Posted on January 9, 2012 by NatCramer , Posted in Blog, Microsoft PowerPoint, Online Presentation Platforms, Online Presentation Strategies, Presentation Tips & Tricks, Thought Leadership, Using Online Video , No Comments »
This article was originally produced for the Content Marketing Institute blog and published there on December 19, 2011. We hope you find these tips useful!
At the heart of every great presentation is a skilled presenter. Great presenters are storytellers. And because audiences need more than slides, they tell stories with powerful interpersonal communication tools, like gestures, posture, and facial expressions. Great presenters know we’re wired for body language.
But in the digital age we have fewer opportunities to connect with our audiences on a personal level. We increasingly use online presentations, webinars, and meeting tools, which often fail to capture the body language and personality of the speaker.
The result? They fall flat, failing to take full advantage of the power of personality and storytelling that a good presenter offers to a live audience.
So what’s a content marketer to do?
1. Fully exploit video
The “disembodied voice” approach to online presentations needs to evolve. Audio-only online presentations — from webinars to online meetings, from voiced-over sales decks to screen-sharing tools — are popular. But this popularity comes at a cost: Most online presentations lack personality and effectiveness.
An audio-only online presentation is handicapped right from the start, as the medium robs the speaker of many of the visual communication tools that are available to a live presenter. No eye contact. No smile. No confident stance.
Put your best foot forward and deliver more “you” with online presentation tools that use video, not just audio.
Take a look, for example, at this online presentation from Australis Aquaculture. Pairing the CEO with an energetic product manager to tell the story of sustainable seafood, and sprinkling it with b-roll video, helps move the story along and personalizes the message.
2. Plan your presentation with online distribution in mind
So often, presentations are designed for a live event with digital capture and distribution as an afterthought. Of course you’ll send the slides after the presentation… but with no presenter, will your message seem out of context and your points be lost on your post-live audience? Capture your presenter live alongside your deck in all their hand-waving, storytelling glory and you’ll increase your chances that your audience will connect with the on-demand version of your insight.
Once the multimedia team at Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise started looking around, for example, they quickly found that potential content marketing material was all around them. This keynote address by President Tom Burns, for example, was quickly turned into enduring online content that continues to work well as a demand generation and lead nurturing effort long after the live presentation has faded into memory.
3. Understand your goals — and the goals of your audience
By attempting to satisfy both your organizational goals and those of your audience, you can dramatically improve the effectiveness of your online presentation. Think about all your possible objectives for creating an online video presentation — and why your audience would sit through it. You may be looking to establish thought leadership and capture leads, or it could be that developing a fabulous online presentation is the key to your viral branding strategy. But what’s in it for them? Your audience has no interest in becoming your lead, but would love to evaluate your expertise and learn something new. When you hit the jackpot and exchange value, your presentation naturally becomes more personal.
International consulting firm Parthenon Group, for example, produces a series of thought leadership presentations by its chief economist, Roger Brinner, that directly addresses key client and prospect anxieties about the state of the economy. Brinner’s quiet authority comes through clearly in these video presentations, in a way that it simply would not using audio-narrated slides.
4. Move beyond PowerPoint by including a range of existing digital content types
Adding video to your online PowerPoint presentations will transform their effectiveness. But consider all the other great content you already have. Online video presentation tools that are on the market allow you to also pull in rich text, animations, ads, JavaScript applets, images, and more for an unique interactive experience. Your audience will thank you for not boring them with the same old flat slides. Just about anything you can render on your website can now be incorporated in an online video presentation. Get creative, save time, save money, and extend the life of all that content you worked so hard to develop.
New online presentation platforms allow live web pages to be synchronized into a presentation or webinar, for example. This is perfect for taking polls and displaying real-time results, or even for taking orders right in the presentation window.
