“Audience engagement at presentations is past being a trend,” says Cheryl Cran, an author and a speaker in the field of integrating communications, technology, and human potential. “It’s what’s happening now.”

Here are a few ways you can add some punch to your presentation.

Venues at most big organizations already are outfitted with interactive audience technology that enables a speaker to survey the audience and lets the audience indicate their reactions and responses to the presentation via wireless keypad or smartphone. Be sure to ask what technology is available to you, become familiar with it, and build its use into your presentation.

In addition to (or in lieu of) a high-end system, there also are plug-ins for PowerPoint (PowerPoint Twitter Tools) and Keynote (Keynote Tweet) that enable you to embed a Twitter feed into your presentation that enables the audience to react to the presentation in real time. Set up Tweetchat and provide everyone with a hashtag then watch the comments roll. Tweetchat also enables you (or an assistant) to curate tweets, so that you can control what appears on the screen.

Presentations should be highly polished and much more than a list of bullet points. Keynote offers a lot of flexibility in terms of templates and eases the process of incorporating multimedia elements, such as video and graphics. And there’s even an application for the iPhone that enables you to use it to advance your slides.

Before Cheryl goes on stage, she often mingles with attendees, a small video camera close at hand. (She recommends a Kodak HD, which has a powerful onboard microphone.) Cheryl does video interviews with several attendees, polling them about what their issues are and what they’re hoping to get out of her session. She then uses those vignettes in her opening to set the stage and encourage engagement during the presentation. “Most people are happy to be filmed, but how much they’re willing to say does depend quite a bit on the culture,” says Cheryl. She suggests that learn about the organization you’re slated to speak to before you get to the venue, so you have a sense of what will fly.

Some of her colleagues run their presentations from an iPad and that it’s definitely an option. Doing this, however, requires you to upload the presentation to iDisk. To ensure you can get to the presentation when the time comes, make sure you have a 3G-enabled device—because if there is no Internet at the venue or the signal is poor, you won’t have a presentation!

It’s not all about the gadgets, however. Cheryl emphasizes, “You can have the coolest technology around but if you’re not prepared, nothing will save you. Competition for speaking slots is fierce. Conference directors expect you to do your homework and to fully customize your presentations for their audiences. Customization has become the standard—even for celebrity speakers.”

The good news is you can use technology to get ready as well. As she studies each organization, Cheryl often sends out short web-based surveys using Survey Monkey to test for perceptions and expectations.

With audience attention spans averaging around nine seconds, speakers who want their messages to connect need to involve their audiences in the process. The right technology can enable audiences to provide added dimension to your presentation, create synergy, and increase the impact of your presentation.

But isn’t this just code for: “Ya gotta have personality?”

Want to blog and actively participate in social media to engage customers and prospects in your content? Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but if you’re boring, academic, and didactic in your tone or long-winded, who’s going to engage with you? Who wants to do business with you?

Personality! That’s what it takes. It’s “the visible aspect of one’s character as it impresses others” or “the distinctive character of a person that makes him [her] socially attractive.”

In the “old” days, it was the salesperson who capitalized on using personality, but in many cases, it was to BS the unsuspecting prospect into making a purchase, whether it was the right move or not. Today, BS is passé. It has been replaced by meeting the customer’s needs in an honest manner.

Whether you’re involved in B2C, B2B, government, or nonprofit marketing, it’s your personality that attracts others, builds relationships, and garners trust. You can’t force it. It has to come naturally.

What personality characteristics do you think are valuable in marketing now?

It’s that time of year when many of us receive holiday gifts from clients, suppliers, and colleagues.  It’s also an excellent opportunity for companies and organizations to send gifts to good leads and prospects in the hopes of opening a door or two. That’s not an uncommon business tactic. But, let’s be frank … how many gift recipients actually thank senders?

Our company sent out several gifts to clients, colleagues, and prospects. I can count on one hand how many sent an e-mail or thank-you note to show their appreciation. Of course, there’s no obligation on their part to have a relationship with us, but surely, they can say thanks regardless. It’s not only business etiquette— it’s personal etiquette. And it speaks volumes about their personal brands and the organizations for which they work. Now, maybe some will acknowledge receiving their gifts early in January, but I’m not so optimistic.

Has the economic downturn created a general malaise in business? Or have good manners  gone by the wayside? With so many blog posts and articles on relationship building and engagement, why do you think so many people blow off the concept of saying thanks?

Have you experienced this, too? Have you ever neglected to thank a business-related gift sender during the holiday season? Do tell.

