How to keep your audience engaged

Hanging on every word

People’s attention spans seem to keep getting shorter and shorter.

In fact, you are probably already debating whether you’re going to continue reading this column, or click away to one of the thousands of other stories vying for your attention on this website.

When it comes to public speaking, an in-person audience member isn’t likely to get up and walk out in the middle of your speech; however, you’re still competing with his/her phone, as well as side conversations in the room.

This month, I break down four strategies, which will help you get – and keep - your audience’s attention.

Hook them with the intro

My favourite style of speech is the type that comes around full circle. These speeches usually incorporate a powerful opening statement or a line that captures the audience’s attention, but also acts as a bit of a cliff hanger, leaving your audience wanting more. The body of the speech then builds the structure behind your intended message, while the conclusion references the opening and essentially ties everything together.

For example, if I wanted to give a speech about the power of asking questions in conversations, my introduction could be something like this:

"Do you want to be more liked? Do you want to people to enjoy every conversation they have with you? Do you also want to become a better listener?

"In this speech, I’m going to show you how to do all of those things. In fact, without you knowing, I already did…"

This intro is creative and is likely to tap into the curiosity of your audience. From there, the body of the speech could dive into the research behind why people enjoy conversations in which they are asked questions. The conclusion could tie everything together, perhaps by ending with a question to drive home the point.

Use vocal variety

There’s nothing worse than listening to a speaker deliver a speech with a monotone voice. It’s difficult to stay engaged as an audience member when every sentence sounds the same and the tempo never changes.

Vocal variety is one of the most underrated tools you have access to as a public speaker. By suddenly clapping your hands or raising your voice in the middle of the speech, you will re-capture your audience’s attention. On the flip side, this can also be accomplished by lowering your voice and slowing down the pace of your speech, especially at an intense or emotional part of the story.

Intentionally incorporating vocal variety throughout an entire speech is one of the best ways to keep your audience engaged from start to finish.

Maintain eye contact

It's not an easy task to look the audience in the eyes when you’re in stage.

Throughout my years in the Toastmasters program, I’ve noticed many new speakers either look at the ceiling or the floor before they’ve mastered the skill of eye contact. Those who look at the ceiling usually do so when they’re thinking of what to say next. Those who look at the floor are often struggling with confidence.

It's easier for audience members to get distracted when a speaker isn’t maintaining eye contact because there’s less of a connection. If you can purposefully incorporate eye contact, which scans the entire room, people will be less likely to look at their phones, because there’s a heightened level of accountability knowing that you will be looking directly at them before long.

If you’re speaking to an audience virtually (such as a Zoom call), you want to periodically look directly at the camera to maintain the virtual version of eye contact.

Incorporate a participation element

My fourth suggestion for keeping your audience engaged is to get your audience involved in your speech.

You can do this by asking a question and getting the audience to raise their hands if they agree, or you can ask them to close their eyes and visualize something happening.

Many people learn more effectively when they are actively involved, so audience participation is another powerful way to keep your audience engaged in your speech.

I hope these tips help you to capture (and maintain) your audience’s attention during your next speech.

If you’re interested in learning more about Impactful Communication, subscribe to my YouTube channel here.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.

Self-deprecation and humour are powerful talking tools

Make them laugh

Real life skills you gain from Toastmasters?

Mastering public speaking

Within a typical Toastmasters meeting, there are a number of different roles that club members can sign up for.

A few examples are: Toastmaster, Humourist, Grammarian, Ah Counter, Timer, General Evaluator, Table Topics Master, etc. Those who sign up for these roles not only help ensure the Toastmasters meeting is a success, but they also gain experience communicating in scenarios that directly relate to real life.

In this month’s column and accompanying video, I break down eight different Toastmasters roles and explain how club members benefit from signing up for these roles.

The Grammarian

The Grammarian role has a couple of purposes. The first is to come up with a word-of-the-day, to help expand each club member’s lexicon. The second part of the Grammarian position is to listen throughout the meeting for good uses of language or vocabulary, and find opportunities when speakers could have used more impactful words.

Vocabulary is an important aspect of communication. Whether you’re speaking in front of an audience or having a one-on-one conversation, you gain instant credibility when you’re able to use thought-provoking words that capture the imagination of your audience.

The Timer

The role of the Timer is to — you guessed it — track the timing of each speaker throughout the meeting. At the end of the meeting, the Timer delivers a report to club members, letting them know if they stayed within their allotted time when speaking.

Staying on time while giving a speech is incredibly important. Beyond the importance of keeping your audience engaged, if your speech is part of a larger event, ending too quickly or speaking for too long can impact the agenda and throw everything out of whack. One thing to note is that many people speak quicker when in front of an audience than they do when practicing on their own.

The Ah Counter

“Ahh, umm, err, uhh.” These are a few of the common crutch or filler words speakers use to fill in the silence when speaking in front of a group of people. The role of the Ah Counter at a Toastmasters meeting is to catch these usages and inform club members so they can eliminate filler words from their speeches in the future.

Too many filler words can be incredibly distracting and take away from your message in real life conversations. Eliminating these crutch words makes you sound more polished, and you will earn the attention and respect of those who you are communicating with.

Table Topics Master

Impromptu speaking is one of the hardest things to do as a public speaker. The purpose of a Table Topics Master is to ask club members random questions, to which they are asked to deliver an answer by speaking for one to two minutes.