5. Look for powerful, flexible online presentations tools, but start with what’s simple
Luckily, today’s most advanced online presentation platforms don’t stop at video synchronization. They further enhance the experience by providing just-in-time footnotes, virtual handouts, calls-to-action, forms, quizzes, surveys, interactive transcripts, and other tools as part of the entire interactive experience. And they augment that experience with powerful analytics that show how the presentation material is being interacted with. We’ve built all that capability into KnowledgeVision, but other platforms will undoubtedly be adding some of these features in the future, as well.
Most importantly, don’t get overwhelmed by trying to do too much, too early. Start simply, getting your bearings with basic, on-demand video presentations and adding powerful features and even moving to live streaming later on. It really is easier than ever to create video presentations for an online, 24/7, anytime/ anywhere world.
Posted on March 12, 2011 by Michael Kolowich , Posted in Blog, Corporate Storytelling, Online Presentation Platforms, Online Presentation Strategies, Presentation Tips & Tricks, Thought Leadership , 1 Comment »
This week, I was invited to write a guest article for Indezine, one of the leading blogs for “power creators” of presentations. I took the opportunity to write about the growing popularity of audio-only online presentations, and one of their fundamental flaws: that they tend to strip the personality out of a presentation. -MEK
I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a little tired of the “disembodied voice” approach to online presentations. Whether it’s through webinars or online meetings or voiced-over sales decks, there’s no denying that the audio-only, narrated online presentation has started to gain traction. But this popularity comes at a cost: most online presentations, to be blunt, lack personality.
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Posted on February 27, 2011 by Michael Kolowich , Posted in Blog, Microsoft PowerPoint, Presentation Tips & Tricks , No Comments »
We were fascinated and amused to read a Harvard senior’s column in the Harvard Crimson this week, echoing a complaint we’ve heard from the boardroom to the Pentagon: some of the ivy-covered profs are badly in need of PowerPoint lessons.
Some of Adam Gold’s points are well-worn and familiar. Too many bullets on lecture slides. The need for more provocative imagery. Professors getting lazy, reading off the slides. Even a question about why students should bother going to class if the essential points of the lecture are spelled out in PowerPoint bullets and posted online.
Another set of observations got our attention, though, because it goes to the heart of our beliefs about why online presentations need to be multimedia and multisensory: Read More »
Posted on February 18, 2011 by Michael Kolowich , Posted in Blog, Industry Trends, Online Presentation Platforms, Thought Leadership , No Comments »
Irony of ironies: Motorola's Xoom website cannot be browsed on an iPad because of Apple's iOS Flash ban
UPDATE (2/24): The Motorola Xoom had its first commercial release on February 24, 2011, and those who were looking for a quick fix to the lack of Adobe Flash on tablets suffered an instant letdown, as the tablet-oriented update to Flash didn’t make it in time for the release. So Xoom buyers will need to wait a few more weeks to see if Android 3.0 does, indeed, deliver the “full web experience” and, over time, liberate content creators from Apple’s forced march.
The picture on the left says it all, doesn’t it? It’s a screen shot of the Motorola Xoom website, as seen on an iPad. With the launch of the Android 3.0-enabled Xoom rumored to be a week away, the Flash-on-tablets argument is poised to flare yet again.
The verdict from the Safari browser on the iPad – the browser touted by Steve Jobs as giving the “best browsing experience ever created?”
“To view this content you’ll need to install the latest version of the Adobe Flash Player.“
But…but…
This is the moment when push really does come to shove. After a year of making thousands of internet content creators and website owners’ hair turn grey and forcing them to face up to tens of millions of dollars in unnecessary development, we’ll finally see whether Apple will stick to its anti-Flash guns in the face of stiff new competition.
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Posted on January 30, 2011 by Michael Kolowich , Posted in Blog, Online Presentation Platforms, Presentation Tips & Tricks, Using Online Video , No Comments »
Illegible slide text, amateurish camerawork, and even a banner ad obscuring some of the data: is this any way to present an important corporate message?
