by Munirah Hashim | Feb 7, 2022 | Personal Growth
The fear of public speaking in its severe form is known as glossophobia. It is a common form of fear among a number of people. The thought of standing and speaking in front of a crowd rips some people apart. Are you one of such persons? If yes, then there is a need to know how to overcome the fear of public speaking. So, read on.
As much as the fear of public speaking is valid, public speaking skills are one of the most important skills one needs in life. This is because, at one point or the other, you would need to speak to a crowd. You want neither yourself nor others to notice you fidget, sweat, or stammer while making your presentation out of fear. As such, overcoming the fear of public speaking is super important.
Common Causes of Fear of Public Speaking
- Negative mindset.
- Being self-conscious.
- Inadequate preparation.
- Fear of ridicule.
- Little or no knowledge about the topic to speak on.
10 Tips for Overcoming the Fear of Public Speaking
1. Have a Positive Mindset
This point is always my number when it comes to overcoming the fear of almost anything. Being positive should not be mistaken for being in denial. Here, you acknowledge that you have this fear but you have a belief that you can work on it. You strongly believe you can be a good public speaker.
You can work on your mindset by having positive self-talk. Tell yourself that you can do it. Encourage yourself. Use positive affirmations like:
“I am a good public speaker “,
“My audience is happy with my message “,
“I can make a good presentation”,
“I love public speaking”, etc.
You can as well visualise yourself giving an excellent speech. Work on this step first before proceeding to the next.
2. Start by Speaking on Areas of Interest
Overcoming the fear of public speaking is not a day’s job. It’s a journey that should begin from somewhere. If you are glossophobic, you can start building your confidence by speaking on topics that interest you.
As you read this, think about an area that sparks your interest. Select some topics that you would love to talk about. Stand in front of your friends and speak on such interesting topics. Get used to talking about those things. When you are used to this, you can easily progress to speaking based on requests which might not be on familiar topics.
I guess you love those who can give impromptu speeches. They started somewhere. So, start talking!
The remaining points are needed as you improve.
3. Know Your Topic
Do you want to know how to overcome the fear of public speaking? Master your topic. The importance of this cannot be overemphasized. Before you can confidently give a speech as you would love to, it’s important to have a good grasp of your topic. What are the expectations? How deep should you discuss the topic? etc. The more you know your topic, the lesser your fear and the more your confidence.
Another importance of knowing your topic is that it helps you anticipate possible questions. Having a firm grasp of your topic makes answering questions after your presentation easy.
4. Know Your Audience
This is as important as knowing your topic. Having prior knowledge of your audience guides your preparations. It enables you to know the kind of persons you would speak to. Also, it gives you clarity on the terms to use in addressing them.
In addition, it helps you anticipate likely questions and attitudes to expect.
5. Adequate Preparation
Prior preparation prevents poor performance. Your confidence is in direct proportion with how much you prepare. In essence, the more prepared you are, the less anxiety you develop.
Write out your presentation and prepare beforehand. Get all the necessary information and resources you need to make a wonderful presentation. Stay organized.
6. Practice and Get Feedback before the D-Day
If you’re on the journey of overcoming the fear of public speaking, your ideal audience shouldn’t be the first to listen to your presentation.
Get used to making your presentation beforehand to a familiar audience. You can do this a day or two before the main event. This audience could be your siblings, friends, spouse, your kids, etc. Ask for honest feedback from them and work on areas of concern. You can do this more than once until you are confident about it.
In the absence of a familiar audience, you can practice before your mirror. You can as well make a video of yourself as you practice. Then listen to yourself. Observe the tone of your voice and the pace at which you speak, and then adjust where necessary.
7. Have a Structure or Outline
This is important in overcoming your fear of public speaking. You might wonder how.
With an outline, you have a guide that would see you through your presentation. Great public speakers also use guides for their presentations. You shouldn’t be an exception. With an excellent structure, you can calmly make your presentation and easily flow from one point to another without difficulty.
You don’t want to just memorize your presentations and get stuck along the line.
8. Breath Mindfully
The fear of public speaking manifests in breathing fast. This affects the pace at which you speak and sends a negative message to your audience. To prevent this, take deep breaths before the presentation of your speech. While presenting, stay conscious of your breath and ensure you’re breathing calmly. You can use deep breaths as your break in between your speech. This helps you maintain a steady composure.
