Five Tips To Improve Your Public Speaking and Audience Engagement
As far back as I can remember, I’ve always loved meeting new people and being able to establish connections with others. I mean, what’s life all about if you’re not interrelating and drawing from your connections?
It doesn’t matter if you’re connecting with a few co-workers on a zoom meeting or captivating an audience of hundreds, the key to communication is strategically inciting engagement while maintaining your most authentic self, otherwise no one’s going to pay attention to your point.
I was raised with parents in the radio industry and was immersed in all things media early on, exerting a passion for entertainment from a young age. After spending years driving my passion for singing, acting and all that jazz, I shifted my focus to enrolling in Florida State University. This is when I began approaching communications in a different kind of way, through the study of digital marketing + mass media. I was able to dabble in many mediums of communications, from learning how to create and produce documentaries, holding a symposium on cow dung and climate change (not kidding) and ultimately (and one of my favorite graduate school experiences) teaching public speaking.
I was able to stay in school to really hone in on my post-university focus. It was then that I was given the opportunity to teach public speaking to pay my way through graduate school. I’m so thankful for this experience because not only did I get to meet and teach so many incredible students every week, I was able to tap into a skill that would benefit me in every facet of life — especially my career.
The art of public speaking is a learned skill that requires refinement through practice. However, it truly doesn’t take much more than organization, preparation and some good old faith in yourself.
While some might approach public speaking as a hyper-formal, presentation-focused, once-in-a-while event — we have to realize that verbal engagement is a major part of our everyday lives. You also have to realize that your ultimate goal with any type of audience engagement is ultimately persuasion. Through my own career, I’ve learned that public speaking and knowing how to engage (and persuade) an audience are key — whether through an in-person pitch, a virtual presentation or even a cup of coffee with a client, you have to be able to organize and articulate your thoughts in order to effectively convey your intended message.
It actually may be scarier for some folks to present virtually as many are not used to it, but the best part is that you can utilize a lot of public speaking strategies for virtual presentations as well.
Whether working in communications, sales, finance, as a digital creator, etc., there will always be a time when your end goal is to persuade a listener to adopt a belief that you feel strongly about (even if you’re just trying to lock in a new client!). As you continue to navigate a career and life during the uncertainty of it all, I’d like to share some of my favorite tips that will guide you to eloquently and effectively engage an audience, convey a message and hopefully incite some persuasion, whether virtually or IRL.
Five Strategies for Audience Engagement
One of my go-to’s is tapping into Aristotle’s book of Greek philosophy and his three pillars of public speaking and persuasion. More than 2,000 years ago, Aristotle determined the components needed for effective persuasive speaking, which he determined to be appeal to an audience’s ethos, pathos and logos.
Ethos is the credibility that you establish and the degree of convincing your audience that you can be trusted and that they should listen to the message you’re attempting to convey. It’s important to establish Ethos early on in your speech in order to incite a reciprocal exchange with your audience. For instance, if you have an experienced role related to the topic that you’re speaking on, you’ll have more of a chance to gain your audience’s trust from the start. It also helps if your audience feels as though they can identify with and relate to you, but you want to make sure to always be your most authentic (yet strategic) self — but never lose your voice or identity of self to please others. Hold true to what you’re speaking on.
Logos is the appeal to logic, whether it’s through the structure of your speech, the facts and analytics that you use for reference or the structure of your argument, you need to be logical with your message and your approach. Involve your audience by asking them interactive and engaging questions, that’ll make them active listeners who are thoughtfully paying attention and listening to your points. Don’t be afraid to talk about opposing views, as this allows you to explain why your points are more reasonable.
Pathos is the appeal to your audience’s emotion through the use of stories, quotes, vivid imagery and language. The word Pathos translates to suffering and experience in Greek, echoing the great Grecian storytellers and their impassioned tales. As the speaker, you want to be a storyteller, driving the audience to feel the emotions you feel on your topic and to incite an emotional connection, ultimately influencing them. If you’re not exerting passion surrounding your topic, your audience is going to have a hard time feeling engaged or persuaded.
Establish a connection with your audience before attempting to persuade. Knowing your audience is critical! You want to be sure to research (if you can) who you’re engaging with, what makes them tick and how you might be able to immediately relate to them. You want the audience to feel an emotional connection before making them deep dive into your argument, as speakers need to meet emotion with emotion before they can move their audiences with fact and reason. A fun way to spark a connection right off the bat is by incorporating some interactive ice-breakers into the intro of your speech. Fun fact, I used to invite my students to sit in a circle and say their favorite cuss word on the first day of class — it definitely got laughs and warmed up the crowd for some serious speech crafting!
Outline the structure of your speech using an inverted pyramid format. This type of structure is an easy method of organization, as it touches on your most important point first (right after you’ve grabbed your audience’s attention with your appeal to pathos). The most important thing should be tackling the substantive portion of your your discussion with a captivating framing statement that drives the meaning of all that follows. You want to think of this kind of like your thesis, directing all main points and supporting facts. Don’t forget, frames have to precede facts.
Follow the rule of threes. I have a tendency to talk and ramble, so following the rules of threes really helps to keep me on track with any given presentation, and in general as organizational strategy. Be sure to have at least three main points with three examples per topic. You can also group words, thoughts and phrases in threes. Think of Abraham Lincoln’s iconic delivery of the Gettysburg Address, “We cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground.” As a general principle, people need to hear things three times in order to fully remember.
Use repetition of your main paints and close with a recapitulation to bookend your message. Your point — make it easy to remember. Keep in mind how difficult it can be to get people to really listen and remember what you’re saying. A great way of doing this is to repeat your key points (three times, see above). If you really want to make an impact and impression with your words, your listener needs to hear your points again and again, and again.
And there you have them! Some of my favorite tips when it comes to public presentation — and really, any type of formal communication. Once you’re able to really nail down your content and presentation using the above strategies, remember to practice, practice, practice!
Pro tip: Circling back to the rule of threes for memorization, I find that it really helps to practice in front of a mirror, while recording my speech in order to both visualize and listen. This is a great editing tool, to revise any mistakes and to remember the points and details in my argument. Remember, there’s a fine line between memorization and preparation. You don’t want to try to remember what you’re going to say word for word as that’s just going to come across rehearsed and inauthentic and may actually trip you up. Immersing yourself in your argument and organization are what you really want to focus on. That way, when it comes to preparing your delivery, you’ll feel confident and prepared, making formal delivery a breeze.
At the end of the day, you have what it takes to be an eloquent and effective formal communicator. It simply takes some passion and confidence and taking the time for in-depth preparation and ultimately, authenticity will be inherent and you’ll successfully be able to engage and hopefully persuade your audience.