Audience Management - How it works.

Audience Management is not a term I like using but it fits what we have to accomplish as public presenters.   To apply effective audience management first we must understand group dynamics.   People as a group react usually in predictable ways to stimulus of lack there of.   You as the presenter are "in charge" and are the font of everything that results from your presentation.   Group dynamics dictate that an audience will react in a predictable fashion.   They can be raised to a fever pitch or lulled into complacency depending on the presenter's style and content.   In some cases the audience acts as one and reacts the same in others they can differ in their reaction to content with support (cheers or shouts of encouragement) or derision (boos or catcalls) in any case it is all reaction to stimulus and the presenter provides the stimulus.   Attitude is the key to leading the audience, if you are relaxed the audience will relax and be more receptive, you must achieve control or engage your audience before you can achieve anything else with them.   If you don't engage your audience first you may fail to create an Impact on them no matter how dynamic a speaker you are.   Failure to engage is often a matter of body language or what is called "presence".

President Nixon had a poor effect on audiences, his body language was all wrong;   it seemed even he didn't believe what he was saying, "I'm no crook".

Whether you are believable or not sometimes have nothing to do with content.   It's often how you say it not what you say.   Famous liars used engagement tactics and often raised their audiences to a fever pitch while all the while peddling lies and sometimes the audience refused to believe anything else even if what was said was proven to be a lie.   Stalin, a ruthless murderer, was considered and is still considered a father figure of wartime Russia and he murdered millions of his countrymen.   On the other side of the coin JFK had a style so endearing that the world took him to their hearts as a modern leader of a kinder gentler society although the results were not always obvious.   When he announced he was a Berliner the effect was magic and probably started the fall of communist East Germany.   That was a triumph of style over content.