15 Best Places to Practice Public Speaking Skills
This post provides exhaustive information on the platforms you can use in practicing your public speaking skills, to help you improve on it and take your career to the top.
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Public speaking skills are more important in our contemporary time than ever.
This is because the need for information has made it imperative that the need for public speaking cannot be relegated to the background no matter what.
In our world today, there are lots of people who have carved out a good career for themselves in terms of public speaking.
Some people have made good cash doing their stuff both online and in the physical, the key is to know the right place to do their public speaking stuff.
15 Best Places to Practice Public Speaking Skills
- Quora
Quora is a website that deals on question-and-answer community. It is a website where varieties of questions are asked in relationship to different fields and careers.
It is a good place to practice your public speaking skills, to show how good you can be.
In quora, you can contribute to questions or out rightly give your opinion about a matter.
It could be a good platform for you to relate with other public speakers and learn from their wealth of experience.
This is indeed a wonderful platform to show your public speaking skills.
One thing you should note about quora is that it does not necessarily generate income, so it is more of a voluntary service where you voluntarily contribute ideas and answer questions based on your idea about a topic.
First of all, you have to belong to the community to be able to participate in it.
- YouTube
This is one of the most popular social media platforms ever known to man.
In fact, it is quite rare to find any meaningful organization or individual that wants to reach out to the world that doesn’t have a YouTube channel to avail its followers the opportunity to relate with them.
YouTube is a platform that affords you the opportunity to sell your public speaking skills with the potential of reaching millions within a short period of time.
With a YouTube channel and subscription, you afford your audience the opportunity to access your videos anytime, any day.
The mode of communication in YouTube is basically videos.
You make videos of the ideas you want to share and put it on your channel.
Videos could include tutorials, comedy skits, and even full movies.
So, if you have something to say to the world, then YouTube could be the platform you need.
- TED Talks
TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design. It is an American media organization that posts talks online for free distribution with the idea of sharing relevant information for public consumption.
TED was founded by Richard Saul Wuman.
TED talk operates in major parts of North America, Europe, Asia and Africa.
It offers live streaming of talks. TED talks address a wide range of topics within research and practice of science and culture, often through storytelling.
Speakers are allowed about 18 minutes to discuss their ideas.
The thing about TED talks is that you must be top of your game in your field before you are given the prestigious 18 minutes to discuss any topic you are asked to.
So, if you want to consider TED talk as a platform to display your public speaking skills, then ensure you are good in what you do.
- Facebook Live
Facebook as you know remains a powerhouse among other social media platforms.
Just like the YouTube, it affords you the opportunity to reach out to thousands at the same time.
It is one of the platforms for you to showcase your public speaking skills.
One of the ways Facebook does this is through its Facebook live feature.
Facebook live is a live streaming feature in Facebook that allows you to reach out to people real time.
Definitely, it is not everyone that will be interested in watching you live to know what you are doing.
How this works is that anytime you are online, your followers get a notification to hook up to you at that time.
This though is subject to their interest. So those who hook up to you will get to hear and see what you are doing live at that moment.
- Talk Shows
Talk shows are platforms provided for people to air their views about a given topic.
Talk shows are organized by some radio and television stations as a way of gaining more popularity among the people in the society in what seems to be a competitive society.
So, this could also afford you the opportunity to show your professional public speaking skills. With talk shows, you are able to present your ideas to as many people as possible starting from your immediate audience to other people you may not be seeing.
Talk shows are platforms which provide people the opportunity to talk about contemporary issues such as politics, entertainment, and sports.
In talk shows, what really matters is your opinion regardless how another person feels about it.
You just have to present your opinions in a convincing manner with facts to back up your claims.
- Udemy
Udemy is one of the best platforms to consider when talking about public speaking skills.
It is an online platform that offers over a hundred thousand courses with students hitting 24 million in number.
What happens here basically is teaching and learning.
The beauty of Udemy is that it affords both students and teachers varying times when they can teach or learn depending on their schedules.
Your earnings as an instructor is dependent on what you are teaching.
But this should not be your major concern if your focus is to enhance your public speaking skills.
To be an instructor at Udemy, you should consider choosing a topic of interest you are sure you can do well on.
Assess the competition and understand their requirements.
Undergo their tutorials on course creation and set up your video studio where you can dish out your lessons.
- Cousera
Cousera share a lot in common with Udemy. The major difference is that you have more free courses available at Cousera compared to Udemy.
This makes a bit more desirable to some people than Udemy.
Everyone wants to save money, so it is not a strange decision for people to choose Cousera over Udemy.
If Cousera could boast of having thousands of topics to teach people for free then it means that it has a match for that in the form of the number of tutors they have.
The tutors on this website are people who have experience in public presentation.
However, as a new entrant, you still stand a chance to do what you feel you want to do if only you are sure you are up to standard in public presentation.
So, this platform might just be what you need to share your public speaking skills with people online.
