Delivering laughter in your next public speech is not as easy as preparing the topic of your speech. Although you can see a lot of stand-up comedians that can easily tell a funny story or continuously tell jokes, trying to solicit laughter from your audience seemed like an impossible task. Because of the difficulty in properly delivering jokes in public speaking, many opted to forget about the humor part and continue with their speech.
A speech without humor is possible. Some of the best speakers are not necessarily the funny ones or those who can crack a joke. There are even speakers who don’t use humor in their speeches as they concentrate their content to inform and educate the audience.
But humor is one of the best tools in public speaking. If you have the ability to deliver humorous anecdotes to the audience, you will never have any problem grabbing the attention of your audience. It doesn’t even matter if your topic is uninteresting for them, your humor can get them listening in an instant. Being humorous in public speaking could also help in educating the audience. A point delivered in a straightforward fashion could still be remembered, but a point delivered through a funny joke is learned in an instant.
Ultimately, humor can help you become a better public speaker. You slowly become popular as a public speaker because you know how to educate the large crowd without boring them.
Laughter vs. a Smile
A great public speaker is not someone who can make you laugh out loud with their jokes. While that could happen in some speakers, a simple chuckle during the speech would have the same effect. Don’t worry if you can’t make them laugh hard.
In fact, it’s a lot easier to make the audience chuckle once in a while rather than make them laugh hard during the speech. If you continue to bring big laughs during your speech, you should consider becoming a stand-up comedian instead of a public speaker.
Expecting big laughs from an intricately planned joke could often lead to frustration and awkward situation. Don’t push your jokes to your audience – if they don’t provide the reception you expect, move on and continue with your speech.
Reinforcing an Idea
Humor should be delivered at the exact moment in your speech. Speakers usually tell a joke or a humorous story at the start of the speech to make everyone relax and be more attentive to the speaker.
But a highly recommended manner of delivering humor to your audience is when you want to emphasize a point. When you create a humorous example, your audience will have a better chance of remembering what you have said. You can tell a story or simply make a humorous remark.
Choose a comfortable method so that you can naturally deliver the humor. Delivering your humorous remark in a natural manner will help you avoid awkward moments in your speech. If you think you can’t deliver the joke, its better not to tell your audience about it.
Keeping it Clean
Aside from proper delivery of the joke during your speech, also take note of the theme of your joke. As much as possible keep your jokes as clean as possible. This should be observed not only because you have to be professional in your speech but you are also preventing discomfort in your audience. Also, avoid jokes that might sound too offensive on certain groups of people. The backlash that you will experience because of one innocent joke is not worth it when you lose your reputation as a speaker.
Too Much of a Good Thing
Humor is a great way to entertain and inform your audience but that should not be the reason of that you should crack a joke every two or three sentences of your presentation. Too many jokes in a single presentation will not help you get the message across to your audience. Your audience had a great time listening to your jokes but they didn’t learn anything.
Humor in public speech could help you relax your audience and enforce your opinion for better understanding. However, they should be used sparingly and at the right moment so that it becomes a great tool and not another distraction.
