How to Connect With Your Audience
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Posted in Communication Tuesday
Communication works best in an active, not a passive environment. If you want to get your message across to your audience members, you have to connect with them.
Interaction is a continuous way to get feedback on how well your content is understood. It also gives listeners a chance to contribute their experience to the learning process.
How do you build interaction?
- Be prepared to be spontaneous. Have questions ready—begin with relatively easy, accessible ones. Ask questions that create disagreement and watch the audience come to life.
- Work to get everyone involved: even in large groups. I have an assortment of candy ready. I give a chocolate bar to the first person who answers a question. It’s amazing how responsive the rest of the group gets when there is chocolate at stake. (Yes, these are adults.
) - Break into small groups. Ask participants to consider issues with the person sitting next to them or small groups.
- Discuss as a larger group. Have the smaller groups present their findings to the whole group. Use those points to generate further discussion with the audience.
The way you move when speaking also affects you connection with the audience. If you spend the entire speach leaning on the lectern, with your arms folded, it will be difficult to connect with the listeners.
Move!
- Don’t rock or scurry back and forth, but don’t get locked into one position.
- Walk toward the audience.
- If you can’t walk toward the audience, lean in.
- Use eye contact.
- Energize and use gestures. The larger the audience and the room, the bigger your gestures have to be.
- Get your face involved.
- Use vocal variety.
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