How to attract the audience's attention during a speech?

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Expectation: You have prepared diligently for your speech, studied many sources, wrote out abstracts, made a presentation. You are confident that you will be able to capture the attention of the audience until the end of the lecture.

Reality: 20 minutes into your presentation, you notice that someone is yawning, another is staring at their phone, and a third is looking out the window. There is a buzz and conversation in the audience. It's not a pleasant situation. What should you do?

We've collected the best public speaking techniques from our free course, How to Engage an Audience , to help you express your thoughts in an engaging way and command people's attention.

Ask questions to the audience
Live communication, thinking out loud, and joint discussion of issues are techniques that will help interest and engage viewers in the learning process. Provide facts and ask for opinions, raise doubts, and draw conclusions together with your listeners.

Cite authoritative sources
To gain the trust of your audience and captivate social media marketing service them with your story, refer to popular publications, statements by famous people, and works by scientists. This way, you can strengthen your position.

Think through each speech taking into account the situation.
A pre-prepared text helps to avoid hesitations, long silences, repetitions, awkward situations. You will strictly adhere to the topic and feel more confident. Find out what audience you will be speaking to, how well they understand the topic, what their attitudes are. During the lecture, be sure to address the audience as “dear friends”, “esteemed colleagues”.

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Use voice techniques
Monotonous speech is boring, fast speech will be incomprehensible to many. Watch how you speak. Pause, giving importance to words, lower or raise the tone of your voice when you want to say something important.

Give examples from life
Any complex topic can be made more understandable with simple examples from life, proverbs, and sayings. Liven up your speech with a literary story to keep people's attention.

The ability to tell a fascinating story and capture the attention of the audience is something that can be acquired and learned. The result of the entire performance depends on how you structure the information, communicate with the audience and how confident you feel on stage.

We asked Anton Serikov, Deputy General Director of the ANO Russia — Land of Opportunities and a finalist of the Leaders of Russia competition, to share his experience and tell us a few life hacks for preparing for public speaking.

"Humor is the key to a successful performance. You shouldn't joke about a specific person in the audience, ridiculing some of their qualities, it's better to use self-irony. You can poke fun at yourself or the organization you represent. You only need to praise the audience if you want to make friends with them.

Once I had to speak to the winners of a street culture and sports competition. There were several speakers in front of me, who used a formal business style of speech. After the first few minutes, the audience got bored. I thought for a long time about how to start my speech. We were in the operetta theater in Pyatigorsk, and then I got the idea to start with the following words: "After getting to know the audience, you can safely rename the building into the operetta and parkour theater." The guys laughed and began to listen to my speech with interest.

You can start with humor to get attention, or use it in the middle of your speech when you feel that the audience is tired, and also at the end, then you will definitely be remembered. If you are speaking alone and have the opportunity to move around the stage, try to move a lot and not cling to a chair or table, this way you can liven up your story and attract the attention of the audience.

It is important to understand what kind of audience you have in front of you in order to speak their language. This is especially true when speaking in regions or national republics that are new to you. If you are speaking, for example, in the Caucasian republics, Tatarstan or Bashkiria, you can mention a famous local figure, tell a mythological story that the audience does not expect to hear from you, this will help to capture their attention and gain respect from people.