What is your first thought when you are invited to join a class, a talk, or a conference?
… Ready?
- It must be boring for me.
- It is wasting my time.
- Nay. I am not going to join it.
- Nay. I am going to skip it.
- I want something fun, but not this.
Do they sound familiar or exactly what in your mind? We definitely can understand.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, have you ever attended any talk that “WOW” you and got something home? If your answer is yes, WOW! They must be masters of engagement!
Planning an interesting presentation for an event, especially for a virtual event is not an easy job. An interactive presentation is more likely to catch the audience’s attention and deliver more information about the topic. The speaker correspondingly gets interaction with the audience by making the discussion to be more of a casual conversation between friends.
Before you get started, it pays to know what do you expect to learn from the speaker for an excellent presentation? Apply the expectations at your presentation to deliver the successful event. Be sure to find the right keys to deliver an exceptional experience for the audience. Here, we are also sharing with you the 6 presentation tips for your virtual event.
1. Engage Your Audience At First
Your online presentation could never be boring! Opening up your presentation with a smile and a WOW element to warm up the audience. When you are in a physical event, you might ask your audience to stand up and do a simple exercise. Instead, when you are in a virtual event, you might ask your audience a question in which they can react through the “Flying Emoji” feature at the virtual platform. E.g. the mood reaction during the event day; are they excited for your presentation, etc. Your audience can spam on the emoji at the platform without concern about the system down. Regardless of the topic, it sets the tone to make a friendly ambiance to start up your presentation.
2. Story Telling Time
People love good stories! Stories are a powerful medium to get your audience to sit up and listen to you. Keep in mind, do not bombard your audience with only facts and statistics. Instead, a story especially the brand story like Apple, Microsoft, and Nike would highly maximize the objectives of the topic. Besides that, using a personal story can activate human connections, which help the audience to relate to their current situation and slowly build up to your key point while making your presentation more memorable.
3. Live Polls And Surveys
One of the effective ways that allow your audience to participate in the virtual event in real-time is to conduct the live polls and surveys. Speakers can pitch the relevant questions during the event using applications such as Slido or SurveyMonkey. The results can instantly show on the screen. While there are a lot of networking opportunities in the virtual event, the live polls could obtain the audience’s insights and opinions, which gives you a chance to understand your potential clients better. One thing to bear in mind is that there is no pressure for forcing the audience to answer every question. Take it as voluntarily as well as anonymously.
4. Gamify The Presentation
80% of learners stated that their productivity is high when the work is more game-like. The Gamification feature is the process of adding a game mechanism in the virtual event that allows the audience to complete challenges and receive points for each event game. The results can be shown at the leaderboard at the end of the virtual event.

Gamifying the event serves as a refreshing break from the monotony speech and text to re-catch the audience’s attention. What’s more attractive and exciting? You can surprise your audience by giving away prizes for those who win the game. Gamification is an effective tool to engage your audience, heightened visibility of the virtual event, while the free gift creates a good reputation for your company branding. With a virtual platform, your moderator can simply reach out to any of your audience to collect their details for sending the gifts.
5. The Power Visuals and Audio Effects
No props, no lighting to impress, what else?
Your audience could get restless when continuously watching the computer screen for more than 30 minutes. A virtual presentation is often with more distraction as compared to an in-person event. The audience may start playing phone, browsing social media, or multitasking while losing interest in your presentation. Henceforth, instead of having a full word presentation slides, insert images, videos, and animations that fit your topics to leverage your presentation to be more dynamic, yet interesting. 65% of the population are visual learners. Having a variety of media could entertain the audience and maximize the information delivered. Social media nowadays is full of interesting videos that might keep people from immersing themselves the whole day. Therefore, you’ll be assured to find the related media online, such as YouTube and Tenor.
Limit to one visual per slide. The simplified slide might make your presentation much more enjoyable than the complex one. You could also end your slides with a video that emphasizes the company vision and mission, for example:
- Corporate video
- Testimonials
- Demo video
6. “Ask Me Anything” Session
You must think that you have covered everything in your presentation, but your audience needs more! Do not leave your audience unsatisfied by setting an “Ask Me Anything” session at the end of your presentation. A virtual platform is capable of two-way communication between the host and the audience. Your virtual event could appear more conversational. Similar to a physical presence, you can select the questions and provide particular explanations. You can also make it a private conversation if your audience is required to do so. In a virtual platform, you can engage a moderator to filter the questions before you publicize it. You do not have to worry about any repeated, unnecessary, or improper questions that over-flood the website.
CONCLUSION
A virtual event is an optimal opportunity for everyone to look for networking with the top vendors in the B2B marketplace during the pandemic. Be confident when you are giving your presentation which makes you sustain the audience’s attention across the show. When you are the speaker of the session, you are the boss! The presentation is a success when you are ready to have a good start.
To keep all the audience fully awake throughout your presentation, you are not only required to apply these tips but at the same time, you have to choose the right tools to deliver it! You can’t globalize your event if the audience cannot get into the same virtual platform as you. The technical issue is not allowed when doing a live show. The way to prevent this is to engage a strong browser-based tool. Hire the right event planner helps you to ease the event preparation.
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