You are here because you want to be a good public speaker and don’t know where to begin. Everyone would like to better their skills in this area, but sadly they don’t even know where to begin. Public speaking is scary when you don’t have great tips to help you along, and thankfully the article below has many tips to help improve this skill, so keep reading!
Love your topic. To help you be able to talk confidently when speaking in front of others, choose a topic that you know a lot about. Include tidbits of information that is not commonly known to keep your audience engaged. Finally, speak in a conversational tone to help you remain calm and composed.
If you have to speak publicly, try to keep it at twenty minutes or less. This is the average attention span of most individuals, so speaking for longer than this is going to risk boring them. If you have to speak for longer than this, find some way to change gears in the middle to liven things up.
The tone of your speech should depend on who you are giving it to. For instance, if your speech is work-related, your speech should be professional. On the other hand, if you are around friends and have to make a speech, you can be more personal. Base your whole speech on your audience.
Get to know your surroundings before your speech. See if you can tell how sound travels without a microphone. Use whatever equipment is available and get familiar with it. See how you can use visual aids to your advantage. Make sure you understand what an appropriate level of eye contact is.
Project your voice when you speak in front of an audience. This is particularly true if you do not have the benefit of a microphone. You want everyone in the room to be able to hear you, so do not be afraid to speak as loudly as necessary to accomplish that. There is no point in making a speech that most of the audience cannot hear.
Avoid fidgeting when speaking in front of an audience. Playing with your hair, chewing on your nails and other similar behaviors serve to distract the audience from listening to what you have to say. Instead of remembering your message, they may remember that you continually smoothed your hair. If you find it difficult to stop fidgeting, clasp your hands together in front of you or behind you, or place them on the lectern.
It is normal to feel nervous when giving a public speech. However, no matter how nervous you feel, you cannot let others notice. If you find yourself nervous, try to imagine yourself giving the speech to someone you know. It will calm you down and allow you to successfully give your speech.
As you can see from the above article, public speaking should not terrify you any longer now that you have great tips to follow. The best piece of advice is to practice these skills, and make sure you use the tips from above. Study them again, and get out in public to hone your new speaking skills!
