Speeches & Presentations

Communicating effectively is vital for someone who is looking to enter the field of public relations or advertising. Without excellent communications skills, the message you are trying to send your audience may get lost in all the clutter. So, this is why knowing how to give an amazing presentations and speeches is vital in this busy communications world. Knowing your audience is the most important part of giving a speech. Without them, you are just talking to yourself. You must use the appropriate language and resources that will connect with your target audience. They are the entire reason you are even making a presentation, so your focus should be on them the entire time. Audiences love eye contact, without it, they will not be interested in what you are saying.

The other very important part of giving a presentation is to be calm. There are many different ways you can achieve this. Some people are naturally just confident speakers. They don’t need a preparation routine or someone to calm them down. If this is you, count your blessings. For everyone else that gets a bit of stage fright, there are ways to overcome this. The first way is to practice, practice, and then practice again. The more you go over the information, the more confident you will be in presenting it in front of an audience. The next way to become more confident in your presentation is to have some sort of flash card or a set of notes to keep you on track. These can be used as reference points for when you get stuck at a certain point in your presentation or freeze up. The final way to overcome stage fright is to just fake it. If you appear confident, you will look confident to them even if you aren’t. And never apologize to the audience for being nervous! Confidence is key to a successful presentation and speech.

http://www.pitt.edu/~groups/speech~1.htm

http://www.hanser.com/2011/news/blog/what-makes-a-speech-great/

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/18-tips-for-killer-presentations.html