I spend a lot of time on Twitter, and much of that time I’m looking up public speaking accounts and seeing what they have to say. Whenever I see one that I like, I add it to my favorites so that I can revisit it.
In today’s article, I thought I’d mine that little database and share just a few of the best tweets that I’ve come across. So here we go!
Despite what a lot of people think, there’s no such thing as a natural born public speaker. It takes a lot of hard work and practice to get good, which is why we love this tweet about how it’s necessary to suck at public speaking before being able to speak well. The good news is that as @YKDojo says, everything is learnable, and that’s where articles like this one come in. You can also learn a lot from studying other public speakers, picking up books and going on courses.
Public speaking is one of those skills that’s in high demand across all sorts of different industries, and so just being able to speak in public can be enough to help you to get a new role. Even if it doesn’t seem as though it’s related to what you do, you never know when you might be able to fall back on it. For example, you might be a computer programmer who usually works as part of a small team but is one day asked to explain code to a client’s in-house development team.
The best way to ensure that people remember your message is to make it as timely as possible. It’s similar to the way that marketers focus on seasonality and getting the timing of their messaging just right to give them the best possible chance of turning prospects into paying customers. In this case, you’ll want to revisit your talks before you deliver them to make sure that they’re still relevant and to add any references to current events that you can think of.
One of the best ways to get people to listen to you is to tap into the awesome power of storytelling. As human beings, we’re hardwired to relate to stories, and so using storytelling as part of your presentations is a quick and easy hack to make an impact. @JosephOyebanji1 also makes a good point when he says that storytelling alone isn’t always enough. The best speakers back their storytelling with practical examples or real world scenarios that put their stories into context.
Many of the biggest mistakes that speakers make are around their responses to questions that the audience asks. That’s because it can often feel as though we’re coming under fire and that we have to defend ourselves. @HarishFeroke points out that we should try to understand where the questioner is coming from before we respond. If we make assumptions about them and fire back at them without stopping to think, we risk digging ourselves into a hole that we can’t get out of.
@FurneaCrossing’s tweet is a decent reminder that anyone can do public speaking, even if they have doubts that they can. In fact, most of it comes down to self-confidence, and there’s a lot of truth to that old saying, “Fake it ‘til you make it.” If you ever doubt yourself and you’re not sure whether you can deliver a talk to a big audience, take another look at this tweet as a reminder that if @FurneaCrossing can do it, anyone can.
There are two great lessons to take away here. The first is that if you’re struggling to find ways to practice your public speaking, you can always join Toastmasters as an easy way to practice public speaking in a supportive, low pressure environment. The other is that if you only ever speak in high pressure situations, you’re naturally going to find yourself feeling afraid of speaking. Toastmasters provides you with a great opportunity to practice without the pressure.
When you’re afraid of public speaking, it’s easy to just avoid any public speaking opportunities so that you don’t have to face your fear. The problem is that it leaves you bottling up your potential and stopping you from being the best version of yourself that you can be. It’s far better to overcome your fear and to step up to the plate to speak and to lead, even if that takes you out of your comfort zone.
@JonnyJ17 is a great example of someone who was afraid of public speaking but who grabbed the bull by the horns and gave it a go, reaping the rewards that were on offer as a result. His story about writing a book is also inspirational, because it just goes to show that by saying “yes” instead of saying “no”, we max out our chances of finding something that we love.
This tweet from @LocalMello shows that by putting herself out there, she’s been able to improve her self-confidence and to overcome her anxiety. In this example, she’s talking about live-streaming online as opposed to standing up in front of people at an event, but the two have a lot in common. If you truly can’t bring yourself to practice public speaking in person, you may find that live streaming across the internet provides you with a more accessible way to get started.
Now that you’ve seen our picks for ten of the best public speaking tweets that we’ve come across, we want to hear from you. Have you come across any that are better? Or perhaps you’ve come across a great account that you think we should follow?
Whatever the case, we want to hear from you, so be sure to let us know in the comments so that we can keep the discussion going. You can also follow us on your social networking sites of choice or check back often for more articles. We’ll see you soon!
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