Encouraging audience interaction can do a lot for your presentation. At a time when almost anyone can share their thoughts and ideas online, audiences crave to be heard.
They’re looking for similar opportunities to connect and participate during your presentation. When you open the floor to allow their opinions in, you’ll find that their input can add an interesting new dimension to the ideas you’re sharing.
The best way to go about this is by allowing them to ask questions and share comments.
While this is an easy task for small group presentations, it’s a lot more difficult when you’re facing an audience of about 50 or so people. Luckily, there are plenty of ways you can encourage audience interaction without having to waste valuable presentation time.
All you have to do is set up a poll at strategic points of your presentation.
If you want to see the diversity of opinions in your audience and use that to add flavor to your discussion, here are a few presentation tools that will allow you to encourage audience interaction:
IQPolls
IQPolls‘ response system lets audience answer questions immediately via their mobile devices. You can create a voting scale that they can respond to with a click of a button. Allow them to type down their thoughts to send your way. Best of all, you can embed the poll you made to your PowerPoint presentation to be able to show the real-time results.
DirectPoll
DirectPoll is pretty easy to set up. All you have to do is visit their website and start adding questions you want to ask, along with the answers you want to measure. When you’re done you can save your poll and access it through your browser.
Presentain
Aside from allowing you to set up polls for the audience to answer, you can also use Presentain to receive direct inquiries. Its use doesn’t stop at audience interaction either. It also allows you to use your phone as a timer and recorder. However, the most notable of its extra features is the recorder. When you record your presentation, you can share it online and stumble upon a larger audience.
SlideKlowd
As its name suggests, SlideKlowd utilizes cloud technology to receive questions, check for attendance, and conduct polls. It also gathers some useful data to help you measure audience interaction. Having that data will definitely be useful to see how you can improve your presentations in the long-run.
Sli.do
Sli.do is the perfect tool for bigger presentations and events. Using a unique code, your audience can access a platform where they can ask questions, answer live polls, and share their opinions. You can also use Sli.do to display a Twitter feed for a specific hashtag.
Audiences love a good show, but love being able to take part in that show even more. If your topic calls for it, why not consider encouraging audience interaction in your presentations? It’s a great way to help create a valuable connection between you, your message, and the people you’re trying to reach.
References
“How to Take Tough Questions Like a Presentation Expert.” SlideGenius, Inc.. July 16, 2015.
“Interactive Presentations: Using Twitter to Break the Fourth Wall.” SlideGenius, Inc.. December 17, 2014. Accessed January 13, 2015.
Featured Image: Mike Fisher via Flickr
