5 Ways to Level Up Your Virtual Presentation

Presentation matters when you’re a trainer. Participants need to be engaged—entertained, even. That’s why the best approaches to live, online training will also incorporate a certain amount of polish and pizzazz.

These five easy-to-follow tips can immediately add a little sparkle to your next online training session. The more developed your virtual presentation skills become, the better you’ll be able to synthesize substance with style—and keep your learners hanging on your every word.

1. Bright Lights and Clear Visibility

Even during participant-centered sessions, it’s hard for trainers to avoid the spotlight. That’s why it’s important that you are easy to see. To be sure, you don’t have to be on camera every second of every day. But you can keep your presentation engaging by ensuring that your face is brightly lit and clearly visible whenever your face is on the screen.

Just keep your background simple (avoid busy digital backdrops) and take advantage of the natural light around you (you can set your desk up next to a window, for example).

2. Pay Attention to Audio Clarity

Participants will connect with you (and, therefore, your material) more strongly when you’re visible—but they also need to be able to hear you clearly.

There are a few easy steps you can take to help ensure you have clear sound:

• Use a high-quality microphone designed for webcasting or indoor use.
• Ensure your environment is free (to the degree possible) from distracting noises, such as dogs barking, outdoor construction, or other distractions.
• Check that your sound output is properly calibrated for your typical speaking volume. You want your microphone volume high enough that everyone can hear you—but not so high you create feedback or cause ear pain.

3. Leave the text behind

When you’re a participant going through training, there’s nothing more off-putting than staring at a big wall of text. That’s especially true in live, online settings where social media is just a click away. So, when you’re creating slides for your virtual presentations, leave the words on the screen to a minimum.

Let your voice do the real training—and let your participants engage and interact as much as possible. Follow the general Creative Training Techniques^® approach to ensure your participants are active and involved!

4. Use Impactful Visual Aids

The right visual aid can be just as instructive as any block of text on a screen. The trick in virtual settings is to select and incorporate visuals that make an impact. There are several strategies that experienced virtual trainers use to source and create compelling visual aids:

• Use a bold, attention-grabbing photo (and design the slides to compliment the image).
• Link to videos that help explain or illustrate core concepts.
• Incorporate a live demonstration into your training programming.

5. Thoughtfully Deploy Interactive Tools

When you’re training in a virtual setting, interactivity takes a little more planning and forethought. When you plan ahead, you can:

• Ask participants to respond to questions using white board tools. This is a fast, easy way to see what everyone’s thinking and check for basic comprehension. Plan for this by building a blank slide into your presentation—participants can use this space to write out their answers!
• Deploy polls, quizzes, and other quick activities that can help participants stay focused on discussion topics. Again, this can also help you check for comprehension in a way that’s fun—especially if these polls and quizzes are framed as a kind of learning game.

Level Up Your Presentation

The best virtual presentations will marry style to substance in a way that creatively highlights the course materials. You can use these five tips as your starting place—and take your virtual presentation to the next level.

Find out how you can add even more polish to your virtual presentation during the 3-hour Virtual Presentation Skills Crash Course.