Are You Connecting with Your Audience?

If you are connecting with your audience then there is a very good chance that you are also engaging them. If you want to an effective speaker you need to engage your audience. There are several ways to do this. Here are a couple.

Utilize eye contact. When you make eye contact with an audience member you create a powerful bond that can serve you well during your speech or presentation. You let them know that you are speaking to them. That they are important. Eye contact can help you pull the audience back into your conversation.

There are a couple of things to keep in mind. Don’t linger too long on any one individual. It could make them feel awkward and other audience members may feel left out. It is important that your eye contact is balanced and smooth. If you are speaking to a large audience it will be impossible to make actual eye contact with every individual. In these situations you want to create the perception of eye contact. You can do that by using a pattern looking at your audience, slowly, from left to right then front to rear or some other combination as long as it is not too robotic.

Another subtle way to engage your audience is to bring them into your story or speech. It can be something as simple as “I want to imagine yourself in this situation ….”. Before you even begin to tell your story you have them as part of it.

Look for your own creative ways to connect and engage with your audience.

Now go out and Make Your Voice Heard!

I would love to hear your thoughts on this post. Leave me a comment or suggest a topic for a future blog.