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6 presentation skills and how to improve them

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What are presentation skills?

The importance of presentation skills, 6 presentation skills examples, how to improve presentation skills.

Tips for dealing with presentation anxiety

Learn how to captivate an audience with ease

Capturing an audience’s attention takes practice. 

Over time, great presenters learn how to organize their speeches and captivate an audience from start to finish. They spark curiosity, know how to read a room , and understand what their audience needs to walk away feeling like they learned something valuable.

Regardless of your profession, you most likely use presentation skills on a monthly or even weekly basis. Maybe you lead brainstorming sessions or host client calls. 

Developing effective presentation skills makes it easier to contribute ideas with confidence and show others you’re someone to trust. Although speaking in front of a crowd sometimes brings nerves and anxiety , it also sparks new opportunities.

Presentation skills are the qualities and abilities you need to communicate ideas effectively and deliver a compelling speech. They influence how you structure a presentation and how an audience receives it. Understanding body language , creating impactful visual aids, and projecting your voice all fall under this umbrella.

A great presentation depends on more than what you say. It’s about how you say it. Storytelling , stage presence, and voice projection all shape how well you express your ideas and connect with the audience. These skills do take practice, but they’re worth developing — especially if public speaking makes you nervous. 

Engaging a crowd isn’t easy. You may feel anxious to step in front of an audience and have all eyes and ears on you.

But feeling that anxiety doesn’t mean your ideas aren’t worth sharing. Whether you’re giving an inspiring speech or delivering a monthly recap at work, your audience is there to listen to you. Harness that nervous energy and turn it into progress.

Strong presentation skills make it easier to convey your thoughts to audiences of all sizes. They can help you tell a compelling story, convince people of a pitch , or teach a group something entirely new to them. And when it comes to the workplace, the strength of your presentation skills could play a part in getting a promotion or contributing to a new initiative.

To fully understand the impact these skills have on creating a successful presentation, it’s helpful to look at each one individually. Here are six valuable skills you can develop:

1. Active listening

Active listening is an excellent communication skill for any professional to hone. When you have strong active listening skills, you can listen to others effectively and observe their nonverbal cues . This helps you assess whether or not your audience members are engaged in and understand what you’re sharing. 

Great public speakers use active listening to assess the audience’s reactions and adjust their speech if they find it lacks impact. Signs like slouching, negative facial expressions, and roaming eye contact are all signs to watch out for when giving a presentation.

2. Body language

If you’re researching presentation skills, chances are you’ve already watched a few notable speeches like TED Talks or industry seminars. And one thing you probably noticed is that speakers can capture attention with their body language. 

A mixture of eye contact, hand gestures , and purposeful pacing makes a presentation more interesting and engaging. If you stand in one spot and don’t move your body, the audience might zone out.

3. Stage presence

A great stage presence looks different for everyone. A comedian might aim for more movement and excitement, and a conference speaker might focus their energy on the content of their speech. Although neither is better than the other, both understand their strengths and their audience’s needs. 

Developing a stage presence involves finding your own unique communication style . Lean into your strengths, whether that’s adding an injection of humor or asking questions to make it interactive . To give a great presentation, you might even incorporate relevant props or presentation slides.

4. Storytelling

According to Forbes, audiences typically pay attention for about 10 minutes before tuning out . But you can lengthen their attention span by offering a presentation that interests them for longer. Include a narrative they’ll want to listen to, and tell a story as you go along. 

Shaping your content to follow a clear narrative can spark your audience’s curiosity and entice them to pay careful attention. You can use anecdotes from your personal or professional life that take your audience along through relevant moments. If you’re pitching a product, you can start with a problem and lead your audience through the stages of how your product provides a solution.

5. Voice projection

Although this skill may be obvious, you need your audience to hear what you’re saying. This can be challenging if you’re naturally soft-spoken and struggle to project your voice.

Remember to straighten your posture and take deep breaths before speaking, which will help you speak louder and fill the room. If you’re talking into a microphone or participating in a virtual meeting, you can use your regular conversational voice, but you still want to sound confident and self-assured with a strong tone.

If you’re unsure whether everyone can hear you, you can always ask the audience at the beginning of your speech and wait for confirmation. That way, they won’t have to potentially interrupt you later.

Ensuring everyone can hear you also includes your speed and annunciation. It’s easy to speak quickly when nervous, but try to slow down and pronounce every word. Mumbling can make your presentation difficult to understand and pay attention to.

6. Verbal communication 

Although verbal communication involves your projection and tone, it also covers the language and pacing you use to get your point across. This includes where you choose to place pauses in your speech or the tone you use to emphasize important ideas.