9. Know That Your Audience Trusts You
Maybe no one has told you this. The truth is your audience is there to listen to you. They trust you and your message. This means you should focus on the message you’re passing across. Don’t give too much attention to the audience’s appearance. Some might appear uninterested or distracted; this shouldn’t affect you or make you disappointed.
10. Ask for Feedback as You Progress
Here, you are asking for feedback from your ideal audience. This is one area I don’t joke with. Whenever I give a public speech, I ask at least two persons from my audience to give me feedback.
It takes courage to ask for feedback. And the whole essence is to help you improve. The more you do this, the better and more confident you get.
Additionally, you should consider joining public speaking clubs where you meet like-minded individuals. You can also buy online courses on public speaking or hire a speech coach.
Conclusion
Having known how to overcome the fear of public speaking, you know it is important and can be achieved. However, it should be noted that it wouldn’t happen automatically. You should apply the tips I shared with you above.
Do you have an idea worth sharing with us? The comments section is open.
You could also read on: 10 Tips to Improve Your Presentation Skills.
by Umar Farouk Kabir | Jan 25, 2022 | Tech & Innovation
Are you trying to set up a Facebook ad, but you do not know how to go about it? Well, you have certainly come to the right place. Setting up a Facebook ad for your business or any other thing doesn’t require you to be a pro. Here, you read up on how to set up Facebook ads for beginners. The steps are few and quite easy to follow.
Facebook ads are a powerful way of growing businesses. The platform is one of the biggest in the world, and so, it makes for business advertisement quite easy, and fast with some really good results.
Let us dive in, shall we?
Why Choose Facebook Ads?
Several social media platforms offer advertisement services, but what makes Facebook ads different? Facebook ads offer a lot of customization and creative control over your ads.
Facebook ads are also connected to Instagram ads. You can run one ad on the two platforms at a go. For some with experience, they might say the Facebook ads are quite expensive, but the truth is, it is still pretty affordable given the massive advantages it offers compared to its competitors.
So, what are the steps taken to set up Facebook ads?
8 Steps Taken in Setting up Facebook Ads
1. Come Up With a Strategy
Before anything, you must first come up with a game plan. The very first step taken in creating a Facebook ad is strategy; this step is one you cannot afford to overlook. If you do, you will end up creating an ad campaign that doesn’t really target the audience you want, or worse, you create an ad that doesn’t really target anyone.
So what are the questions you need to ask yourself when coming up with a game plan? Ask yourself these questions and be sure to answer them as carefully as possible:
- What goods or services am I advertising?
- Who are my target audiences?
- How will they use what I am offering?
- What are the possible issues they might have about my products?
- What is my endgame? Also, what is the goal of this ad campaign?
Pro Tip: A game-plan isn’t only needed when setting up Facebook ads; it is needed when starting anything new that is worthwhile.
2. Choose Your Objective
Now that you have a strategy in place, it is time to actually begin setting up your ad via the ad manager. The first thing to do here is to select your objective. It is imperative to choose the right one as Facebook will in fact optimize ads based on your objective. The right objective improves results.
You will want to choose an objective that truly resonates with your business goals.
3. Target Your Audience
You should not start an ad campaign without knowing or at least having a rough idea of who your target audience is.
This is what it looks like:
Pro Tip:
- Use Lookalike audiences to replicate qualities from your custom audience. Facebook highlights the similarities between those in custom audiences and original audiences and finds users similar to them outside this bracket to use in the next campaign.
- Use demographic targeting
- Custom audiences; custom audiences target specific users who have visited your Facebook or Instagram business page.
- Use interest targeting
All these tools are designed to help improve targeting accuracy and efficiency.
4. Choose Where You Want Your Advertisement to Be Seen
The next step taken in setting up a Facebook ad is choosing what applications and devices you want your ads to be shown.
From the image above, you can see that you have the option of selecting devices, placements, apps, mobile devices, networks, and so on.
5. Create Your Budget
This is the part where you select the budget that is most favourable to you, select when your ad campaign schedule, and optimization method.
Note: Only manually change the optimization method if you are familiar with it.
You can set up your ad to run at specified times or set it up to run indefinitely. You can also select a lifetime budget or daily budget. Think carefully before making this decision.
6. Select Advertisement Format
From the image above, you can see the ad formats available for selection includes:
- Single image ads
- Video ads
- Carousel ads, which allow you to show several videos and/or pictures
- Canvas ads
- Collections, which open up to be a full-screen mobile experience.
Note: Each ad format has its own unique quality and benefit.
7. Add Details
In this section, you can add details about your business. These added details can help generate more traffic for your business.
