The best way to engage an audience, if there is one.
Humour, hard facts or emotion. Engaging an audience, a task that may look like a straight road, but which leaves you stuck at a cross-section with many paths to choose from.
Before going into Writer’s fortnight, I expected to hear inspirational speeches or tips on how to communicate or even a talk about social causes. And yes, that is what we got. But along with that, I saw another side to presentations. Underneath all the spectacular speeches, the most striking aspect was the difference in the deliverance of the speakers. How do the speakers actually connect with us? How did all of their talks stick in my mind even when they all spoke so differently?
Chetan Bhagat, an Indian author, used humour to appeal to our young minds. On the other hand, Seema, a volunteer for Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2), and Robyne, a social justice photographer and researcher, used a ‘call for action’ style to persuade the audience into believing that what they are doing is the right thing, and making us more aware of the campaigns they have devoted their time and effort into. But then again, even when talking about the same topic the speaker’s had different approaches to engage with the audience.
“Be a cockroach” – Humour
Walking into the talk whilst calling himself an ‘Authorpreneur’ to sound ‘cool’ Mr. Bhagat used humour as a tool to engage the audience.
The aim of his talk was to tell us how he became successful in the profession of being an author. He had decided to incorporate humour into his talks to achieve this. Humour, a skill that is hard to achieve but, a skill that Chetan Bhagat managed to use and not deviate from his main goal whilst engaging the audience.
“You’ll find cockroaches in the most poshest colonies of Singapore…as well as Jungles”, said Chetan Bhagat, whilst telling the audience that adaptation is an important skill which you need to overcome hurdles.
He used humour not only to make the audience listen to him, but teach them a valuable concept that they will remember.
“I’m not the best author but, I am the bestselling one,” Mr. Bhagat jokingly criticized himself while telling us how you don’t need to be the best in order to achieve something. This is a skill many struggle to master, but Mr. Bhagat achieved it perfectly. The technique he used is very common but needs to be skilfully planned out, as shown in his carefully balanced use of humour without drifting away from his objective.
“Who here is married?” – Hard Facts
Robyne Hayes stayed true to the core of her profession. Working as a researcher, she helps local communities and societies to solve their problems relating to poverty and discriminations. The main aim of her talk was to spread awareness about the social problems many developing countries are facing, mainly child marriage being her current focus.
“Girls living in poor households are almost twice as likely to marry before 18 than girls in higher income households”, Ms. Hayes said to support her arguments against child marriage.
Along with percentages and numbers, Robyne used photography as a tool to talk about the social issue itself. She was very balanced and even handled when she carefully described the situation in those developing countries, showing us how her job as a researcher has affected her way of presenting.
This strategy was very effective because it was really a ‘to the point’ approach and so we instantly were aware of the problems, and due to the astonishing numbers like, “17 million girls were affected by child marriage.” that she produced from her facts, along with her stunning photographs, she fulfilled the purpose of creating empathy in the audience and a greater consciousness of the problems in our society.
“Workers are still humans” – Opinion and Emotion
Seema, a volunteer at Transient Workers Count too (TWC2), similarly to Robyne, had an objective to spread awareness about problems in our society. Seema’s main focus was helping migrant workers, who have possibly lose their jobs or been mistreated in Singapore. Even though Seema had a similar objective to Robyne, it was seen that Seema had a very strong opinion about the matter. Throughout the talk, she had a very powerful stance on the particular matter of protecting migrant workers and how important her job is. Her strategy of engaging with the audience, though different, was also effective because it gave the audience a chance to think and possibly agree or disagree on the specific matter. It was almost as if her opinion was a stimulus to cause a stir in the audience and make them listen to what she further has to say to backup or support her argument.
After hearing all these speeches and different speaking styles, you come to a point where you ask yourself, is there really a best way to engage an audience? Personally, I don’t think there is a best way. I think one should know all these techniques but also not use them all at once. Without writers fortnight I wouldn’t have ever thought that there are so many different ways to engage with an audience as I’ve always had the belief/perspective that there is only one way of talking to an audience. But due to writers fortnight, I have now come to the conclusion that you should know which technique of communication would be the best for your talk/speech, supported by other factors such as audience age and your objective for the talk.