If you’re giving a presentation on collaboration in the workplace , you might start your speech by saying, “There’s something every workplace needs to succeed: teamwork.” By placing emphasis on the word “ teamwork ,” you give your audience a hint on what ideas will follow.

To further connect with your audience through diction, pay careful attention to who you’re speaking to. The way you talk to your colleagues might be different from how you speak to a group of superiors, even if you’re discussing the same subject. You might use more humor and a conversational tone for the former and more serious, formal diction for the latter.

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses when it comes to presenting. Maybe you’re confident in your use of body language, but your voice projection needs work. Maybe you’re a great storyteller in small group settings, but need to work on your stage presence in front of larger crowds. 

The first step to improving presentation skills is pinpointing your gaps and determining which qualities to build upon first. Here are four tips for enhancing your presentation skills:

1. Build self-confidence

Confident people know how to speak with authority and share their ideas. Although feeling good about your presentation skills is easier said than done, building confidence is key to helping your audience believe in what you’re saying. Try practicing positive self-talk and continuously researching your topic's ins and outs.

If you don’t feel confident on the inside, fake it until you make it. Stand up straight, project your voice, and try your best to appear engaged and excited. Chances are, the audience doesn’t know you’re unsure of your skills — and they don’t need to.

Another tip is to lean into your slideshow, if you’re using one. Create something colorful and interesting so the audience’s eyes fall there instead of on you. And when you feel proud of your slideshow, you’ll be more eager to share it with others, bringing more energy to your presentation.

2. Watch other presentations

Developing the soft skills necessary for a good presentation can be challenging without seeing them in action. Watch as many as possible to become more familiar with public speaking skills and what makes a great presentation. You could attend events with keynote speakers or view past speeches on similar topics online.

Take a close look at how those presenters use verbal communication and body language to engage their audiences. Grab a notebook and jot down what you enjoyed and your main takeaways. Try to recall the techniques they used to emphasize their main points, whether they used pauses effectively, had interesting visual aids, or told a fascinating story.

3. Get in front of a crowd

You don’t need a large auditorium to practice public speaking. There are dozens of other ways to feel confident and develop good presentation skills.

If you’re a natural comedian, consider joining a small stand-up comedy club. If you’re an avid writer, participate in a public poetry reading. Even music and acting can help you feel more comfortable in front of a crowd.

If you’d rather keep it professional, you can still work on your presentation skills in the office. Challenge yourself to participate at least once in every team meeting, or plan and present a project to become more comfortable vocalizing your ideas. You could also speak to your manager about opportunities that flex your public speaking abilities.

4. Overcome fear

Many people experience feelings of fear before presenting in front of an audience, whether those feelings appear as a few butterflies or more severe anxiety. Try grounding yourself to shift your focus to the present moment. If you’re stuck dwelling on previous experiences that didn’t go well, use those mistakes as learning experiences and focus on what you can improve to do better in the future.

Tips for dealing with presentation anxiety 

It’s normal to feel nervous when sharing your ideas. In fact, according to a report from the Journal of Graduate Medical Education, public speaking anxiety is prevalent in 15–30% of the general population .

Even though having a fear of public speaking is common, it doesn’t make it easier. You might feel overwhelmed, become stiff, and forget what you were going to say. But although the moment might scare you, there are ways to overcome the fear and put mind over matter.

Use these tactics to reduce your stress when you have to make a presentation:

1. Practice breathing techniques

If you experience anxiety often, you’re probably familiar with breathing techniques for stress relief . Incorporating these exercises into your daily routine can help you stop worrying and regulate anxious feelings. 

Before a big presentation, take a moment alone to practice breathing techniques, ground yourself, and reduce tension. It’s also a good idea to take breaths throughout the presentation to speak slower and calm yourself down .

2. Get organized

The more organized you are, the more prepared you’ll feel. Carefully outline all of the critical information you want to use in your presentation, including your main talking points and visual aids, so you don’t forget anything. Use bullet points and visuals on each slide to remind you of what you want to talk about, and create handheld notes to help you stay on track.

3. Embrace moments of silence

It’s okay to lose your train of thought. It happens to even the most experienced public speakers once in a while. If your mind goes blank, don’t panic. Take a moment to breathe, gather your thoughts, and refer to your notes to see where you left off. You can drink some water or make a quick joke to ease the silence or regain your footing. And it’s okay to say, “Give me a moment while I find my notes.” Chances are, people understand the position you’re in.

