Week 3 Assignment: Engaging An Audience

Engaging An Audience

Engaging an audience is an essential part to having a successful presentation. This is the foundation of what makes a presentation memorable, connects the speaker with the audience, and delivers the message and point of the whole presentation. There are many ways for us to present ourselves to an audience to become more engaging. Being Vulnerable, Encouraging Interaction, and Being Authentic  are just three simple ways to engage in an audience. 

Never be afraid to be vulnerable to an audience. By opening up yourself and sharing personal stories, audience members will have the ability to respond to emotion and personal experiences that you are bringing into the presentation. By showing that you are human too, they will find you easy to relate to and will be more open to listening to your speech.

Encouraging interaction is an excellent way to break up the dull moments in a speech. Often the case, listeners are seated in an auditorium or room, everything is quiet and dark, and there is only one person speaking. This can be quite tiresome after a few minutes if there is nothing engaging the audience. By encouraging interaction, including members of the audience into the presentation, and even going mobile and coming to them, it separates the speech from so many others that the audience had to listen to. 

Being authentic is difficult, but an excellent way to engage in an audience. Being authentic is being real and honest about who you are. There are many ways to do this that will come off as arrogant or superior to the general public. By using your actions and personal experiences as examples, being authentic is an excellent way to show that you are worth listening to as a success story. 

Audiences need a speaker to be engaging in order to take in the most of a presentation. Vulnerability, interaction, and authenticity are just a few ways one can make a presentation more memorable and can connect with members of the audience on a more one-to-one level of connection. By wanting to engage an audience, a speaker takes a valuable step in the right direction in becoming a professional presentation giver.