Using Public Speaking to Increase your PR Network

The Importance of Public Speaking Skills in PR

Public speaking is a challenging task that requires practice and confidence. Audiences often perceive speakers who exude knowledge as experts on the topic at hand. Even if you're not an expert, sounding like one can be beneficial, right?

Tailoring Your Speech to Your Audience

When planning a speech, it's crucial to consider your audience. Demographics and psychographics are two key factors to consider. Demographics include age, sex, socio-economic status, and education level, while psychographics focus on the audience's ideologies and belief systems. Clearly, a speech for high school students would differ from one for a group of science enthusiasts at a physics convention.

Crafting Your Message

You also need to consider the message you want to convey to your audience. This will help you determine the type of speech you need to prepare, whether it's a demonstration, informative, or persuasive speech. To engage your audience, you need to give them a reason to listen. Appeal to their motivations, remembering that human behavior is driven by wants and needs.

Establishing Credibility

However, appealing to emotions won't matter if you lack credibility. Establishing credibility is crucial as it builds trust between you and your audience. Common ways to establish credibility include using facts, statistics, narratives, and defining jargon that your audience may not be familiar with.

Delivering Your Speech

During your speech or presentation, it's essential to order your points logically. Chronological, spatial, and cause and effect ordering are a few effective methods. Good visual aids can reinforce your ideas for your audience. An image or graph can make your key concepts much clearer.

Speech Delivery Formats

Speech delivery is crucial because no matter how much preparation you put into your speech, it won't matter if you forget every word once you're on stage. The four main delivery formats used in speech making include impromptu, extemporaneous, manuscript, and memorized. If you've prepared well, you're likely not giving an impromptu talk. So let's focus on the other three. You're probably familiar with a memorized speech and a manuscript speech, which is read aloud verbatim. Extemporaneous speaking, however, involves minimal notes and memorization. This can be more challenging, but it often results in fewer mistakes and more eye contact with the audience.

By the end of my college career, I was able to confidently present to large audiences, smoothly navigating my points. Sure, I encountered unexpected challenges, but the more I spoke, the easier it became to gracefully handle these situations.

Incorporating public presentations and speaking into your PR campaign can enhance your image as a trustworthy and knowledgeable individual, particularly regarding what you're promoting. Over time, your charisma and demeanor will reflect the confidence inherent in public speaking, leading to increased sales.