4. Practice makes progress

Before presenting, rehearse in front of friends and family members you trust. This gives you the chance to work out any weak spots in your speech and become comfortable communicating out loud. If you want to go the extra mile, ask your makeshift audience to ask a surprise question. This tests your on-the-spot thinking and will prove that you can keep cool when things come up.

Whether you’re new to public speaking or are a seasoned presenter, you’re bound to make a few slip-ups. It happens to everyone. The most important thing is that you try your best, brush things off, and work on improving your skills to do better in your next presentation.

Although your job may require a different level of public speaking than your favorite TED Talk , developing presentation skills is handy in any profession. You can use presentation skills in a wide range of tasks in the workplace, whether you’re sharing your ideas with colleagues, expressing concerns to higher-ups, or pitching strategies to potential clients.

Remember to use active listening to read the room and engage your audience with an interesting narrative. Don’t forget to step outside your comfort zone once in a while and put your skills to practice in front of a crowd. After facing your fears, you’ll feel confident enough to put presentation skills on your resume.

If you’re trying to build your skills and become a better employee overall, try a communications coach with BetterUp. 

Elevate your communication skills

Unlock the power of clear and persuasive communication. Our coaches can guide you to build strong relationships and succeed in both personal and professional life.

Elizabeth Perry, ACC

Elizabeth Perry is a Coach Community Manager at BetterUp. She uses strategic engagement strategies to cultivate a learning community across a global network of Coaches through in-person and virtual experiences, technology-enabled platforms, and strategic coaching industry partnerships. With over 3 years of coaching experience and a certification in transformative leadership and life coaching from Sofia University, Elizabeth leverages transpersonal psychology expertise to help coaches and clients gain awareness of their behavioral and thought patterns, discover their purpose and passions, and elevate their potential. She is a lifelong student of psychology, personal growth, and human potential as well as an ICF-certified ACC transpersonal life and leadership Coach.

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9 Tips for Improving Your Presentation Skills For Your Next Meeting

By Hannah Tow , Feb 03, 2020

Presenting to an audience is one thing, but presenting ideas in a persuasive manner to the key stakeholders of your business is a whole other ball game.

The fact of the matter is that successfully presenting to a room full of people is a skill that’s mastered by very few. It takes practice, practice, and even more practice to start feeling comfortable with everyone’s eyes focused on you so you can effectively get your point across. 

The reality of presenting is that you can’t escape it. Especially as you start to move up in your career. If you’re yearning to improve, this article will walk you through the top nine tips to use to enhance your presentation skills for your next big meeting as well as throughout your life. Let’s get started.

9 top tips for improving your presentation skills:

• Practice speaking in front of others
• Use less text and more visuals in your presentation
• Leverage your personality
• Welcome questions and comments during
• Be passionate and engaging
• Maintain eye contact with your audience
• Obsess over your listeners
• Focus on confident body language
• Keep it as short as possible

Constantly practicing, refining and improving upon your presentation skills will not only make you a more confident individual, but you will find that you rise quicker to success in your career. However, having great presentation skills does not just affect your work-life. Great presentation skills are truly life skills that you should integrate into more areas than just the conference room.

1. Practice speaking in front of others 

Practice always makes perfect. 

It doesn’t matter how well you know what you’re talking about, the moment you have to persuade, engage, or teach in front of an audience, you will probably stumble a bit. This is a natural reaction that affects pretty much everyone when all eyes are pointed in one direction and the anxiety sets in. 

It’s important to remember that the overwhelming feeling of stress you probably feel is the result of your unfamiliarity with the situation, not from your lack of preparedness. The more comfortable you are with taking the stage and having everyone’s attention on you, the less nervous you’ll get. 

The greater confidence you have in your presentation skills will allow you to focus on what actually matters–which is the material that you’re presenting. 

The best way to implement this practice is by starting off small. Prepare a presentation to give to your friends, family, or closest co-workers. This sounds easy, but you will learn that it’s not necessarily who is listening to you that causes nerves, but it’s the fact that all of the attention is on you. 

You’ll become more comfortable with the attention when you begin practicing in front of others more often, which will allow you to effectively present your ideas next time it’s your turn to speak in the conference room.

RELATED: Learn the top ten public speaking tips to better prepare you for your practice sessions. 

2. Use less text and more visuals in your presentation

We’ve all been there before: sitting at the conference table trying our very best to stay interested and engaged with the presentation before us. The presentation lacks color, images, and all sense of creativity while containing an over-abundance of text and long-form paragraphs. 

These types of presentations are horrible for two reasons: 

The first reason being that the minute you have words on the screen, your audience will direct their attention away from you to begin reading and completely tune you out. 