Letitia runs the office where we sublet, and she’s an Apple user. She came by my office to ask a question, and immediately noticed the monitor. I told her it was only $239, and was Mac compatible. She said she had been saving up for a monitor from Apple for 3x the price, but she was going to check out the Dell instead.
Here are some interesting word of mouth marketing ideas that came from the conversation:

1. Use conversation-starters.
An Apple cable came with the monitor, and I’ll never use it. This cost Dell money — but if it hadn’t been there, I never would have known it was Apple-compatible. The cable is a conversation starter. The resulting word of mouth pays for the extra cost. What can you put in the box to start a conversation?
2. Use good names.
It’s hard to recommend the “SP2208WFP” and it’s harder for the person you’re talking with to remember it. Call it the Fred 22″ or something like that. (It’s easier to recommend a Camry than an SLX.) Simple product names get better word of mouth.
3. Use simple URLs.
Create simple web pages to match product names. Let your talkers say “Just go to dell.com/fred” — easy to recommend and easy to buy. Make it easier to turn a referral into a site visit.
4. Use referral landing pages.
Create a place for recommenders to send people. For example, give me a page at dell.com/sernovitz with all my favorite purchases and wish lists. It’s easy to do and it makes me look great when I tell people about it. Give me points when my friends visit. Give referrers status and recognition.
The lesson: Great word of mouth is more than buzz. It’s nailing the simple tactics that help the conversation spread.
Thanks to Becky Carroll for the image.

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You must admit — marketers have a curious way with language. For decades it was the industry’s goal to “target” an audience, as if to say the only way to make money was to treat consumers as objects to be destroyed. More recently, although we are using more 2.0-friendly language for interactive marketing, just as often we still use “target” and “engagement,” both of which project the consumer as an adversary.
Though it seems strange and disjointed, the language isn’t actually the problem. Even when we use the “right” terms — or at least terms the hypersensitive have less to be offended by — too often to be ignored, the problem is that our goal is still the same as it’s always been.
Consumer Electronics: An Analogy
Imagine walking into an electronics store in search of some speakers for your home entertainment system. You don’t know exactly which ones you want, but you’re pretty sure you’ve got an idea about how to narrow your choices. You just have a few questions you want to ask about the ones the store has available.
You track down a salesperson and explain what you’re looking for and what type of system you have. Easy enough.
A normal person would expect to be given helpful information, but the head of marketing, hip to the whole “Information Superhighway” thing that’s all the rage with the kids these days, meticulously trained the sales team on how to approach prospects. Thus, instead of giving you the answer, the salesperson hits you with a thirty-second explanation about how great his company is. Worse yet, there is no skip button (Not that
one would help).
Sound like any splash pages you’ve seen?
Beyond Appearances
This is what clueless people think passes for “marketing 2.0.” For all our ruminations and advocacy on the blogosphere, the goals of marketing today are the same as they’ve always been: Interruption and
Transaction. They are just dressed in a different garb.
Today’s marketers call what they do “engagement,” “interaction,” “relationship-building” or worse yet, “encouraging the customer to experience the brand.” However, substitute “brand” with “Tabasco enema,” and you can picture the usefulness of such tactics and how uncomfortable your audience is with them.
The sad news is that your company’s brand isn’t nearly as important to your audience as it is to you. Unless you’re the only provider available online, which is unlikely, it’s very easy for your audience to find someone else. No amount of “brand engagement” you pull out of your magic hat is going to make people think more about you than they do of themselves.
So don’t fool yourself about this “brand experience” thing. It’s important, and it can be done, but it isn’t going to happen because you dressed your marketing up with prettier language or pictures.

I was pondering this while watching that beautiful Sony Bravia TV commercial featuring the hypnotic music of Jose Gonzalez. But this wasn’t on commercial television, but featured on a show about art. The segment wrapped with a quote from Guy Debord — “The spectator does not feel at home anywhere, because the spectacle is everywhere.” Suddenly the bells began to ring in my mind.
In a world where so much of our daily experience is mediated by technology, “engagement” no longer seems to be an end goal, but rather a milestone. “Engagement” does not reach far enough nor adequately convey the restless desire we have to connect — with brands, with organisations and with each other. Just look at the words we use to describe a website (home page) or an online network (social community) and you will see evidence of this underlying yearning.

Perhaps because the “spectator” cannot rest, a transformation is underway. No longer content in this passive role, consumers are stepping out of their comfort zones into the worlds of social media, co-creation and multi-channel conversation … and technology is being harnessed as a first and necessary step.
It seems to me that brands who continue to invest in the spectacle will be able to “engage” at least some of the people some of the time. But those brands wanting to delve deeper will need to find ways to transform our experiences — one heartbeat at a time.
Photo credit: Beagley