Would you like to improve your performance with practical and applicable virtual presentation tips?
Virtual presentations and meetings are rapidly becoming the norm with the digital transformation of the world. But 79% of people think that most presentations are boring.
Design entertaining, effective, and engaging presentations
Presenters feel more confident presenting with a well-designed slide deck. Well-crafted content, good preparation, and practice are the key factors of effective virtual presentation. But the most important thing is keeping the attention of the audience during the presentation. You have to appeal to their eyes, ears, and minds. The good news is 75% of the presenters surveyed indicated that they would like to improve their presentation skills.
There are critical tips that you need to do and know for this. These powerful virtual presentation tips will help you to
focus the audience’s attention on you,
reduce confusion,
use influential narration techniques, and
make the audiences listen to you.
Virtual presentation tips
Here are 9 powerful hints to help you create a great virtual presentation.
Use of visuals and short texts
In virtual presentations, avoid long and eye-straining texts. When your participants look at the screen, they need to be able to read the texts easily. The type of font is also important in terms of legibility. It is necessary to choose the font size and font type that can easily read when participants look at them.
You should reinforce the texts with visuals to arouse the desire to read in the audience.
Eye-catching visuals make the presentation more entertaining and more interesting. Presentations supported with visuals reduce the boringness and monotony.
Stay connected to the flow of meaning
The flow of meaning allows audiences to have a grasp of what is told in the presentation. Designing a presentation according to meaning flow reduce confusion.
It’s much beneficial to explain the messages step by step, in order and as a whole to make it easier to understand. To keep your information clear, avoid jumping from one topic to another then returning the first.
You can learn more about storytelling to enrich your presentations.
Know the digital tools you use very well
It has critical importance to know the features of the platform you use very well. Practice with the same technical setup such as your computer, internet connection, and application in advance. In any case like technical error, etc., you have to know what to do and how to make it work.
Make sure that someone has a copy of your presentation in case an internet connection loses.
It is very important to be relaxed and feel comfortable and not nervous in this situation because you know that you can manage this process.
Contain a variety of media types
In live presentations, you keep audiences’ attention mostly with your body language, with your movements, standing up, with eye contact, and much more. But in virtual presentations, you can’t keep attention to any of that. For this reason, you should use a wide range of media types to increase engagement.
These media types could be videos, images, links, slides, screen sharing, and more. You can strengthen your presentations using media in your content.
These contents simplify the delivery of messages accurately. Design them clearly, not in a confusing way. Use less long paragraphs, explain with more media.
Minimize distractions
Every noise is noticeable and easily audible in virtual meetings. Your participants will listen to you through headphones or a computer speaker. So it is possible for them to hear every sound coming from your microphone. External sounds around you may distract the audiences’ attention as much as yours. In this situation, the quality of your presentation will decrease.
To ensure your and your participants’ attention, log into the meeting in advance, check out your presentation and technical settings.
And most importantly be in a quiet room where no one or anything will distract you and your participants.
Engage with participants
Another crucial one of virtual presentation tools is about how you engage with your audience. First of all, look directly at the camera, not at the screen as if looking into the participants’ eyes. This makes the participants feel that you are paying attention to them. To involve your participants in your presentation, you can use questions & answers, surveys, pollings, and more.
Interactivity and composition keep the audiences’ attention on you. You can also engage with the participants through the presentation design.
With good composition, you can create strong bonds with them by increasing emotional interaction.
Deliver the message in the right way
Focus on what the audience should know about the topic, not what you are going to say. In the preparation process of your presentation, you should ask yourself some questions,
Is that information necessary?
Why do they need this information?
Does that information support the main message I want to deliver with the presentation?
These questions will help you to choose the right topics.
Do not try to pass a lot of information. Prepare and present your presentation as a scenario or story. Explain everything sequentially and make sure that you are processing step-by-step towards your goal.
Whatever your ultimate goal is at the end of the presentation, every step should lead the audience towards that goal.
Maintain the attention of the audiences
Among the virtual presentation tips, maintaining attention is the most important thing for delivering the message clearly. If the continuity of the audiences is maintained, the presentation will be very effective. To maintain attention, you should keep the presentation interesting and observe the audience.
A virtual presentation is different from watching online videos. You have a chance to touch the audience when you realize there is a need to strengthen the connection. Audiences can follow a monotonous speech for up to 2-3 minutes. Then they lose their interest, get distracted, lose attention and get bored.
You must be a master using your voice.
Be yourself, not pretended
No matter what kind of presentation you are giving, it is important that you must create a connection between yourself and your audiences. This only happens if you are sincere, realistic, and authentic.
Even if you may not see your audiences, they can see you. When they see you look like enjoying, they will enjoy it too. Let your personality show through.
Give that positive energy to them.