The second reason is if your presentation skills are poor, not only will your presentation be dull to listen to, but it will be unbelievably boring to look at as well. You’ll quickly find out how easy it is to lose most of the room’s attention when you create a lackluster presentation. 

If you feel lost attempting to design your slides into an exciting work of art, try using creative presentation templates . PowerPoint templates make it simple to produce something beautiful, and they can also make you feel like an accomplished designer after seeing the outcome, such as this business presentation example . 

In addition to nicely designed slides, you should always try to use infographics and charts to help you better summarize the complex information you’re relaying to your audience. It will be much easier for your listeners to understand what you’re explaining when they have something to visualize it with. Plus, there are plenty of resources out there to help you craft these visuals.

Learn how to make an infographic in five easy steps or produce an impressive graph .

If you feel worried that your presentation doesn’t hold enough content, you must remember the main reason for visual aids: 

They are to enhance what you’re speaking about, not lead it! 

If you’ve done enough practicing, you should feel confident in your presentation skills to thoroughly explain your main ideas and you won’t need to rely on the screen anyhow.

TIP: If you’re looking for even more ways to engage your audience with your visuals, check out 120+ presentation ideas that are sure to wow and delight! 

3. Leverage your personality

As cliche as it sounds, you should always be true to who you are, especially if when you’re presenting. 

It’s incredibly easy to tell if someone is faking it for the sake of their audience, so you should never pretend to act in a way that you don’t typically do. Not only will you feel unnatural and uncomfortable doing it, but you can also risk embarrassment when you try to tell a forced joke and no one laughs or your new-found trait of sarcasm doesn’t sit well with your boss. 

It should bring you comfort knowing that most everyone in your meeting knows who you are. Use this to your advantage and start the presentation by playing up your best personality traits. Use your humor if you’re known to crack jokes or throw in your typical mannerisms.

These little additions will make your presentation feel much more relaxed for everyone involved. In addition to your own unique quirks, you should also bring a level of personability to your meeting.

Be empathetic, smile more, and look around the room.  Doing so will improve your presentation skills, make you more likable, and allow your audience to be more receptive to you. 

In many cases, you may be presenting virtually, rather than in person. You can still allow your personality to shine through and energize your virtual presentation. Lisa Schneider, Chief Growth Officer at Merriam-Webster, wrote for Venngage on how to adapt an in-person presentation into a virtual presentation . Check it out.

4. Welcome questions and comments during your presentation

Be flexible throughout your presentation. Answer questions and respond to any comments your audience may have either through hand raising or an audience response tool . Don’t worry if it veers you off your script. Chances are if one person has a question or comment, the others in the room are thinking it too. 

Use this as an opportunity to prove how well you understand the material you’re presenting–your audience will take notice.

Also, take some time out at the start or your presentation to ask your audience some icebreaker questions and slowly transition into the more important stuff. 

Taking this minute to talk through anything that your audience is thinking of is a good thing because it means they are engaged with you and really paying attention to the words coming out of your mouth. Doing so will also relax the format of your presentation, allowing you to feel more confident and relaxed as well.

5. Be passionate and engaging 

When creating your presentation, craft it in such a way that makes your audience curious and makes them have questions for you. A persuasive presentation is the best way to get the positive reactions you are looking for, so be as passionate as you can be about your subject matter to seal the deal. 

Remember that questions and comments during your presentation are a good thing, especially if you’re the one prompting them! 

The more excited you are to present your ideas and show off your expertise, the more excited and engaged your audience will be. Own your subject matter and know what you’re talking about, it’s one of the most important presentation skills to have.

6. Maintain eye contact with your audience

This is a very obvious tip that will go a long way with your audience. 

When the people you’re speaking to feel like you’re taking notice of them, they are much more likely to take notice of you and pay better attention to everything that you’re saying. 

It’s important to remember that losing eye contact and looking everywhere but at the people that you’re presenting to is a common nervous behavior. Pay extra close attention to whether or not you’re guilty of that, and work to ensure you have your eyes on at least one person.

7. Obsess over your listeners 

Be receptive to your listeners. You can’t forget that what you’re presenting is for the audience, and it has nothing to do about you! 

Focus on the value you can provide to the people in the room. The more serving you are to them, the greater chance you have at driving your point home and nailing your presentation. 

It’s also important not to forget about those listening to you remotely over video conferencing . Make sure they know you’re aware of them and engage them as well! 

8. Focus on confident body language 

Smiling, hand gestures, eye contact, and a powerful stance all exude confidence. 

