Do you remember when Black Friday was a huge event? Back before Amazon and other retailers moved the commerce and competition online, it created quite the stir in stores. I remember one particular year when my husband came home around 3:00 AM with a large, purple bicycle. Our daughter was 18 months old at the time. When I asked him why he bought a bicycle she wouldn’t be able to ride for another 13 years or so, he said, “Everyone was grabbing them, and I got the last one.” In other words, he had FOMO.
FOMO (fear of missing out) and competition are powerful human motivators. And those of us who are presenters can use this to our advantage. When it comes time to give your next presentation, these two trendy concepts can actually help you out. By appealing to audience members’ FOMO and competition ethically and responsibly, we can persuade them more effectively. Here’s how.
Address Both Benefits & Losses
In her article in Psychology Today, “The Power of Persuasion,” University of Toronto researcher Dr. Mariana Bockarova says that emphasizing what someone will be missing out on by not purchasing your product or hearing you out “has been demonstrated to be a stronger strategy than emphasizing the benefits alone.” She goes on to say, “The idea of potential loss plays a large role in human decision making.” So don’t just list all the great things your audience can gain from your presentation. Make sure to also feature the bad things they’ll avoid or the good things they’ll avoid missing out on.
Build Hype
When we think of presentations, we probably don’t often think about building hype. But we should. Hype is the energy and attention we work to build around our ideas or products. We should want people to feel excited to hear our ideas, learn about our company, or try our product. Steve Jobs was a master at this. Neil Patel, The New York Times bestselling author and Forbes Top 10 Marketer examines what made Jobs so persuasive. He says it’s because Jobs went out of the way to “emphasize how the product affects you.” So the way to build effective hype is to keep the focus on the people—your audience and customers. Patel says, “Don’t just talk about what your product does or why it’s superior; show them a compelling picture of how it’s going to make their life better. That’s what gets people excited.”
3 Ways to Use FOMO and Hype
The feeling of missing out on something relates directly to the energy you build around your presentation. But how, specifically, can you use these principles to create a better presentation? Here are a couple ideas to get you started:
- Establish branded backdrops for photo opps where audience members can take pictures before or after the presentation. This will create subtle social pressure. When they see others taking pictures and posting them on social media, it will lead them to want to do the same. If one person essentially says, “I was here!” it will lead others to want to say “I was there, too!” Both FOMO and competition-driven hype are at work. And all the while, you are driving your brand.
- Offer prizes. You could announce via a slide which is rolling before your presentation that you’ll have a prize for anyone who visits a website and fills out a registration form before the presentation begins. You could also trade free gifts for contact information knowing that leads are some of the most valuable resources. If you have a booth set up that you’d like to drive traffic to following the presentation, announce that the first 10 or 20 people to booth will receive a free gifts.
- Maybe you don’t have a large budget. Maybe you aren’t speaking at a huge conference. Even just recognition in front of the rest of the audience can appease FOMO and drive hype. For example, in my college classroom, I often “hand out” the “classroom crown” when a student makes a particularly helpful or wise comment. It’s not real. I simply pretend to place a crown on the student’s head and say, “Great insight! Wear the classroom crown proudly today!” You’d be amazed at how an imaginary crown can drive presentation participation and classroom discussion simply because students don’t want to miss out on a chance to be recognized.
We are all looking for creative ways to engage our audience members. Recognizing audience’s members FOMO and driving the hype surrounding our presentation can help us accomplish that.
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