3 Secret Weapons to Engage Your Audience
“They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel. ”
The best presentations engage your audience on a human level. You may be the one standing in front of an audience, but that doesn’t mean you have to do all the work.
I often hear from clients that they don’t like public speaking because they feel like they’re talking AT people. If you’re talking AT people it’s not going to be fun… for anyone.
The best way to engage your audience is to involve them.
Invite them into your world, use your creativity, and show them your personality.
I was recently doing a workshop for a team of researchers and we were playing with techniques to make presentations stand out at conferences. Just because you’re presenting data doesn’t mean your presentation has to be dry.
Below are 3 secret weapons to connect with your audience so you can stop talking at people and have more fun.
Secret Weapon #1: Pictures
Pictures are worth a thousand words.
Stop putting so many words on your slides and replace them with pictures. We’ve all sat through boring Powerpoint presentations and no one wants to read them.
Pictures engages different learning styles and help bring your ideas to life.
When you don’t have slides, use descriptive language to paint a picture.
Secret Weapon #2: Props
We’re so inundated with screens that anytime you show people a real object, it automatically grabs their attention.
Some of the best TED talks include props. Susan Cain brought her suitcase full of books to the TED stage and Josh Kaufman played the ukulele during his talk.
When I was working with a client doing events for the nonprofit 826, she incorporated a can of chuptzpah into her presentation.
Not only did it highlight a product from the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Store where they were holding the event, but it added humor and vulnerability to her talk and helped her connect on a human level.
Props are a great place to inject creativity into your presentation. They can provide visual interest and sound, such as a holding up a plastic water bottle and crunching it when I was talking about the perils of single use water bottles.
Secret Weapon #3: Personal Stories
Stories are memorable. They elicit emotion and engage the senses.
You can use stories to set the scene for your audience and show them why they should care about your topic.
When I teach workshops we do a storytelling exercise to get everyone’s creative juices flowing and I challenge people to think about how they can use all 3 strategies (pictures, props and personal stories) in combination to make their content come alive.
Want to find your own secret weapon?
Let’s talk. Reach out at madeline@madelineschwarz.com.