If you don’t have strong body language and are showing physical signs of nervousness (ie. tapping, bouncing, shaking, darting eyes, and more) your audience will have a hard time focusing on the material you’re presenting and hone in on the fact that you’re nervous and probably don’t know what you’re talking about as much as you say you do.

No matter how nervous you are, take a deep breath and pretend otherwise. You might actually start to believe it!

9. Keep it as short as possible

Every single person’s time is valuable ( especially at work), so don’t waste precious meeting time. If you can say everything you need to in half of the time that is allotted, you should do so. 

Ensure that you’re only sharing the most important information. All of the extra fluff will bore your audience and you will lose their attention very quickly.

It’s a great idea to wrap up your presentation with key takeaways and action items. Doing so will ensure that no matter how quickly your meeting ended, your team understands their next steps. You can send out a quick, summarizing slide deck or an easy to read one-pager for their reference later. These visuals will make sure all of your bases are covered and that everyone is on the same page upon leaving the meeting.

A good presentation makes all the difference. Check out the top qualities of awesome presentations and learn all about how to make a good presentation to help you nail that captivating delivery.

Never stop refining your presentation skills 

Possessing great presentation skills doesn’t come naturally to most people–it’s something that’s learned and practiced over time. As with most things in life, you must continuously work on refining your skills to get better and better. 

Use these nine proven presentation tips that we covered in this article to improve your presentation skills and ace different presentation styles . By doing so, you will find that presenting at your key meetings becomes easier and easier and you’ll begin to nail it every single time.

More presentation guides:

How to Make a Persuasive Presentation

120+ Best Presentation Ideas, Design Tips & Examples

33 Presentation Templates and Design Tips to Hold Your Audience’s Attention

Presentation Design Guide: How to Summarize Information for Presentations

Ideas and insights from Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning

Powerful and Effective Presentation Skills: More in Demand Now Than Ever

When we talk with our L&D colleagues from around the globe, we often hear that presentation skills training is one of the top opportunities they’re looking to provide their learners. And this holds true whether their learners are individual contributors, people managers, or senior leaders. This is not surprising.

Effective communications skills are a powerful career activator, and most of us are called upon to communicate in some type of formal presentation mode at some point along the way.

For instance, you might be asked to brief management on market research results, walk your team through a new process, lay out the new budget, or explain a new product to a client or prospect. Or you may want to build support for a new idea, bring a new employee into the fold, or even just present your achievements to your manager during your performance review.

And now, with so many employees working from home or in hybrid mode, and business travel in decline, there’s a growing need to find new ways to make effective presentations when the audience may be fully virtual or a combination of in person and remote attendees.

Whether you’re making a standup presentation to a large live audience, or a sit-down one-on-one, whether you’re delivering your presentation face to face or virtually, solid presentation skills matter.

Even the most seasoned and accomplished presenters may need to fine-tune or update their skills. Expectations have changed over the last decade or so. Yesterday’s PowerPoint which primarily relied on bulleted points, broken up by the occasional clip-art image, won’t cut it with today’s audience.

The digital revolution has revolutionized the way people want to receive information. People expect presentations that are more visually interesting. They expect to see data, metrics that support assertions. And now, with so many previously in-person meetings occurring virtually, there’s an entirely new level of technical preparedness required.

The leadership development tools and the individual learning opportunities you’re providing should include presentation skills training that covers both the evergreen fundamentals and the up-to-date capabilities that can make or break a presentation.

So, just what should be included in solid presentation skills training? Here’s what I think.

The fundamentals will always apply When it comes to making a powerful and effective presentation, the fundamentals will always apply. You need to understand your objective. Is it strictly to convey information, so that your audience’s knowledge is increased? Is it to persuade your audience to take some action? Is it to convince people to support your idea? Once you understand what your objective is, you need to define your central message. There may be a lot of things you want to share with your audience during your presentation, but find – and stick with – the core, the most important point you want them to walk away with. And make sure that your message is clear and compelling.

You also need to tailor your presentation to your audience. Who are they and what might they be expecting? Say you’re giving a product pitch to a client. A technical team may be interested in a lot of nitty-gritty product detail. The business side will no doubt be more interested in what returns they can expect on their investment.

Another consideration is the setting: is this a formal presentation to a large audience with questions reserved for the end, or a presentation in a smaller setting where there’s the possibility for conversation throughout? Is your presentation virtual or in-person? To be delivered individually or as a group? What time of the day will you be speaking? Will there be others speaking before you and might that impact how your message will be received?