Details like your website address, call to action, and product description is things you should not overlook as these are what make your page look more professional and attractive.
The detail section looks like this:
8. Manage Your Ad
This is the final step in creating Facebook ads. Once your ad campaign begins running, it is imperative to track your performance. By tracking how well your ads are doing, you can make necessary adjustments via ads manager.
Conclusion
Facebook ads have a lot of advantages and options to choose from. These options are geared at making your business promotion smooth and efficient. Remember to choose your options carefully, choose options that will work in your favour and not against.
Do not worry if the ads system seems a bit complex for you at first. All you need is a little time, and you will be familiar with it. When confused about the steps, remember to come back to this article and use it as a guide.
What do you think of this article? Do you already use the Facebook guide for your business? Do you have questions regarding the ads system? Share your thought in the comment section below!
Visit: Northpad Nigeria to read up on articles that will help you grow your business.
by Fatima Sheikh | Mar 6, 2021 | Personal Growth
Are we born public speakers or do we have to work on building our public speaking skills? This is the question, many ask. This is also the excuse introverts like me use to hide in their shell. In one of my posts, I wrote briefly about my leadership journey and how leadership roles helped me with my public speaking phobia. Have I become extroverted and less nervous during a public speaking session? The answer is No… But I have learned to build strategies and techniques that help me act more confident and relaxed during public speaking. In this article, I will be sharing with you the best tips for public speaking.
Important Skills that Can Help You Learn How to Become an Effective Speaker
1. Practice More Often
When it comes to public speaking, there are never many times enough for practice. Make it a habit to always practice before any public presentation. Never assume you are good to go. Overconfidence is always the biggest cause of public speaking mishaps.
When practicing my speech, I will stand in front of a mirror and assume I am in front of an audience. Before your next speech, watch pre-recordings of your speeches or practice with a friend or family. Practicing is always the shortcut to a successful public speech.
2. Know Your Audience
One of the biggest blunders speakers always make is to assume different audiences to be the same, thereby using similar speaking strategies for all talk situations. Your speech is about them, not you. Make extensive research on your audience, their age group, ethnics, environment, believes, and laws.
You should not use the same speech technique on elementary school kids with working-class adults who might probably know more than you do. Don’t give a talk on the importance of beef in India. Be lucky if you make it out alive.
3. The Act of Public Speaking Demands You Discover Your Style
In my post on leadership, I emphasized the importance of having a mentor or a guide you aspire to be like. Regardless, ensure you discover your style before emulating a role model. Are you a calm soft-spoken person or an outspoken person with a burst of energy? Make your public speaking style in a manner that goes with that flow. Either way, don’t forget to share some stories and jokes with your audience, this keeps them listening with all attention.
Do what you know will make your speech stand out and feel natural.
4. Be Calm, Don’t Be Afraid to Fail
The one who falls and gets up is stronger than the one who never tried. Do not fear failure but rather fear not trying.
Roy T. Bennett
As weird as it might sound, I have built the habit of loving failure because failure is the biggest teacher you can ever have. The word Glossophobia was not invented due to your error, and it simply means the fear of public speaking. This condition affects four out of 10 people. Calm down and don’t beat yourself up for making a mistake, you are not alone on this journey.
Learn from your mistakes and do better the next time. Act calm and confident anytime you miss a word or stutter.
5. Listen to Your Body Language
The stage is all yours and yours alone. Don’t stand still, move around the stage at a calm confident pace. Use your voice and hands naturally. Don’t give out nervous gestures. Don’t stand at the corner of the stage like a wet scared bird, that won’t look good on you. Stand straight, articulate your speech accurately and win over the crowd.
This is one of the tips for public speaking worth noting.
6. Ask for Feedback
During my public speaking sessions at the toastmaster club, the feedback always helped me in my next presentation. The format was Commend-Recommend-Commend style. Constructive feedback and recommendation by your audience will be a great advantage to you to prepare better for your upcoming public speaking sessions.
The audience always sees and observes things you probably missed during your rehearsal.
Conclusion
Consistency is always the key to perfection. There is no easy way out of public speaking. Discipline yourself and make it a habit to practice, learn from books, videos, and great public speakers. Don’t be afraid to fail, practice with friends and families or join public speaking clubs in your town.
These tips I shared will not only change your personality but help you build the unique public speaking techniques that will make you stand out and act confident during a public speaking session.
Finally, were there times you were afraid of speaking in public? If yes, tell us about it and how you overcome it.
