One of the best ways to encourage interactivity between a presenter and their listeners is by allowing them to respond. The need to increase the attention of audiences has been around for a long time. There are definite advantages when your audience is paying attention. Besides improving attentiveness, audience response systems also create greater interactivity.
An Audience Response App can also boost the retention of the knowledge, thereby making your presentation session a success. The old method of raising hands to gather feedback is ineffective in promoting engagement and plays against anonymity that is sometimes required to get an honest answer. Nowadays, audience response systems come equipped with digital Q&A tools that help you promote an engaging environment.
A Brief Overview of the Audience Response Systems
Luckily for modern-day presenters, there are numerous methods to record audience responses. Audience Response Systems or “ARS” (also called Classroom Performance Systems or “CPS”) not only help in improving audience engagement. They also gather accurate information that can be used in future presentation sessions. Here is the list of advantages commonly associated with the audience response system.
- Tracks and monitors individual responses
- Displays outcomes instantaneously
- Anonymous polls
- Collects data for analysis
Modern-day audience response systems can exist in the form of a mobile app. This enables audiences to respond to online polls and submit questions. For virtual meetings and classes, audience response systems are your best bet.
Facilitates Active Learning
Active learning refers to the participation of your audiences in your presentation. When your audiences are able to respond correctly, only then active learning can be promoted. A polling app is an ideal way to gather feedback from participants.
What’s more, polling apps available nowadays collect feedback anonymously. Thus the audiences participate in the poll with a free mind by not worrying about the correctness of their answers. Interactive exercises and gamification techniques boost the participation rates of the audiences.
Uses of Audience Response Systems at Events
Audience Response Systems play a diverse role in any public event. Whether it is a trade show or a seminar, an audience response system can be used to:
Boost Training
A training session is only practical when the participants can understand what you are imparting. And an excellent way to assess their understanding is to deploy an audience response system. With an audience response tool, you can collect real-time feedback from the participants. This would allow you to focus on the core areas where that specific group is having issues to understand.
Conduct Market Research
Getting real-time feedback from a specific group would give you access to crucial information. In later stages, you can rely on this information to innovate your market research strategies. Conducting marketing research in the real-time scenario with the live audience can save your organization’s valuable time and money.
Organize Quick Polls
Audience response systems provide the opportunity to collect real-time feedback from participants. Apart from improving interactivity levels, it also provides you with a deep insight into the success of your presentation session.
Facilitate Decision Making
With more significant insights into the feedback of the audiences, you would have real-time information at your fingertips. What’s more, you can use this information to alter the course of a training seminar or conference.
Provide Gamification
Response systems not only provide you with a good dose of interactivity; they are fun too. Audience response systems permit you to turn your presentation into a gaming format. The audience then competes for giveaways by answering simple questions. This only boosts interaction, but also promotes engagement with the speaker.
Integration of Audience Polling Apps with Mobile Apps
Event polling has come a long way from merely asking for a raise of hands in the crowd. With real-time data gathering capabilities, the voting apps exude practicality to various organizations. Nowadays, a live voting app can efficiently cover more territory. What’s exciting, you can use these polling apps in an array of smartphones.
The results would appear instantaneously on the presentation screen, helping the moderators in the process. The polling questions usually comprise a multiple-choice response format. This ensures that the answers can be charted and integrated in real-time. Most of the time, open-ended questions are asked, which have one-word answers.
Live Attendee Questions
Your audience voting app is also adept in streamlining the Q&A sessions. These systems come equipped with a live questions app which allows the attendees to ask questions straight from the app. In this manner, you can save the time of your speaker intending to each individual question.
The speaker can see all the questions on the screen and then proceed to answer each of them. Besides that, with the live questions app, there is no need to pass the microphone around the time. If you want your presentation to complete quickly, adopting this type of approach would be most beneficial.
Best Practices to Implement Audience Response Systems
When you are implementing audience response systems, there are specific techniques that you can use. These strategies would increase the participation and engagement levels of the audience. For instance, while beginning your session, introduce the system with an ice breaker question.
Make sure that you keep the question humorous so that the audiences find it interesting. The “answer now” phrase on PPT slides would urge your audiences to stay engaged and prepped during the course of the presentation.
On the other hand, giving them a countdown timer would help the audiences to respond within a specific period of time. You don’t have the whole day waiting for their responses. Also, creating the right questions is equally important to have the attention of your audiences.
Building the confidence of the audience is a must to avail of a high participation rate. You can do that by putting some easy questions in the initial slides.
When appropriately implemented, audience response systems can make your presentation sessions accessible. It helps you boost engagement, which in turn has a positive impact on your conference.