Whether you’re being asked a question by an audience member following a speech, or being asked a question at a cocktail party, thinking on your feet is an important skill to have. Table Topics helps you sharpen your ability to give a thoughtful answer quickly, and it gives the Table Topics Master the opportunity to come up with creative questions.

Evaluators

Every speaking opportunity within a Toastmasters meeting is evaluated. Speech and role evaluators are tasked with listening carefully, taking notes, then providing meaningful feedback to speakers so they can improve in the future.

Most people think the only purpose of Toastmasters is to make you a better speaker; however, a side benefit to participating in Toastmasters is that you become a better listener as well.

The Humourist

The Humourist’s purpose is simple: make the audience laugh.
Humour is one of the most effective skills a speaker can have because it does two things. First: It relaxes the audience. When a new speaker takes the stage, the audience is typically wondering whether or not this person is going to be enjoyable to listen to. If the speaker can make them laugh quickly, the audience relaxes knowing it’s going to be an enjoyable speech. Second: It relaxes you, the speaker. When the audience laughs, it builds your confidence because you know those in attendance are enjoying themselves.

The Toast

The Toast is typically one of the first parts of a Toastmasters meeting agenda. The Toast often reflects the theme of the week, and sets the tone for the rest of the meeting.
Being able to deliver a toast at a social or professional event is a powerful skill to have. Not many people are willing to stand up and say a few words about the occasion; however, those who do often create a moment that will be memorable for attendees.

The Toastmaster

The Toastmaster role is, in my opinion, the most difficult position to sign up for at a Toastmasters meeting. The Toastmaster is the quarterback of the meeting. Doing the role successfully requires preparation and the ability to transition smoothly between speakers, while keeping the entire meeting on time.

The real life benefit of signing up for the Toastmaster role is that it is great practice for being an MC. Whether it’s being a wedding MC or hosting a work event, the ability to keep an agenda structured and ensure the day flows smoothly is a difficult, but important, skill to acquire.

If you’re based in Kelowna and looking to join a Toastmasters club, you can find more information here.

If you’re interested in learning more about Impactful Communication, subscribe to my YouTube channel.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.

Can ChatGPT make you a better communicator?

Using AI to communicate

A few months ago, Open AI released a tool called ChatGPT, which leverages artificial intelligence to answer questions and perform tasks based on prompts it receives.

ChatGPT is beneficial because it can help with tasks such as natural language processing and understanding, which can improve communication and productivity in various industries. Additionally, ChatGPT can also be used to generate human-like texts, which can assist in tasks such as language translation and content creation.

Don’t believe me? You should, because the previous paragraph is not my own writing; in fact, I asked ChatGPT to provide me with two sentences why it is a tool that is beneficial to society, and I copy and pasted the answer it provided into the previous paragraph.

Like many people, my mind has been blown at this artificial intelligence tool’s sophistication and ability to perform challenging tasks within seconds. As an experiment, I wanted to see what kind of advice ChatGPT could deliver regarding how to utilize body language when public speaking. Public speaking is something I have been focused on for years, and I figured my content and YouTube videos could surely provide better advice than some artificial intelligence tool.

But, I was humbled.

Below is the response I received from ChatGPT when asked: “How do I use body language effectively when speaking in public?”

Using body language effectively when speaking in public can help to engage your audience and reinforce your message. Here are a few tips for using body language effectively when speaking in public:
1. Stand up straight and maintain good posture. This will make you look confident and help project your voice.

2. Use gestures to emphasize your points and make your presentation more interesting. Avoid overusing gestures, as this can be distracting.

3. Make eye contact with your audience. This will help to engage them and make them feel like you are speaking directly to them.

4. Use facial expressions to show emotion and help convey your message. Smiling can help to put your audience at ease, while a serious expression can help emphasize an important point.

5. Use your body to move around the stage or presentation area. This can help to keep your audience engaged and prevent them from getting bored.

Overall, they key is to use body language in a natural and authentic way that enhances your message and engages your audience.

Wow! I was blown away by the quality of response that this AI tool delivered. The fourth tip was even one that I personally hadn’t thought of previously when teaching people about effective body language.

Over the past couple months, I’ve had the chance to experiment more with ChatGPT, and I’ve realized there are even more ways it can help us be more impactful communicators.

For example:

• ChatGPT can help you produce blog article ideas if you’re experiencing writer’s block. Try prompting it with: “Give me 10 ideas for blog articles about gardening (or whatever subject you’re interested in)” and watch the results.

• ChatGPT can summarize. If you’ve written a full article, copy/paste it into ChatGPT and ask it to provide you with a headline and a summary.

• ChatGPT can build you a speech. By giving it a few specific prompts on length and subject matter, within seconds the artificial intelligence tool can put together an impressive string of thoughts that may provide inspiration for your next speech.

While this technology is impressive, it’s not perfect. On its website, ChatGPT explains it may occasionally generate incorrect information or biased content. It also has limited knowledge of the world and events prior to 2021.

But, if you haven’t already tried experimenting with ChatGPT’s capabilities, I’d encourage you to give it a go. You can access the tool here.

If you’re interested in learning more about Impactful Communication, subscribe to my YouTube channel.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.