Planning to prepare a business presentation? Hold on, and let’s go back to school/college days! Do you remember how you used to make plans to bunk classes just for the sake of escaping those boring and uninteresting topics? How difficult was it for you to sit calmly, forcibly suppressing your urges to literally run out of the class (with bleeding ears) if someday you failed to bunk the class? Well, this could not have been the scenario if your teacher had paid heed to students’ engagement instead of merely focusing on completing the course before the exam. The same holds true for presentations. If you fail to engage your audience, they will think twice before attending your next presentation.
To sum up, if you don’t want your audience to slip into an inactive role and read emails, do text messages, and check their social media while you deliver a presentation, you need to grab their limited attention span by involving them and letting them interact with you. Interactivity is the only way to re-engage the lost audience and refocus on what you have to say about the topic.
In this blog post, we have included a few tips to make your presentations interactive. Take a look!
1. An Easy-to-Follow Structure
Structure your slides in such a way that your audience can easily follow and understand the information. Talk about goals and core concepts first, followed by their detailed description. The transition from one slide (or point) to another must look natural. In a nutshell, your presentation is considered successful if your audience finds it easy to understand the takeaway message and draw logical conclusions.
2. Include a Q&A Session
It is crucial to interact with your audience from time to time between your presentation to prevent their attention from dropping to zero. And the best way to do this is, asking them to put up questions. It will stimulate their thought process, clear up their confusion, and encourage them to participate in the discussion actively.
3. Secure Your Audience’s Attention by Telling a Story
The human brain is hardwired to fastly process the information presented in the form of a story. Storytelling is an art. A great story is one that brings back the lost audience, stirs emotions, and makes them feel an integral part of the entire narrative. You can tell a personal story, pique curiosity, or weave a suspense around your brand in the story – whatever storytelling technique you use, just make sure to end it with a positive takeaway.
4. Use Props to Make Story More Realistic
Props bring your visual story to life, intriguing your audience till the end of the slideshow. However, you have to be very wise while choosing the prop. Don’t use any such prop which is interesting but not relevant to the content/information/story you are sharing.
Watch this TED Talk on ‘mosquitoes, malaria, and education’ and check out how effectively Bill Gates has used props to complement his speech and convey the message impactfully.
5. Include an Audio Narrative
You can break the monotony by including some pre-recorded slides/audio narratives in your presentation that talk about the content/topic in more depth. You can make the slides stand out by adding sound or music effects. It is a great strategy to give yourself a break from speaking the entire time, gaining the undivided attention of the audience.
6. Add a Short Video
According to research studies, videos have a high audience retention rate. You can leverage the benefits of videos to make your slides more interactive, enhance the comprehension of the concept, and reinforce your story. You can either include the video link to an external website or directly embed the video clips into your presentation. Videos break the monotony of longer presentations and provide a break to the audience from reading, giving them a unique way of absorbing the content.
7. Insert Images for Better Engagement
Images can convey more information than words. So, insert relevant and high-resolution images to spice up your slides and boost the energy level of the audience. Images help make an impactful connection with a linguistically or culturally diverse audience, thus making audience engagement more inclusive.
8. Encourage Audience Movement
Think of some creative ways to get your audience out of their seats and move around a little bit. For example, you can ask them to stand up instead of showing off their hands. You can also invite a few audience members on the stage and ask them to put across their opinions about the topic. Such activities will re-energize them and keep them tuned in.
9. Poll the Audience
What does your audience think while you present? You can solicit feedback from them in real-time by including polling questions. Live polls act as an icebreaker and encourage the participants to think about the answers to the questions asked by you, thereby regaining their attention and keeping them focused throughout the rest of the presentation.
10. Use Relevant Humor
Adding humor to your presentation makes your audience want to hear more from you. So, don’t be afraid of bringing out your funny side and complementing interesting facts with a pinch of humor. You can also select parts of your content where you can share funny experiences of your life with the audience.
The Bottom Line
Engagement is the key to success in any presentation. So, don’t just speak; converse with your audience to turn them into active participants and keep them hooked throughout the slideshow. Plan your presentation in such a way that it gives enough chance to the audience to stimulate their thoughts. Further, the above-mentioned interactive presentation ideas will help you engage with your audience more meaningfully and impressively.
Which ideas do you prefer the most to make your presentations more interactive? Let us know your thoughts in the “Comment” section. If you find this blog post useful, do share it on your social media channels.
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