Thirty million PowerPoint presentations are created each day.
Given our current pandemic environment, many of them are now being delivered via Zoom!
But when giving a presentation using Zoom meetings, what is a critical feature that is often overlooked in the setup of a presentation?
Is it essential to …
Double your number of PowerPoint slides (with images, not text) from a live presentation, especially for visual learners, because participants no longer have you as the presenter using your entire body to help make the presentation more engaging and exciting.
Enable two monitors so that you can have separate windows on the screens for PowerPoint, Participants, and Chat.
Have a monitor appear behind you as the presenter so that you can have a more attractive, television set-like appearance to your set.
Choose to display an uncluttered, professional background. [I once viewed a Zoom presentation where the presenter had gray hair. He chose a gray virtual background. I watched as his hair disappeared and reappeared as he moved his head. I didn’t pay much attention to what he had to say! A REAL backdrop will eliminate the webbing between your fingers and the halo around your head of a virtual background.]
Have natural light or ring lights positioned in front of you, so your face is appropriately illuminated?
Buy the latest webcam (probably on backorder), so you deliver a crystal-clear image.
Upgrade your microphone from the one in your laptop or webcam for a cleaner, richer sound.
Deliver your presentation from a standing position for a more powerful presence, or position yourself on the screen so that you can fill most of the screen and appear more intimate with your audience. (Technology already separates you from your participants, so you don’t want to look to be the size of a postage stamp in your setup.)
While all those considerations may be necessary, they may be more you-focused rather than participant-focused. The most underutilized feature for the success of a Zoom meeting presentation is … the Breakout Rooms.
It may be because Breakout Rooms do not appear with the standard setup of a Zoom meeting. So before your presentation, be sure to enable Breakout Rooms.
Why are Breakout Rooms so important?
It gets back to Presentation Skills 101 …
The success of your Zoom presentation depends on how you make the event about your participants and not about you.
While the content you present is necessary, the essential factor in any presentation’s success is how you connect with your audience. Remember that unlike in a physical environment, your competition is now just a click away!
If your virtual presentation could be more exciting and engaging, participants can always have it running in the background while they check email or Instagram in the foreground. But, you may never know if you don’t actively engage your participants!
That is the beauty of the Breakout Rooms. When you, as a presenter, utilize Breakout Rooms in your virtual presentation, the participants never know when you might next call on them to join you on your presentation.
With one-way communication, especially with a recorded webinar, they know that they can step away from their screens, possibly for an hour or even longer, and know there will probably be no repercussions as you drone on.
It may seem to be more efficient to use your presentation to dump content. But you are looking to be more effective; participants are more likely to retain information from a presentation they feel they were a part of.
With Breakout Rooms, participants probably want to be reassured that everyone else will be talking, laughing, joining in the fun, and missing out. They will not want you to know they were the only ones not to accept your invitation to join a Breakout Room.
So strategically place Breakout Room sessions throughout your presentation. Have one early in the session (resist the temptation to make your presentation about you). Keep your participants guessing when the next Breakout Room session will be!
For a three- or four-hour virtual presentation (which is about the maximum length that most participants can endure a virtual presentation), work in two Breakout Room sessions before the break, then one or two after the break.
You want to use this feature sparingly. Use it just enough to give your participants a mental break from you. (Remember, if you are like me, you, as the presenter, are just having fun! You know your material; they don’t. So they have to think about it. Thinking is hard work, which is why most people don’t like to do it.)
What participants crave and miss the most: human interaction
Many of these people have yet to see their other colleagues, possibly in months. Even if it is not their regular associates they are engaging with on the Zoom call, many are happy to see other adults besides those in their houses, especially during this quarantine.
Since April 2020, I have delivered 100 three- and four-hour virtual presentations. And while I believe that I delivered stellar programs, the feature of those programs that gets the most rave reviews from participants is the Breakout Rooms.
“How do I get participants to turn on their video?”
Another challenge for virtual presenters is to get their audience to turn on their cameras. What we presenters miss most about a virtual presentation is seeing our participants’ reactions.
Most of your audience will only want to let you into their lives if they feel connected with you. They will cherish that feeling of anonymity. But, if you have a Breakout Room session early on, they probably won’t want to be the only participant in the room with their video off. Then they are more likely to leave the camera on for the rest of the presentation, especially if they anticipate another Breakout Room session coming up soon.
For the event at which I presented yesterday, the organizer told me afterward, “Because they didn’t know each other, at the beginning of the presentation, the participants seemed quiet and shy, but once they came back from the Breakout Room exercise, they were fired up and ready to go!”