Once these fundamentals are established, you’re in building mode. What are the specific points you want to share that will help you best meet your objective and get across your core message? Now figure out how to convey those points in the clearest, most straightforward, and succinct way. This doesn’t mean that your presentation has to be a series of clipped bullet points. No one wants to sit through a presentation in which the presenter reads through what’s on the slide. You can get your points across using stories, fact, diagrams, videos, props, and other types of media.

Visual design matters While you don’t want to clutter up your presentation with too many visual elements that don’t serve your objective and can be distracting, using a variety of visual formats to convey your core message will make your presentation more memorable than slides filled with text. A couple of tips: avoid images that are cliched and overdone. Be careful not to mix up too many different types of images. If you’re using photos, stick with photos. If you’re using drawn images, keep the style consistent. When data are presented, stay consistent with colors and fonts from one type of chart to the next. Keep things clear and simple, using data to support key points without overwhelming your audience with too much information. And don’t assume that your audience is composed of statisticians (unless, of course, it is).

When presenting qualitative data, brief videos provide a way to engage your audience and create emotional connection and impact. Word clouds are another way to get qualitative data across.

Practice makes perfect You’ve pulled together a perfect presentation. But it likely won’t be perfect unless it’s well delivered. So don’t forget to practice your presentation ahead of time. Pro tip: record yourself as you practice out loud. This will force you to think through what you’re going to say for each element of your presentation. And watching your recording will help you identify your mistakes—such as fidgeting, using too many fillers (such as “umm,” or “like”), or speaking too fast.

A key element of your preparation should involve anticipating any technical difficulties. If you’ve embedded videos, make sure they work. If you’re presenting virtually, make sure that the lighting is good, and that your speaker and camera are working. Whether presenting in person or virtually, get there early enough to work out any technical glitches before your presentation is scheduled to begin. Few things are a bigger audience turn-off than sitting there watching the presenter struggle with the delivery mechanisms!

Finally, be kind to yourself. Despite thorough preparation and practice, sometimes, things go wrong, and you need to recover in the moment, adapt, and carry on. It’s unlikely that you’ll have caused any lasting damage and the important thing is to learn from your experience, so your next presentation is stronger.

How are you providing presentation skills training for your learners?

Manika Gandhi is Senior Learning Design Manager at Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning. Email her at [email protected] .

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Home Blog Education Presentation Skills 101: A Guide to Presentation Success

Presentation Skills 101: A Guide to Presentation Success

Getting the perfect presentation design is just a step toward a successful presentation. For the experienced user, building presentation skills is the answer to elevating the power of your message and showing expertise on any subject. Still, one can ask: is it the same set of skills, or are they dependable on the type of presentation?

In this article, we will introduce the different types of presentations accompanied by the skillset required to master them. The purpose, as always, is to retain the audience’s interest for a long-lasting and convincing message.

Table of Contents

The Importance of Presentation Skills

Persuasive presentations, instructional presentations, informative presentations, inspirational presentations, basic presentation skills, what are the main difficulties when giving a presentation, recommendations to improve your presentation skills, closing statement.

Effective communication is the answer to reaching business and academic goals. The scenarios in which we can be required to deliver a presentation are as diverse as one can imagine. Still, some core concepts apply to all presentations.

 We define presentation skills as a compendium of soft skills that directly affect your presentation performance and contribute to creating a great presentation. These are not qualities acquired by birth but skills you ought to train and master to delve into professional environments.

You may ask: is it really that evident when a presenter is not prepared? Here are some common signs people can experience during presentations:

• Evasive body language: Not making eye contact with the audience, arms closed tightly to the body, hands in pockets all the time.
• Lack of interest in the presenter’s voice: dull tone, not putting an effort to articulate the topics.
• Doubting when asked to answer a question
• Irksome mood

The list can go on about common presenter mistakes , and most certainly, it will affect the performance of any presented data if the lack of interest by the presenter is blatantly obvious.  Another element to consider is anxiety, and according to research by the National Institute of Mental Health, 73% of the population in the USA is affected by glossophobia , which is the fear of public speaking, judgment, or negative evaluation by other people.

Therefore, presentation skills training is essential for any business professional who wants to achieve effective communication . It will remove the anxiety from presentation performance and help users effectively deliver their message and connect with the audience.

Archetypes of presentations

Persuasive presentations aim to convince the audience – often in short periods – to acquire a product or service, adhere to a cause, or invest in a company. For business entrepreneurs or politicians, persuasive presentations are their tool for the trade.

Unless you aim to be perceived as an imposter, a proper persuasive presentation has the elements of facts, empathy, and logic, balanced under a well-crafted narrative. The central pillar of these presentations is to identify the single factor that gathered your audience: it could be a market need, a social cause, or a revolutionary concept for today’s society. It has to be something with enough power to gather critiques – both good and bad.

