¿Cómo sabes si tu audiencia está comprometida?

I recall my time as a newly assigned HR Manager to a resort. There was an employee appreciation ceremony that happed two months after I started. I decided to greet all the employees using each of their native languages. This created such an impactful first impression that made my probationary period and first year so productive!

I always want to know more about my audience prior to the preparation of my presentations. That's give me a possibility to present affront of them custom-tailored trainings. In the beginning, I start with the tour de table - what kind of education they have, what is their job experience, what are they expectations from the training and etc. Knowing more about your audience gives you the opportunity to connect with the participants and also to involve some of them during your presentation. If I speak affront of people not from my country, I always use some words and sentences from their native language to show them respect.

I have found it effective to have interactive elements like quizzes, games and demonstrations throughout the presentation. This keeps the audience engaged and have an interactive session.

There is a very simple way to know if they are interested and engaged. If they are NOT fumbling on their phones :) Ofcourse, there are many signs of that including yawning, looking around and obviously leaving the room. But knowing that humans in this era are mostly addicted to their phones especially when they are bored or just want to pass time, be sure that unless they are taking a photo or video of the presenter, then they are of no interest.

You can also sense engagement from the follow up questions that participants have. If they are building on the concepts you have introduced it means you did a great job communicating clearly and if they can see the subject matter represented in their work place or place of application, these are very good signs

Something else to consider is an AG - Attention Getter. Could be a video, a GIF, an image, a chart, even a quote - something that ensures attention is focused 100%.

Also utilizing social listening and analytics can uncover useful data on engagement that can be used to develop more engaging content. Properly configuring and using tools like sprout social or hootsuite can provide those additional insights that are often missed when trying to measure engagement at a deeper level.