Virtual Presentation Tips
For those who feed off the energy from a live audience, transitioning to virtual presentations can be an adjustment. Fielding questions, reinforcing key points and reading the room all look different – as does “networking” with attendees. As you navigate these new waters, follow these key tips for delivering a powerful presentation from afar.
Keep it simple
Virtual presentations are not the right medium for elaborate charts and graphs, or copy-dense slides. Less is more. It’s important to deliver content that audiences can easily comprehend and, ideally, retain. By charting a clear storyline from slide one through the conclusion, presenters can deliver a coherent and cohesive deck that is easy to follow and makes a clear impact on the audience.
Be succinct
Multitasking as you listen to a webinar or virtual conference can be tempting. For presenters, this makes delivering content in short, easy to digest snippets more important. And, you want to clearly articulate those points with the right inflection to grab listeners’ attention.
While a 90-minute session at an industry conference may be within your comfort zone, keeping a virtual audience’s attention for that much time is challenging. Consider how you may be able to adjust your typical presentations for a shorter format – think 30-45 minutes, for starters. Perhaps you break one topic into a three-part series or offer a whitepaper for attendees to read as a follow-up. And, sharing a weekly tip live on Facebook or Instagram, depending upon your target audience, may be a great way to keep the conversation going.
Embrace powerful visuals
For some, virtual presentations look more like a typical webinar – a series of slides with live audio. For others, a more conversational format without slides is a better approach. If you’re developing slides for a presentation, embrace visuals to help tell the story. Visuals are processed 60,000 times faster than text, according to Post-it Note manufacturer 3M. And, the Social Science Research Network notes 65% of people are visual learners.
Enlist a co-pilot
For some presenters, following and responding to a live feed of questions while remaining focused on delivering the strongest possible presentation can be a challenge. Having a colleague on-hand to monitor questions and help facilitate a post-presentation Q&A can be extremely helpful for keeping attendees engaged.
Identify opportunities for improvement
Transitioning your presentations to a virtual format is a learning process. How do you tweak your slides to make big impact on a small screen? How can you emphasize key points that would typically be flagged with hand gestures? And, the biggest question of all: How do you know if people are engaged when you can’t see their faces and read their body language?
While culling through the questions submitted by attendees can help identify topics that require deeper explanation and what related content people have an appetite for, some presentation platforms, such as encaptiv, provide you with audience engagement metrics. This data can be used to help determine which slides need a revamp and which topic(s) attendees find most compelling.
While a global pandemic may be the reason you embark upon your first virtual presentation, remote presentations will remain valuable in the future. They provide an avenue for reaching new audiences, bringing content to those who can’t physically join you at a conference or seminar, and, when recorded, can serve as additional fodder for email marketing campaigns and/or content for a YouTube channel.
As you dip your toe into the world of virtual presentations, think about the webinars and livestreams that resonated with you as an attendee. Then, focus on finding ways to apply your learnings to develop a strong presentation with eye-catching visuals and memorable talking points that will keep audiences coming back for more.
Looking to make your virtual presentations more dynamic and gain access to powerful analytics? Learn more about Co-Communications partnership with encaptiv.
