3 ways to interact with the audience during a presentation and gain their interest

The success of your presentation is decided in the first moments: here are some simple strategies to ensure your success

How much time do we have during our presentations?

Sometimes a few minutes, sometimes a good half hour, sometimes we may even have more than an hour. But in any case, we know very well that having that time does not automatically mean that we are able to hold the attention of our audience for as many minutes.

On the contrary, it happens all too often that even the most experienced do not manage to achieve this. It is a subtle art, that of winning and keeping the listeners’ interest, an art that finds its foundation in strategic engagement techniques, especially in the initial stages of a presentation: that is where the game is played.

In this article, I would like to share with you 3 methods of interacting with your audience that are specifically designed to capture their attention from the very beginning.

Before we begin…

When you are about to start a presentation, especially if there have already been others before yours, the audience is not in the best condition to be engaged by your words: some are tired, some are disinterested from the start, some already have the idea that what they are going to see is going to be a deadly bore, etc. In this situation there is nothing worse than starting the presentation dead on, immediately jumping into the thick of it.

Rather, I would advise you to break the ice, to ‘warm up’ your audience with something light, freeing them from the stress and anxiety of having to sit through a non-stop full immersion. And to do this, there is nothing better than the magic formula ‘Before we begin…’.

Set the right mood by saying “Before we begin, I’ll tell you what happened to me yesterday”. Or, ‘Before we begin, I am curious to know how many of you had already heard about…’ and so on.

In short, tell an anecdote, ask a question that stimulates curiosity, or simply share something personal that can echo in their experiences.

Why all this?

Because communicating in this way means creating an initial connection with people and breaking down the invisible barriers that stand between you and your audience. It means inviting each person to come on stage with you, to share that experience.

It is an extremely effective technique to catalyse the audience’s attention right from the start, to make those people feel not as mere spectators, but as full-fledged protagonists of the experience.

You see, when we attend a presentation we usually do not remember most of what is being said. But what sticks in our minds is the way the speaker made us feel: make them feel involved and create an emotional connection with them and you will see that they will remember you and your slides.

Starting off on the right foot is what makes the difference between a presentation you attend and one you experience.

Read also: Virtual presentations: the definitive guide

Why are you here?

Before I begin, let me tell you what I always do at the beginning of my Lean Presentation Design courses…

Jokes aside, let’s be straight to the point. In my classes I like to open with a very specific questions: ‘Why are you here? What is your reason for attending and what do you expect from this course?”.

These very questions should be asked at the beginning of our presentations.

But why?

Well, first of all, such a question helps you to establish an emotional connection with those in front of you and create the atmosphere you need to keep the audience’s attention throughout the session.

But most importantly, asking such a question helps you understand what the people in front of you are really looking for and tailor your presentation to their needs.

Sure, from time to time we can choose to surprise them with something they weren’t expecting, with some slides that can create a feeling of surprise and perhaps reinvigorate their attention. But the main aim, once we are aware of their needs, will be to satisfy those needs by customizing the overall experience.

For example, especially in online presentations, we can choose not to follow the precise order of our slides, but to change it by introducing in advance the information that the audience expects to receive.

I do this a lot and, to do it without the audience noticing, I use PowerPoint’s Presenter View which allows me to easily manage the direction of my presentation and keep complete control of the slides.

Do you use it during your presentations?

If the answer is no, I leave you here with a tutorial I prepared on this very useful tool.

Encourage the use of chat during your presentations

If you have to present your slides online, take advantage of the chat!

By now it is an integrated tool on a host of platforms such as Teams and Zoom and there is no good reason to give up its potential to engage your audience and create an emotional bond between you and the people listening to you, or between the participants themselves.

“But Maurizio, I have tried it so many times, but no one ever uses it. How do I use it properly?”

You don’t know how many times I am asked this same question.

The mistake lies in convincing oneself that the presence of the chat is enough for conversations to come alive on their own. But the reality is that there is an invisible wall that keeps your audience at a distance from this medium, as if using it is something unnatural and, at times, embarrassing.

