We all have seen those speakers that swamp their audience with information during a boring monologue. As a result, listeners only ask very few questions, if any, after the presentation. Soon after, they move on and forget about the talk.
There is a better way to do this.
The audience interacts with you and gives valuable feedback. What do they think of the topics? Which questions are on their mind? What’s more, your talk leaves a lasting impression with your listeners, if you engage with them. This way the content will stick and the speaker remembered.
Use these six tips to make your presentation more interactive and captivating for your audience.
Ask a question
Ask a question. You could do it right in the beginning. The audience will feel included and activated instantly. Ask a simple question. Ask a question that the vast majority or your audience can answer. Ask: „Did you have breakfast this morning? “, „Who of you drinks coffee ? “or „Do you like chocolate?“. Ideally, you find a question that leads over to your presentation.
Do not ask too detailed questions that only some listeners can answer. This shuts out most of the audience. The few who can answer the question might not do so for fear of being singled out or having to get on stage.
Use a survey tool
Use a survey tool such as mentimeter.com to integrate small surveys and generate word clouds into your presentation. You can do this in real time during the presentation. This way your audience is using their smartphones to interact with you, and not reading e-mails or checking social media while you speak.
Use no tool
Every so often, forget about your carefully crafted slides, fancy gadgets and your well-arranged words. The fire in your eyes when you speak about something you are passionate about is the best tool there is. So let your emotions show, look several persons in the audience in the eye and speak from your heart. There is no need to be perfect or polished here. Connecting with the listener in this way is more than enough to make you stand out.
Tell a personal story
If you can offer a personal story about loss, love, hope or death, this is the most powerful things you can say. Your audience will connect with you on an emotional level and remember your talk for years to come.
Admittedly, this is advanced level stuff. It is also not appropriate for any kind of presentation. Most importantly, please do this only if you are genuine and do not make stuff up.
Use a Q&A tool
An online question tool such as sli.do lowers the bar to ask a question after the presentation. Your audience can also vote questions up or down. This way the questions that are of interest to most people will rank highest and you can answer those first. In my experience, using such a tool makes the questions flow in by the dozens.
Thereby the lack of questions in traditional Q&A sessions are a thing of the past. Oftentimes listeners have many questions. Yet, let’s face it, in a large audience it can be daunting to be the only one to raise your hand and ask a question.
Use a throwable microphone
Using a throwabel microphone makes the Q&A much swifter, more engaging and most importantly a lot more fun. The mic can be tossed form questioner to questioner and gets people moving. This builds momentum and keeps the conversation flowing. There is no need to wait for a mic to be passed around ceremoniously by organizers and members of audience. Thus throwing the mic around saves time and is less boring.