It was an ironic, almost surreal experience to watch the online on-demand version of the “State of Online Video” — a talk given by ComScore’s Dan Piech at the Online Marketing/Media/Advertising (OMMA) conference. On the one hand, the data and insights Dan presents are uplifting and exciting about the further growth of online video. On the other hand, the experience also showed how very far online video has to go, for the online version of the presentation was embarrassingly poor. It’s one of those situations where the content is intriguing but the medium makes it virtually unwatchable.
In other words, the medium gets in the way of the message, big-time.
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Posted on January 26, 2011 by Michael Kolowich , Posted in Blog, Online Presentation Platforms, Online Presentation Strategies, Thought Leadership , 1 Comment »
While 43 million people were watching President Obama’s State of the Union Address on broadcast and cable television, a small fraction of that number were watching online. But those who did saw something very different: what the White House called an “Enhanced” State of the Union Address. The enhanced version of the State of the Union is still available on-demand at whitehouse.gov, and it gives us a glimpse — but just a glimpse — of what online presentations can and should be.
I was impressed by the fact that the White House took this kind of approach. But at the same time, I was disappointed that they didn’t go further. And it was impossible for me, as an online multimedia presentation creator, to resist speculating how they could — and should — improve it next time. And the good news is that with a modern online presentation platform like KnowledgeVision and its tools, they could do so without breaking the bank — our small contribution to reducing the federal deficit.
Interestingly, the Republicans, too, have thus far missed an opportunity to do their own enhanced State of the Union response using this new online presentation medium.
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Posted on January 18, 2011 by Michael Kolowich , Posted in Blog, Presentation Tips & Tricks , No Comments »
It’s all too familiar to the startup executive: the marathon of presentations — from angel investor elevator pitches to full-blown venture capital partner-meeting grillings — that are fundamental to getting money for a new venture.
For me, the experience is all too fresh in my mind, since this month we successfully closed the first $2 million venture capital financing for KnowledgeVision Systems. And there was a little extra pressure on us, because our company is all about tools to help people present better and to reinvent the business presentation for an online, on-demand world. My four-month fundraising presentation marathon drew on everything I’d learned from a career as a journalist, a columnist, an executive, and a documentary filmmaker. Yet, curiously, I found myself, early on, making rookie mistakes that are embarrassing in retrospect.
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Posted on January 14, 2011 by Michael Kolowich , Posted in Blog, Corporate Storytelling, Online Presentation Platforms, Online Presentation Strategies , 3 Comments »
Back in 1959, Walt Disney Studios released “Sleeping Beauty,” a pioneering animated film. Using new cinematic techniques – Technirama widescreen, the SuperTechnirama 70 film process, and a full-length live-action reference model for the animators – Disney created a film that was so alive that it fairly jumped off the screen.
The movie shot straight into the ears, eyes, minds and hearts of millions of children in the audience, in a very intimate way. The film captured and conveyed the sweetness of Princess Aurora, the delicious wickedness of the witch Maleficient, the affectionate goofiness of the Good Fairies and the shining goodness of the Prince.
Fast-forward to 2010. It’s now possible to achieve a similar effect for business communications.
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Posted on January 7, 2011 by Michael Kolowich , Posted in Blog, Content Marketing, Online Presentation Strategies , No Comments »
Long ago, legendary advertising man Fairfax Mastick Cone lamented: “Our inventory goes down the elevator every night.” He was referring, of course, to the people who produced his ad agency’s creative product; without the people, there was literally no product inventory.
His statement is as true today as it was for the Cone, Foote & Fielding ad agency back in the 1960s. In 2010, your “inventory” of people – with their ideas and expertise – is a vital part of every sale. Customers want to see the people behind the products and services they buy. It’s the Age of Content Marketing: Businesses provide free information and useful advice to establish trust and credibility before asking for the sale.
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Posted on December 31, 2010 by Michael Kolowich , Posted in Blog, Microsoft PowerPoint, Online Presentation Platforms, Online Presentation Strategies , No Comments »
The business presentation has become a near-universal tool for selling ideas and products. More than 30 million PowerPoint presentations are given every day.