That single factor has to be backed up by facts. Research that builds your hypothesis on how to solve that problem. A deep understanding of the target audience’s needs , concerns, and social position regarding the solution your means can offer. When those elements are in place, building a pitch becomes an easy task. 

Graphics can help you introduce information in a compelling format, lowering the need for lengthy presentations. Good presentation skills for persuasive presentations go by the hand of filtering relevant data and creating the visual cues that resonate with what your audience demands.

One powerful example of a persuasive presentation is the technique known as the elevator pitch . You must introduce your idea or product convincingly to the audience in a timeframe between 30 seconds and less than 2 minutes. You have to expose:

• What do you do 
• What’s the problem to solve
• Why is your solution different from others 
• Why should the audience care about your expertise

For that very purpose, using engaging graphics with contrasting colors elevates the potential power of your message. It speaks professionalism, care for details, and out-of-the-box thinking. Knowing how to end a presentation is also critical, as your CTAs should be placed with care.

Therefore, let’s resume the requirements of persuasive presentations in terms of good presentation skills:

• Identifying problems and needs
• Elaborating “the hook” (the element that grabs the audience’s attention)
• Knowing how to “tie” your audience (introducing a piece of information related to the hook that causes an emotional impact)
• Broad knowledge of body language and hand gestures to quickly convey your message
• Being prepared to argue a defense of your point of view
• Handling rejection
• Having a proactive attitude to convert opportunities into new projects
• Using humor, surprise, or personal anecdotes as elements to sympathize with the audience
• Having confidence
• Be able to summarize facts and information in visually appealing ways

You can learn more about persuasive presentation techniques by clicking here .

In the case of instructional presentations, we ought to differentiate two distinctive types:

• Lecture Presentations : Presentations being held at universities or any other educative institution. Those presentations cover, topic by topic, and the contents of a syllabus and are created by the team of teachers in charge of the course.
• Training Presentations : These presentations take place during in-company training sessions and usually comprise a good amount of content that is resumed into easy-to-take solutions. They are aimed to coach employees over certain topics relevant to their work performance. The 70-20-10 Model is frequently used to address these training situations.

Lecture presentations appeal to the gradual introduction of complex concepts, following a structure set in the course’s syllabus. These presentations often have a similar aesthetic as a group of professors or researchers created to share their knowledge about a topic. Personal experience does tell that course presentations often rely on factual data, adequately documented, and on the theoretical side.

An example of a presentation that lies under this concept is a Syllabus Presentation, used by the teaching team to introduce the subject to new students, evaluation methods, concepts to be learned, and expectations to pass the course.

On the other hand, training presentations are slide decks designed to meet an organization’s specific needs in the formal education of their personnel. Commonly known as “continuous education,” plenty of companies invest resources in coaching their employees to achieve higher performance results. These presentations have the trademark of being concise since their idea is to introduce the concepts that shall be applied in practice sessions. 

Ideally, the training presentations are introduced with little text and easy-to-recognize visual cues. Since the idea is to summarize as much as possible, these are visually appealing for the audience. They must be dynamic enough to allow the presenter to convey the message.

Those key takeaways remind employees when they revisit their learning resources and allow them to ruminate on questions that fellow workers raise. 

To sum up this point, building presentation skills for instructional presentations requires:

• Ability to put complex concepts into simpler words
• Patience and a constant learning mindset
• Voice training to deliver lengthy speeches without being too dense
• Ability to summarize points and note the key takeaways
• Empathizing with the audience to understand their challenges in the learning process

The informative presentations take place in business situations, such as when to present project reports from different departments to the management. Another potential usage of these presentations is in SCRUM or other Agile methodologies, when a sprint is completed, to discuss the advance of the project with the Product Owner.

As they are presentations heavily dependent on data insights, it’s common to see the usage of infographics and charts to express usually dense data in simpler terms and easy to remember. 

Informative presentations don’t just fall into the business category. Ph.D. Dissertation and Thesis presentations are topics that belong to the informative presentations category as they condense countless research hours into manageable reports for the academic jury. 

Since these informational presentations can be perceived as lengthy and data-filled, it is important to learn the following professional presentation skills:

• Attention to detail
• Be able to explain complex information in simpler terms
• Creative thinking
• Powerful diction
• Working on pauses and transitions
• Pacing the presentation, so not too much information is divulged per slide

The leading inspirational platform, TEDx, comes to mind when talking about inspirational presentations. This presentation format has the peculiarity of maximizing the engagement with the audience to divulge a message, and due to that, it has specific requirements any presenter must meet.

