Presentation Hacks You’ve Been Missing Out On

Keynote presentations are useful catalysts for progress in nearly every industry, and are often the focal point of an event, conference, or meeting. In other words, they’re crucially important to get right. Effective keynote speakers know that all of their preparation will be for naught if they don’t utilize the right methods and tools to present their information, and that delivering a memorable keynote that drives results takes a lot more than a snazzy outfit, a basic deck of slides, and a microphone.

In a Forbes interview, Katrina Smith—leader of Keynote Speakers Inc.—points out just how a keynote speech can make or break an event. “Compelling material, delivered by a compelling individual, is so much more memorable and useful than the same material presented in a dry or rote way, by a canned or trite or disengaged speaker,” says Smith. Bearing that in mind, if you have a presentation coming up, you’ve probably been missing out on a few tools or behaviors that can elevate your keynote prowess to the next level. Keep reading to learn about the presentation hacks you’ve been overlooking so you can bring down the house on any topic you tackle.

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You want to establish authenticity with your presentation, and it’s more than likely that you’ll need to draw on outside sources to do so. If you need to integrate high-quality media, from social media feeds to video spots, utilizing a dynamic platform like projeqt may be the way to go. The result is the opposite of a text-heavy PowerPoint presentation that’s laden with facts and in violation of the “show don’t tell” storytelling rule.

Sometimes you know exactly what you want to say and have the research to prove it, but aren’t sure how to compile it into a presentation in a way that’s visually compelling and functional. Risking a non-functional link or pixelated screen grab during a presentation is not a good idea, as it diminishes the authority of the keynote address. As Mashable points out, projeqt smoothly facilitates drawing on multiple external media sources in a single presentation, like live tweets or YouTube clips. Your audience just might sit up a little straighter when they realize you’ve gone above and beyond a typical static presentation.

Ask the Audience

When delivering a keynote speech, how can you orientate the audience as a crucial part of the presentation instead of the passive recipients of information? Asking for their input would be a good place to start. Incorporating Google Slides surveys from Poll Everywhere lets you ask your audience questions and lets them answer in real time from their own web-enabled devices. The “aha!” moment occurs when everyone in the room can see the results roll in right before their eyes. This presentation tool makes Google Slides even more engaging, and works well in a variety of contexts, including:

• Starting the day off with an icebreaker
• Gauging how well the audience is retaining your concepts
• Collecting unique feedback while allowing for anonymity

Optimize Statistics

Sometimes drawing on statistics during a presentation can feel like being stuck between a rock and a hard place. Data lends your presentation credibility and demonstrates your depth of research, but it can also distance the audience if it’s presented inaccessibly. Keynote speaker Carmine Gallo offers up four little words that can change exactly what the audience takes away from your presentation: “that’s the equivalent of.”

Gallo’s advice hinges on reframing data into a more memorable context; perhaps even one that elicits a vivid mental picture or an emotion. After you present data, use a transition like “that’s the equivalent of” or “to put this number into context” to make it more tangible for the listener. His example of a business leader who reframed “30 million trees planted” as “the equivalent of 60 Central Parks” is a prime demonstration of this tactic. Audience members may not walk out remembering your statistics verbatim, but the contextualized versions just might stick with them for the long haul.

The key to giving a great keynote presentation in any industry is to respect and strategically amplify the audience’s role throughout. Focus on directly engaging the crowd with digestible data, audience participation, and well-integrated media with these simple presentation hacks.