attendees

While the person planning the meeting will give you valuable information about the group, ask if you can also speak to some of the leaders and members of the group as well.  Talk to those individuals by phone and get their input as to what's important and what they want to get out of the meeting.  Use these interviews to validate assumptions, understand the group's feeling about your topic, collect interesting data and stories about the organization and find out what they care about most.  People love to talk about themselves and you'll be amazed at what great information you can learn about your audience!

Social Media Approaches

Twitter

It was from blogger, author and tweeter Chris Brogan that I first heard the idea that Twitter is a great place to listen.  He's right.  If your audience is on Twitter, then Twitter is a great place to learn about them.  You can see what they are saying.  You can see what they think is important, or funny, or interesting by what tweet and what they retweet.  You can see who interests them by taking a look at who they following.  You can see who else is interested in them by reviewing their followers.  (Is your competition following them already?!)  And considered how flattered they will be if retweet a message they sent! 

For public events such as association meeting or chamber events, where the meeting planners want as many attendees as possible, then Twitter can be a good tool to publicize an event where you are speaking.  The organization you are speaking to will appreciate the publicity and may even be willing to coordinate a Twitter campaign with you.  See if the organization will use their Twitter account to ask their followers to answer one of your questions.  Their tweets can result in feedback for your presentation.

If there are conferences or meetings that your audience attends, see if there's a hashtag associated with the event.  If there is, try searching for the hashtag to see what is making news at the conference or what other conference attendees are concentrated on.  (Try http://search.twitter.com to search for recent post.  Or use http://tweetchat.com watch posts related to a conference while the conference is still going on.  These two sites are time sensitive so also try Google for additional results.)

Facebook

While Facebook seems to be used by most people for personal information, there are companies that have fan pages - well, we used to call them fan pages -- I think they're now called just Pages by Facebook).  Whatever they're called, it's interesting to see what the organization says about itself and what others have to say who became a fan or lliked a page.  What are they interested in?  Who are their friends?  You may find out you have things in common that can help you as you talk to individual audience members.

YouTube

YouTube is another means for an organization to say something about themselves.  Like wise, it is a way for others to say something about the organization too.  Similar to the other avenue, poke around on YouTube and see what you can learn from the videos being posted.

LinkedIn

Because LinkedIn has professional information on individuals, it can be a great source of information about the people in your audience.  You can find out more about

their educational background, previous employers, interests, and other areas that you share in common.  Additionally, you can see what LinkedIn groups the person belongs to.  This can give you more information to relate even better to your audience.

Getting to Know Your Audience - The Big Picture

As I was writing this, the words of one of my friends kept ringing in my ears - "I'm not doing social media.  I'm guarding my privacy.  I don't want everyone knowing everything about me."  I guess I'm the kind of person she was talking about when she said she wanted to protect her privacy!

I look at it like this.  If I can get to know my audience, be they a group of professionals in an association meeting, a prospect or a client, I can serve them better.  If I'm not the right fit for their purposes, I can save us both time and energy.  If my training and coaching programs can help them achieve their goals, then we'll both be better for us finding a good match.

As we talk about it here, getting to know an audience is a noble thing.  A flattering thing.  An inevitable part of the way we'll all do business now and in the future.  If we are to serve well, it's best for us and for our future audiences, if we find out more so we can all make better, more beneficial connections.