In today’s digital landscape, AI is becoming increasingly adept at mimicking human behavior, striving to be more connected, aware, and human in its interactions. As we continue to plant our human flag in this technological evolution, it’s crucial for us to ensure our own communication remains deeply rooted in these three core principles. Here are some tips to help you stay connected to your audience, aware of their needs, and to humanize your interactions.
1. CONNECTED: Connect Deeply with Your Audience
Look for the connection points: Just as technology becomes more ubiquitous and effective when it utilizes multiple connections, so does your communication. Before you utter a word, your first goal is to understand who your audience is and what they need, as businesspeople and, more importantly, as human beings. Ask probing questions, have conversations, and use analytics tools to gather insights on their behaviors, preferences, and objectives, as well as their hopes, fears, and aspirations. This will empower you to tailor your content to leave them feeling understood by you, and connected to you, as a human being.
Engage The Multiverse: Consistent engagement is key to maintaining a strong connection. So you want to make sure you are engaging your audience through multiple modalities. Keep your auditory, visual and kinetic learners engaged through various techniques like audience interaction, physical punctuation, and closing proximity with your listeners. Offstage, in your marketing, this can be done through finding creative to cumulatively build on content and stories across blog posts, social media, newsletters, and all other platform your audience frequents.
Personalize Your Communication: Use the data you’ve gathered to personalize your interactions. On stage that’s done through personal stories, anecdotes relevant to your audience’s industry or lived experience, and content that reflects those connection points you’ve unearthed. Off stage it could be through personalized emails, social media videos and other creative content that makes your audience feel seen and understood.
2. AWARE: Be Aware of Your Audience
Listen Actively: Awareness starts with listening. When gathering insight for a project, presentation or campaign, listen for the overt messaging, but also read between the lines to hear the unspoken messaging. Listen for the business objectives and talking points, but also the hurt, and fear, and hope and joy that comes through in their voice, energy and conversation. Also pay attention to your audience’s feedback, comments, and messages. This will help you understand their pain points, needs, and expectations better.
Calibrate the Crowd: One of the popular modules in my Stage Might Online: Speaker Training Course shares what I call “Communication Calibrators” – techniques that allow you to engage ANY audience in the first 2 minutes of any presentation. Engagement is always created by one big act, but often by dozens of micro, cumulative moments that cause your audience to lean back in just when they start to check out. So thread your communication with various ways to calibrate your speech to meet your audience where they are, and calibrate your audience to go where you want to take them.
Break the 4Th Wall: The old advice that says “I you’re nervous, look over your audiences heads” is fine if you are just trying to prevent eye contact from distracting you. But, just like in one-on-one discussions your communication power goes to the next level when make eye contact and engage actively with your listeners. So don’t speak at your audience, speak as through you are have a personal conversation with them. Pay attention to the cues they are giving you as you speak that can inform how you need to shift your energy and delivery to re-engage them. The only way you can make these adjustment in real time, is if you are paying attention to your audience as much as they are paying attention to you.
Adapt to Changing Needs: The needs of your audience can change over time. Stay adaptable and be ready to shift your strategies and content to meet these evolving needs. Staying updated with industry trends can also provide valuable insights.
3. Humanize Your Interactions
Use Authentic Language: Drop the jargon and corporate speak. Use a conversational tone that feels natural and relatable. Even if you’ve delivered content a million times you can practice “acting” as I you are coming up with it on the spot. That’s why Stage Might teaches the performance techniques of actors to help you appear as your most authentic self. Because doing that makes you appear relatable, less intimidating, and far more accessible to your audience.
Show Empathy: Show that you understand and care about your audience’s challenges and successes. You can do that through telling stories that connect with their life, sharing experiences that they can relate to, and delivering their data in ways that are unexpectedly human. The goal is to help your audience find themselves in you, because empathy helps build a deeper connection and fosters loyalty.
Be Transparent: Honesty and transparency build trust. Be upfront about your intentions, practices, and any changes that might affect your audience. More importantly be transparent about your weakness, failures, and moments of growth. As leaders, sometimes the greatest way to show your strength is to show your vulnerability. So reveal your truths to your audience to establish a relationship with them, because trust is a cornerstone of any strong relationship.
Conclusion
In an era where AI is becoming increasingly sophisticated, it’s more important than ever to ensure our human communication remains connected, aware, and human. By understanding your audience, staying adaptable, and fostering genuine connections, you can create meaningful interactions that resonate on a human level. Embrace these principles to not only stand out in a digital world but to also build lasting relationships with your audience.
