Standing up in front of an audience, whether that’s in front of your colleagues at work or a prospective client who might be thinking about partnering with your business, the speech itself might be the best speech ever, but the attention of your audience can still be hit or miss.
This is because the secret to giving a great speech comes down to two things; sending the message effectively and maintaining their attention without them getting bored. This is why visual aids can be a great way to achieve both, but you may be wondering what kind of visual aids you could use to keep things interesting.
Today, we’re going to find out five of the best.
1. Paper Handouts
Probably the easiest form of visual aid to create, a paper handout is simply a piece of paper, or a folder of documents, you can hand out to your audience members at the beginning of the speech for them to look through and follow along with.
Throughout your speech, you can refer to certain points, images or graphs to help transfer the information you’re talking about. Try to keep everything organized and bullet-pointed (especially with numbers) to make it easy to find everything quickly.
2. Video Content
While you’re present to give the speech, there’s no reason why you can’t include video content to make everything a lot more interesting for everyone involved. The benefits of using video content in your speech are endless and give you way more opportunities to send a message that if you were just standing and talking.
You could create your own video resources or use existing ones, such as company training videos, if relevant, or even source your content from sites like Vimeo or YouTube.
3. A Digital Presentation
Of course, perhaps one of the most commonly used forms of visual aid in any given speech is a presentation. These are typically projected out onto the wall behind you and are great at helping you display any information you want to send across.
What’s more, you’ll also be able to include images, videos, sounds and engaging transitions between the slides which help to make the speech more visually appealing and therefore retains your audience’s attention. Beautiful.AI lets you design beautiful presentations that look professional and remains incredibly simple to use.
4. Props or Objects
It’s important to remember you should only use props if your speech requires it and it’s a relevant thing to include. For example, think about how plane stewardesses can sometimes use a model aeroplane to highlight where exits are, and how emergency landings work.
5. A Flip Chart
A flip chart is, in essence, a stand with a pad of large pieces of paper on it. This is a free canvas you can use as you please and is ideal for getting the audience involved. You could write on the flip chart before your speech to get the information ready, or you can brainstorm ideas with your audience, adding them relevant points as you go.
Summary
As you can see, there are a ton of visual aids you can use to take your speech to the next level. To retain audience engagement and to send your message effectively, make sure you’re thinking outside the box and getting creative with how you present yourself and your speech’s topic.