Instagram (IG) is an online social media platform where people meet and exchange ideas, pictures, videos, etc.
Instagram remains one of the best social media platforms to consider when talking about putting your public speaking skills to practice.
So many people view Instagram as an online business platform.
In fact, to some, Instagram is an online marketplace where people not only share ideas but also establish contact with potential buyers over exchanging goods for money.
To do this will require you to be good in your presentation.
With Instagram, you are able to reach out to millions of people, so imagine how powerful the platform is.
To sell your ideas to the world via Instagram, you have to develop competitive public speaking skills.
The good news is that you have nothing to pay for to do this beyond subscribing with your network provider.
- Freelancing Spaces
Freelancing involves online writing jobs which could be paid or done for voluntary purposes.
These days, people have their personal blogs where they share their ideas to the world; this is one way to practice public speaking skills.
Paid writing jobs could be good source of motivation for many who want to develop into world class writers.
So writing jobs provide people with diverse writing skills, which is also one of the ways to show your public speaking skills.
Here, your writing skills are put to the test with millions all over the world.
Before you consider being a freelancer, you should be able to know your niche, that is, the type of writer you want to become.
With time you could expand your abilities but you need to find your niche before embarking on writing as a career.
- Classroom
There is perhaps no better place to practice your public speaking skills than the classroom.
Some people that turn out to be good public presenters today were once people who found themselves in the classroom doing the work of a classroom teacher.
This is one aspect of public speaking that some people don’t fancy due to the stress associated with it.
But this is one of the best platforms you can avail yourself with in your public speaking career.
The reason is that you have to do the same thing over and over again until you are near perfect.
Classroom ranges from crèche down to post graduate institutions where you deal more with full-fledged adults as your audience.
The teaching or lecture method in the classroom is usually systematic considering the type of audience you have to deal with.
- In a Group
Every human being at one time or the other will find themselves in one group or the other.
A group may share something in common for which it is called a group.
A group cannot do without communication and one of the means to do that is presentation.
As someone looking for a platform to practice your public speaking skills, being in a group will be a good step in the right direction.
This is because, you have people who can assess your skills and give you their feedback on what they feel about your presentation.
If you are someone who also battles with stage fright, starting from your group could also be a good way to deal with it.
You just have to be bold enough and do your thing while handling the criticisms as they come. It won’t harm you in any way.
- Project Team
A project team consists of a group of people handling a unique task with different individuals in the group handling different aspects of the project.
This group of people establishes connection within themselves through presentations and opinions.
If you are the project leader, it could be your own platform where you can practice your public speaking skills.
In a project team, you have an already-made platform where you test your ability to lead people and also share your ideas with them as a team.
If you happen to be the leader, you should try to do your presentation in such a way that there is clarity in your ideas, and also working on the minds of the members of the team. This is possible through effective public speaking skills that come in the form of presentations.
- Business Gatherings/Events
Business is part of our everyday life. As long as there are needs and wants, business will continue to form a basic part of human activities.
As we know, there are two main players in the business world, which are the buyers and the sellers.
A seller has the goods and the buyer has his/her money to exchange for the goods.
However, a buyer doesn’t just buy because they have the money, but because the seller has convinced them about the value and satisfaction they can derive by using the product.
That is where public speaking skills play a vital role.
If you are in the position of the seller, you will need good public speaking skills to address prospective buyers and get what you want in the form of patronage.
Business gatherings and seminars could be the needed platform to apply your public speaking skills.
- In Front of a Mirror
Your mirror is the most interesting and sincere audience you have as well as one of the best places to practice your public speaking skills.
Practicing your public speaking skills in front of your mirror affords you a lot of time to appraise your performance.
Though this may seem or sound awkward but that is the reality.
Your mirror is a revealer of your abilities and where you need to work on in terms of your public speaking skills.
Don’t underrate the power of practicing in front of your mirror.
So, apart from the online platforms discussed in this article, your mirror is the cheapest and stress-free place you can practice your public speaking skills.
Your mirror serves as both your audience and your coach to a certain extent. Value your mirror!
- Debate Clubs
Debate clubs give your opportunity to learn how to argue and convince people to believe and buy into your ideas.
In debates, what counts is your ability to convince others to see things the way you see them.
So, debate clubs could present you with the right platform to practice your public speaking skills.
Debate clubs does not just give you the platform to do your stuff but also gives you the opportunity to compete with some of the best in the fields.
Though this has to do a lot with people in High School and higher institutions yet it is relevant you know about it.
Debates will help you build your vocabulary and work on your body language and movement to ensure you build your confidence to do what you know how to do best.
Conclusion
It is not enough to have public speaking skills but knowing where to use your abilities to make a career is what matters.
This is because, if you have the ability but don’t know the right platform to exhibit your skills, you might end up getting frustrated in the long run.
So, look at the platforms provided in this article and use them to sharpen and profit with your public speaking skills.