It is you who must break through this wall.

Be careful, though: don’t force them because it doesn’t work. You won’t be able to push viewers to comment with prompts like ‘If you have any questions, write them in the chat’.

The audience must feel free to use the chat when they feel ready and, for this reason, we must use a more subtle approach and create a comfortable situation from the very beginning in which the use of this tool becomes a natural action, just like face-to-face conversation.

For example, at the beginning of your presentation you could encourage your audience to familiarise themselves with the tool by asking ‘Guys, here we have a chat room to interact with each other. Do you already know how it works? Show me, write something here!”.

Or, another effective ploy is to ask where the audience comes from, especially when it is very large: ‘Hey, so many people today! Where are you from? Write it down in the chat!”.

This way their first message will break the barrier I mentioned and, from that moment on, it will be natural for each of them to use the chat, just like a normal in-person conversation.

One last tip: the chat should not only be made up of questions and answers, but also reactions, feedback and so on.

Let me give you a practical example.

Imagine a nice online training session in which you are training the participants. You have assigned an exercise for which each of them has to share their work with the rest of the group.

Why not do it via chat?

You could invite them to share a screenshot of their work and then, perhaps, suggest that the others leave a reaction as feedback.

I do this a lot: on the one hand, sharing screenshots allows me to keep track of the participants’ work. On the other hand, it becomes a phenomenal method to stimulate interactions between the participants themselves.

Read also: How to make a remote presentation effective

In conclusion

Interacting with the audience in such a way as to gain their attention from the very first moments is not easy, but there are some simple strategies to do it:

• use the ‘Before you start…’ technique, which allows us to prepare the atmosphere and put the audience in the best position to hear what we have to say;
• understand the motivations that drove those people to be there and to hear what we have to say, so as to tailor the experience to their needs;
• make strategic use of chat, a tool as popular as it is overlooked, which is very powerful for building a closer relationship with our listeners and actively involving them in the presentation.

As you can easily see, these are simple techniques, applicable without much effort. But they require attention, empathy and the ability to read your audience and adapt your presentation accordingly.

Keep in mind that each audience is unique, with its own particularities and interests. Adapt to it and your presentations will be much more effective.

Takeaways

• Use the ‘Before we begin…’ technique, share an anecdote, ask a curiosity-inducing question, or offer a personal story. This approach breaks down barriers, creates an emotional connection, and makes the audience feel involved from the start.

• Begin your presentation by asking the audience why they are there and what they expect to gain. This helps tailor your content to their needs, ensuring the presentation is relevant and engaging, while also creating an emotional connection.

• Use chat features effectively during online presentations by creating a comfortable environment for interaction. Initiate chat usage with simple prompts like asking where attendees are from, making the chat feel as natural as face-to-face conversation.

• Be flexible with the order of your slides based on audience feedback and needs. Use tools like PowerPoint’s Presenter View to manage your presentation dynamically, ensuring you meet the audience’s expectations and maintain their interest.

• Foster Continuous Engagement: Encourage not just questions and answers in the chat, but also reactions and feedback. This can be achieved by asking participants to share their work or experiences and inviting others to react, creating a more interactive and engaging environment.

FAQs

How to break the ice before a presentation?

To break the ice before a presentation, use the ‘Before you begin…’ technique by telling an anecdote, asking a question that stimulates curiosity or sharing something personal that can create an emotional bond with the audience.

How do you personalise a presentation?

At the beginning of a presentation, it is important to understand the motivations and needs of the audience by explicitly asking why they should attend. You can then adapt the content, the order of the slides and the tone of the presentation to best meet the audience’s expectations.

People who attend my online presentations never use chat: how do I encourage its use?

To incentivise the use of chat during online presentations, you can create a comfortable and natural environment for the use of the tool by asking viewers to answer stimulating questions or interact with each other, encouraging them to use chat like a normal in-person conversation.