Read this advice on how to read your audience and respond to their feedback during your presentation.
Apply knowledge about the audience to adjust the message before speaking. Observe and process audience responses to further adjust while speaking.
A public speakers can use information about the audience to adapt his or her message to the particular audience while preparing the speech. Demographic information helps the speaker anticipate the audience and imagine how they will respond to different aspects of the message. While structuring the message, the speaker should keep his or her imagined, theoretical audience in mind and anticipate how they might respond to the speech as follows:
Adapting the Message to the Audience While Delivering the Speech
Speakers are encouraged to plan to adapt during the speech. With a face-to-face audience in a small room, the speaker can observe non-verbal reactions such as looks of confusion or expressions of agreement or disagreement, and adjust the message accordingly.
Adapting to the Audience: When giving a speech in a small room, the speaker can see the audience's reaction and adapt accordingly.
The speaker can also encourage the audience to ask questions.
Traditionally, the speaker asks for questions after the speech is finished; however, this is not always the case. The speaker can guide the audience to ask questions throughout the speech by simply pausing between points, or politely asking the audience to hold all questions until the end. If audience members will not hold all questions until the end, the speaker should be prepared for interruptions and rehearse accordingly.
With a larger face-to-face audience, a speaker may want to use an audience response system (ARS), also known as a clicker, to determine what the audience understands or what their current opinions are. ARS systems work with the audience's WI-FI enabled notebooks, laptops, or other hand-held computers. If the speaker's computer is also Wi-Fi-enabled, then he or she can display the responses on a screen while speaking and adapt the message accordingly. ARS systems can be used for large audiences anywhere in a classroom, lecture hall, or when speaking by teleconference.
Audience Response System: An audience response system helps the speaker adapt during a speech.
Cell phones using SMS response systems are another way for the speaker to collect information and adapt during the speech. Cell phone-enabled response systems, such as SMS Response System, are able to take text inputs from the audience and receive multiple responses to questions per SMS. For facilities that do not have the equipment to analyze the SMS data during the speech, the audience can send tweets to the speaker, using a hashtag that is unique to the occasion or presentation. The tweets can be displayed as part of a back channel from remote audiences or members of large audiences using their smartphones, and the speaker can respond to the tweets or adapt his or her message in real time.