Connect with your audience from the start

You might have already heard of all the following advices: Not starting too soon, wait for audience to quieten down, maintain eye contact, and smile. It could be for your meetings, conferences, workshops, or large events. While these are great advices, I’ll take you through more hands-on ways to engage and boost audience participation from the beginning.

Use chemistry to get reactive audience!

Pun intended! But what if you can see immediate reaction shown on the presentation screen as you speak? Get your audience engaged by letting them give feedback to what you present. Have you tried Mentimeter’s Quick Slides with reactions? We have 5 different reaction icons, for your audience to show you support by giving hearts ❤️ and thumbs-up 👍🏻, prompts curiosity with ‘❔’, or just to have some fun with the popular cat icon 🐱.

This makes the audience hyped up right at the start, as most of them have probably not experienced such a way to give live reactions to a speaker before. Additionally, since they are now introduced to something new to interact with, it makes you look innovative on stage!

Use visualization to aid explanations for your topic

Here’s another way you can startle your audience! Make an impact with the topic you are addressing by using some data representation. When your audience can see their own responses, live, you can point out and emphasize what everyone has in common. This helps you set the stage and make a stronger connection to your topic. The result? Your audience will feel that the session is very much applicable to them, and hold on tight to their seats as they expect to hear more from you!

With Mentimeter, you can gather live responses by asking some simple questions. Check out our example questions for a thought-provoking icebreaker and copy it to your own account if you’d like.

Increase the energy level with something fun

Speaking of fun, I’m sure you have thought of using games at the start of your presentation! How about having some competition as an icebreaker, such as a fun quiz relating to a topic that your audience could be familiar with? Announce that those who can answer the fastest wins! Get the energy level up in the room before beginning with the serious stuff, so that everyone stays alert to listen to you. Try it, and you can be sure that only a few questions are needed to hype your audience in no time.

All's well that begins well! I hope the above audience energizers excite you to start your presentation with a bang. Feel free to try them out using Mentimeter, a presentation platform that is superb in supporting many kinds of interactivity. With Mentimeter, your audience get to visualize their own responses in real-time, making them feel involved as they contribute to the flow of conversations during the session. Get more inspiration and icebreaker ideas!