Some of those presentations may actually work. But I’m guessing that most do not.
Why? Because business has changed dramatically since PowerPoint (and, for that matter, Harvard Graphics and Lotus Freelance) was invented in 1984, but the business presentation hasn’t.
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Posted on November 4, 2010 by Rusty Williams , Posted in Blog, Microsoft PowerPoint, Online Presentation Platforms, Presentation Tips & Tricks , No Comments »
It’s hard to imagine, but PowerPoint has been with us for more than 25 years. The concept, originally developed in 1984, really started transforming business presentations after PowerPoint was acquired by Microsoft in 1987. Now there are more than 30 million presentations given each day. It’s an integral part of our business culture.
Most people have a love-hate relationship with PowerPoint. Presenters love how quickly they can put information together. Viewers, however, are often frustrated by the slow pace and inability to get to the points that interest them the most. In-person presentations are linear and are inherently an inefficient use of time. And the slides alone are flat and two-dimensional.
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Posted on October 7, 2010 by Rusty Williams , Posted in Blog, Online Presentation Platforms, Thought Leadership , No Comments »
In a world of information saturation, thought leadership is one of the few ways to be heard above the din of similar marketing messages. Thought leaders are those innovators who have positioned themselves as experts in their field by virtue of a track record of good ideas. Most of us have good ideas all the time; what makes a thought leader different is the conscious strategy to tell the world about those ideas. Thought leadership positions a company to be the first stop when someone is in the market for their services, but it does more than that. It can inform your sales staff about the depth of your services, while giving them the tools to demonstrate the value you bring with your services. Feedback from your ideas can help you more effectively identify unexploited market segments.
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Posted on October 5, 2010 by Rusty Williams , Posted in Blog, Employee Communications, Online Presentation Platforms , No Comments »
In talking with a business executive the other day, the topic of the best way to communicate with employees came up. This particular business has locations around the US and in Canada, the UK and Australia. One of their real challenges has been communicating their evolving strategy in a consistent way – getting everyone reading from the same playbook.
For most large companies, getting an idea out fast often means sacrificing quality of delivery or impact. You can send a PowerPoint deck with a script, but then you hope someone reads it. You can send video files or a link to something streaming, but sent files clog up your email server, and good quality video takes a while to produce – not the timeliest approach. And audio – podcasts or broadcast voicemails – tend to suffer from lack of visuals and aren’t retained as well as their visual counterpart.
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Posted on September 20, 2010 by Rusty Williams , Posted in Blog, Online Presentation Platforms, Presentation Tips & Tricks, Using Online Video , No Comments »
One of the ideas we advocate strongly at KnowledgeVision is allowing your company’s personality to shine through your messages. The video aspect of our multimedia presentation platform allows you to break through the wall that makes a company appear impersonal or distant. Whether your approach is casual, wacky, or professional, it will come through more clearly with video than any other medium. Putting a virtual “face” on your company will make it possible to connect with prospective customers and clients alike, providing your sales force with a much warmer reception when it’s time to talk business.
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Posted on September 7, 2010 by Rusty Williams , Posted in Blog, Video Marketing , No Comments »
In the early days of the web, most people thought of it as a new way of publishing. The terms “homepages and personal pages,” “‘zines” and “blogs” are all derived from the comparison to printed media.
As bandwidth increased and authoring tools improved, the amount of video content has exploded. Jeremy Alliare, the founder and CEO of the leading online video platform, Brightcove, says “Video is becoming as ubiquitous as text.” The web is no longer a printing press; it’s a radio, television, phone, and magazine all rolled into one. Companies that understand how to use these multimedia, multisensory capabilities can build stronger connections with their customers, market more effectively, reduce costs and maintain an advantage over their competitors.
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This article was originally produced for the Content Marketing Institute blog and published there on December 19, 2011. We hope you find these tips useful!
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