It can be difficult to be yourself when the camera is on you, or someone is pushing a microphone into your face. Many people suddenly find that their personality suddenly disappears and when they watch the playback, they’re concerned by what they see.
If you’re trying to deliver an important message, whether that’s in a media interview or delivering a talk on stage, keeping a hold on your personality is vital. Of course, it’s easier said than done. Here are some of our top tips.
Tell Stories – We’re hardwired to tell stories and we respond to them more than most other forms of communication. It’s important when you’re talking to an audience, to bring your personal experience into the mix. That could be a story about what happened to you, an anecdote you heard, in fact, anything that comes with a story attached to it.
Why is this important? We respond to stories on an emotional level and that’s the sort of feeling you want to elicit when you communicate with someone. Yes, you may have salient points that you need to get across in a short time, but you can make this more memorable and personable if you add a tale to it.
Bin the Script – It can seem frightening, especially if you are new to media speaking but getting rid of the script or at least not reading from it directly will do a lot to help your personality shine through. If you’ve ever been to a conference and sat through a lecture with someone reading off a carefully prepared script, you’ll probably know what we mean.
The delivery sounds stilted, forced, almost robotic. It can seem even more robotic when the next speaker comes on, wanders around the stage, and talks off the top of their head. Suddenly there’s a personality and some power to the words.
You can use guides and prompts, for example, a bulleted list of the areas you want to cover but avoid a full-blown script. Yes, politicians and newsreaders work seamlessly with an autocue, but these generally aren’t available to most people.
Have Passion – If you are talking to an audience or being interviewed by the media, you need to have passion and enthusiasm for your subject. It’s essential to transfer that passion onto your audience and you can only do that if you share in the emotion. If you’re passionate, you’re also more likely to let your personality shine through and communicate effectively.
Of course, you can overdo it and lose the audience so it’s also important to temper your enthusiasm so that you don’t appear as if you’re on another planet. For more tips and expert training talk to the team at Hawkeye Media today.