According to LinkedIn, 25% of jobs in North America will be remote by the end of 2022. While that’s a growing and significant portion, most businesses won’t be shutting down their offices any time soon. That leaves the majority of teams balancing members who are in the office full-time, remote full-time, and those with a hybrid schedule. Without the option for strictly presenting virtually vs in person, hybrid presentations are necessary to keep your whole team on the same page. They also have key benefits such as being more cost effective than flying in members for a presentation and giving more opportunities for audience interaction.
But is it possible to write and deliver a presentation that connects with both an in-person and virtual audience? It certainly is. With the right tools, like Alleo, it’s easier than ever to engage your team members no matter where they’re tuning in from.
What Qualities Make a Good Presentation?
Whether in-person, virtual, or hybrid, a good presentation engages your audience during the meeting and inspires action going forward. Peer feedback on presentations, during and after the meeting, helps you understand what’s working and what you need to adjust. Presentations also need to deliver information in a clear, concise manner so people can make decisions based on that data.
Successful presentations engage your audience during the meeting, but they also have lasting impacts, such as:
- Faster (and better) decision making
- Action items completed on-time
- Increased team participation in and out of meetings
Difference between Public Speaking and Presentation
When it comes to presenting, most people fixate on how to improve their public speaking. After all, an estimated 75% of the population deals with a fear of public speaking. And while overcoming the anxiety of getting up in front of your peers (or talking to a webcam) is important and hard work, there is more to effective presentations than giving a speech.
The key difference between typical public speaking engagements and presentations is that presentations rely more heavily on interaction with your audience. You need to check in to make sure your team understands the data you’re presenting, and you need to give them the opportunity to see what they can do with your findings going forward.
How to Make Hybrid Presentations Engaging
When writing a hybrid presentation, include times to directly engage with your audience—both in-person and virtually.
How Do You Start a Joint Presentation?
The first thing you need to do in a presentation is connect with your audience. With your in-person attendees, this is usually a little easier and can be done as you start your presentation by asking a few quick questions. These can relate directly to the topic or be small talk that gets people comfortable interacting. You can also invite participants to introduce themselves to the person next to them.
It’s possible to do the same with virtual attendees, but it may help to have them enter the meeting a few minutes earlier so you can give a more personalized greeting. Then you can pose a few questions to the online crowd that they can respond to in the chat. For example, asking people to estimate a specific statistic that you’ll be covering will have them paying attention to see if they end up being right.
How To Make a Virtual Presentation Interactive
The easiest way to disengage an audience is to talk at them, while good presentations involve their audience regularly and often. If they don’t understand something, you won’t know to address it. You won’t get across the point you’re trying to make, and your audience won’t change how they’re thinking and working.
Think about your presentation as a school lesson instead of a graduation speech. Which did you have an easier time engaging with—the history teacher who lectured for 45 minutes straight or the science teacher who gave demonstrations and led labs to supplement information?
When creating your presentations, include exercises that in-person and virtual attendees can participate in. For example, if you’re presenting a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis, you can have people write down what they think the company’s strengths are. You can then call on people to share their answers. Virtual attendees can write in the chat, and you can share what they wrote with the whole group.
How Do You Evaluate a Presentation?
As we mentioned above, allowing time for questions throughout your presentation can help you stay ahead of misunderstandings and keep your audience engaged. It’s also important to evaluate your presentation after the fact. One way to see if your message is getting across is to measure how it impacts your team’s work. Are they taking into account the data you presented as they work on their projects? Are they following up on assigned action items? Or are they missing deadlines and not adjusting their efforts to reflect the information you presented?
You can also get feedback on your presentation style, not just its results. Send out a survey to ask what parts of the presentation people were the most interested in. Which parts didn’t engage them? Remember to keep surveys short with clear questions.
What’s the Best Tool for Writing Hybrid Presentations? Alleo
Effective hybrid presentations begin with preparation. Alleo provides a wide variety of templates to meet the needs of any presentation, whether you’re going over a new schedule with your team, or you’re grappling with solutions to abstract problems.
The benefits don’t stop when you’re put on the spot, either. Here’s how we help you reach all of your attendees as if you were all in the same room:
- Alleo works as an infinite virtual whiteboard, so remote attendees can participate in exercises in real time
- Include documents, images, screen shares, and presenter video feeds directly into your presentation to excite participants
- The convenience of cloud storage with the privacy and security of an internal network
To see how you can start creating presentations that connect with your entire audience, contact us to schedule a demo.
