If you could name what you are seeking most in your speaking, what would it be?

Would it be great slides or not feeling the fear of public speaking or speaking great relevant quotes?

Are you still wondering? I’ll give you a hint. Without this, your speaking will be a failure.

The one thing every speaker seeks is audience engagement. With audience engagement, your speaking will be a hit. Without it, it will be a dud.

Audience engagement is crucial to your speaking success. Below are three things you can do to enhance audience engagement:

Relevance and Personalization

One of the ironclad tenets of public speaking is “It is about them. It’s not about you.”

Your speaking success is directly proportional to how much your audience engages with you.

To fully engage with your audience, you must understand their interests, preferences, and needs. Create content that resonates with them by addressing their specific challenges or desires.

The sweetest sound to all of us is someone saying our name. Use personalized approaches, such as addressing individuals by name or acknowledging their contributions. This helps create a sense of connection and makes the audience feel seen and heard.

So, being relevant to and personal with your specific audience increases your engagement.

To engage your audience further, give them something to do during your presentation besides listen to you.

Interactivity and Participation

Your audience will be more engaged if you encourage them to interact with you. Foster a dialogue rather than a monologue. Ask questions, seek opinions, and encourage audience members to participate actively in discussions.

There is a positive by-product of encouraging this dialogue with your audience. You learn things above and beyond your knowledge. You can use this newly acquired knowledge to improve your talk for the following audience when you can learn even more from these future audiences. This results in continuous improvement of your talk—a good thing.

Take advantage of technology. It has advanced to the point where you can use it to engage with your audience—leverage technology to facilitate engagement. Polls, quizzes, live chats, or interactive presentations can enhance participation and keep the audience involved.

Audience participation can be “old school” also. For decades, speakers have used the tried and true small group discussion method to engage their audiences. In its simplest form, you give your audience a question relevant to your topic, ask them to discuss the question for ten minutes in their small group, and then each small group will brief out.

So, being relevant to and personal with your specific audience and having them participate in your talk increases your engagement with them.

To “seal the deal” on engaging your audience, use stories to appeal to their emotions.

Storytelling and Emotion

What is it about movies that grips us and doesn’t let us go? Movies use stories to appeal to our emotions. As our emotions go, so go us, and so will go your audience if you use stories to illustrate the points of your talk.

You can use stories to evoke the same emotions in your talks. Maya Angelou said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Use stories to get your audience to remember and use what you say in your talk.

Human brains are wired to respond to stories. Use storytelling techniques to convey your message, making it relatable and emotionally engaging. Your personal stories are the best because they are the most authentic in the eyes of your audience.

Emotions create a memorable experience for your audience. Tap into emotions that resonate with your audience through humor, inspiration, or empathy. Emotional connections lead to greater engagement.

The great thing is you can use stories in any of your talks to do this.

Think you are not a great storyteller? Think again.

If you have children, when they were little, did you ever hear your daughter or son say, “ Daddy (or Mommy), tell me another story?” Or, perhaps you said this to your Mom or Dad.

Stories were the first form of communication in prehistoric times. They significantly affected the audiences back then, and their impact has not waned since.

If you want to elevate your speaking to the highest levels, integrate stories into your talks.

Remember, the key is to create an environment where your audience feels valued, involved, and emotionally connected. This can vary depending on your communication’s context, platform, and nature, but these principles generally apply across different scenarios.

So, being relevant to and personal with your audience, having them participate in your talk, and appealing to your audience’s emotions by telling them stories increases your engagement with them.

Create great engagement with your audience and achieve speaking success!

Call to Action

In your future presentations,

• Find out who your audience is and craft your talk to make it personal and relevant to their wants and needs

• Plan activities for your audience to participate and interact in a conversation with you

• Use storytelling (personal stories, if possible) to reach your audience’s emotions and increase engagement with your audience.

Frank DiBartolomeo is a retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and award-winning speaker, presentation and interview skills coach, and Professional Member of the National Speakers Association. He was awarded Toastmasters International’s highest individual award, Distinguished Toastmaster because of his outstanding work in public speaking and leadership.

Frank formed DiBartolomeo Consulting International (DCI), LLC (www.speakleadandsucceed.com) in 2007. The mission of DCI is to help technical professionals to inspire, motivate, and influence their colleagues and other technical professionals by improving their presentation skills, communication, and personal presence. Reach Frank at frank@speakleadandsucceed.com and (703) 509-4424.

Don’t miss Frank DiBartolomeo’s latest book!

“Speak Well and Prosper: Tips, Tools, and Techniques for Better Presentations”

Available now at Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com