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Quick question for you: what’s the best way to guarantee that the next speech that you give will be a great speech? The answer, of course, is to give the speech before you have to give it and use that as a chance to work out all of the bugs. It’s the ability to share your material with an audience before you have to that allows us to build better speeches. It turns out that each and every one of us can do this before our next speech…
Say Hello To Social Media
Because of the importance of public speaking we all want to give the best speech possible each time we speak and practicing in front of an audience is the best way to go about doing this. In order to get feedback on a speech, what we all need is an audience. Back in the day, it was difficult to pull a group together in to listen to a draft version of a speech that we were preparing. We had to prepare the entire speech and then identify the people, ask them to come to some location at some time, and deliver the speech. The feedback that we got was good, but the effort was enormous so we did this rarely.
It turns out that this process is still the best way to try out a speech before we give it; however, the tools to do with have changed. The arrival of online social media has now provided us with an entirely new way to assemble an audience who can preview our plans for our next speech long before we ever take the stage.
Social media today takes on many different forms. There are of course the well-known Facebook and Twitter communities. However, there are also LinkedIn, Google+, Pininterest, and Tumbler that can be used. When you join these social networks, you are encouraged to build your network of like-minded people. Within a short time you can amass a sizable following. These people are the ones who are well positioned to provide you with the feedback that you are going to need when you are creating your next speech.
How To Use Social Media To Make Your Next Speech Even Better
Now that you have your social media accounts and you have a set of “friends”, “links”, “followers”, etc., what now? You are going to have to ask for their help and engage with them in order to get their assistance in building your next speech.
The first thing that you’re going to have to realize is how you build your speeches. Generally speaking, we decide on what our main point is going to be. Perhaps you start with your conclusion – how do you want to change your audience? Next, you come up with an outline – an opening, a middle, and a closing. All of these items should be discussed with your online communities one-by-one.
The best way to go about doing this is to pose what you are planning on saying as a question. This makes it easy for other people in your network to provide you with feedback. You might also want to state it like “..I’m planning on saying this, what do you think?” Your social networks will be great sources of feedback on the effectiveness of what you are planning on saying. Would what you are planning on saying and how you are planning on saying it convince them?
What All Of This Means For You
The ability to try out ideas that you would like to include in your next speech before an audience is invaluable. Back in the old days, if we wanted to do this we had to complete our speech, locate a group of people who were willing to listen to us, and then get them together to listen to us deliver our speech. With the arrival of a wide variety of social media, this is no longer needed. This is one of the modern benefits of public speaking.
Using your social media network, as you build your speech you can get your community’s feedback on how effective your speech is going to be. If one of your ideas meets with a general sense that it’s not going to work, you can now quickly change your approach and try a new idea. Even better, if an idea does not work, you can ask your social network to suggest ideas that would work better. Two minds (or 10!) are always better than one.
The world has changed and sometimes it can seem a bit bewildering. However, the arrival of social media tools has provided public speakers with a fantastic opportunity to build better speeches. Take the time to create robust social networks and then be sure to use them when you are building your next speech. By doing this you’ll ensure that when you finally give your next speech, it’ll be perfect!
– Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™
Question For You: Which social media tool do you think would work the best for getting feedback on your next speech?
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Note: What we talked about are advanced speaking skills. If you are just starting out I highly recommend joining Toastmasters in order to get the benefits of public speaking. Look for a Toastmasters club to join in your home town by visiting the web site www.Toastmasters.org. Toastmasters is dedicated to helping their members to understand the importance of public speaking by developing listening skills and getting presentation tips. Toastmasters is how I got started speaking and it can help you also!
What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time
That memory of ours can be a fickle thing. One moment we know exactly what we’re going to say next because we’ve practiced it 100 times, and then the next moment we’re drawing a complete blank – we can’t remember what we wanted to say for the life of us. As a public speaker, this can be one of the most terrifying things that can happen to any of us and despite our knowing about importance of public speaking, drawing a blank can strike at any time. What we need is ways to prevent this from happening to us ever again.