This presentation format usually involves a speaker on a stage, either sitting or better standing, in which the presenter engages with the audience with a storytelling format about a life experience, a job done that provided a remarkable improvement for society, etc.

Empathizing with the audience is the key ingredient for these inspirational presentations. Still, creativity is what shapes the outcome of your performance as people are constantly looking for different experiences – not the same recipe rephrased with personal touches. The human factor is what matters here, way above data and research. What has your experience to offer to others? How can it motivate another human being to pursue a similar path or discover their true calling?

To achieve success in terms of communication skills presentation, these inspirational presentations have the following requirements:

• Focus on the audience (engage, consider their interests, and make them a part of your story)
• Putting ego aside
• Creative communication skills
• Storytelling skills
• Body language knowledge to apply the correct gestures to accompany your story
• Voice training
• Using powerful words

After discussing the different kinds of presentations we can come across at any stage of our lives, a group of presentation skills is standard in any type of presentation. See below what makes a good presentation and which skills you must count on to succeed as a presenter.

Punctuality

Punctuality is a crucial aspect of giving an effective presentation. Nothing says more about respect for your audience and the organization you represent than delivering the presentation on time . Arriving last minute puts pressure on the tech team behind audiovisuals, as they don’t have enough preparation to test microphones, stage lights, and projector settings, which can lead to a less powerful presentation Even when discussing presentations hosted in small rooms for a reduced audience, testing the equipment becomes essential for an effective presentation.

A solution for this is to arrive at least 30 minutes early. Ideally, one hour is a sweet spot since the AV crew has time to check the gear and requirements for your presentation. Another benefit of this, for example, in inspirational presentations, is measuring the previous presenter’s impact on the audience. This gives insights about how to resonate with the public, and their interest, and how to accommodate your presentation for maximum impact.

Body Language

Our bodies can make emotions transparent for others, even when we are unaware of such a fact. Proper training for body language skills reduces performance anxiety, giving the audience a sense of expertise about the presented topic. 

Give your presentation and the audience the respect they deserve by watching over these potential mistakes:

• Turning your back to the audience for extended periods : It’s okay to do so when introducing an important piece of information or explaining a graph, but it is considered rude to give your back to the audience constantly.
• Fidgeting : We are all nervous in the presence of strangers, even more, if we are the center of attention for that moment. Instead of playing with your hair or making weird hand gestures, take a deep breath to center yourself before the presentation and remember that everything you could do to prepare is already done. Trust your instincts and give your best.
• Intense eye contact : Have you watched a video where the presenter stared at the camera the entire time? That’s the feeling you transmit to spectators through intense eye contact. It’s a practice often used by politicians to persuade.
• Swearing : This is a no-brainer. Even when you see influencers swearing on camera or in podcasts or live presentations, it is considered an informal and lousy practice for business and academic situations. If you have a habit to break when it comes to this point, find the humor in these situations and replace your swear words with funny alternatives (if the presentation allows for it). 

Voice Tone plays a crucial role in delivering effective presentations and knowing how to give a good presentation. Your voice is a powerful tool for exposing your ideas and feelings . Your voice can articulate the message you are telling, briefing the audience if you feel excited about what you are sharing or, in contrast, if you feel the presentation is a burden you ought to complete.

Remember, passion is a primary ingredient in convincing people. Therefore, transmitting such passion with a vibrant voice may help gather potential business partners’ interest.  

But what if you feel sick prior to the presentation? If, by chance, your throat is sore minutes before setting foot on the stage, try this: when introducing yourself, mention that you are feeling a bit under the weather. This resonates with the audience to pay more attention to your efforts. In case you don’t feel comfortable about that, ask the organizers for a cup of tea, as it will settle your throat and relax your nerves.

Tech Skills

Believe it or not, people still feel challenged by technology these days. Maybe that’s the reason why presentation giants like Tony Robbins opt not to use PowerPoint presentations . The reality is that there are plenty of elements involved in a presentation that can go wrong from the tech side:

• A PDF not opening
• Saving your presentation in a too-recent PowerPoint version
• A computer not booting up
• Mac laptops and their never-ending compatibility nightmare
• Not knowing how to change between slides
• Not knowing how to use a laser pointer
• Internet not working
• Audio not working

We can come up with a pretty long list of potential tech pitfalls, and yet more than half of them fall in presenters not being knowledgeable about technology.

If computers aren’t your thing, let the organization know about this beforehand. There is always a crew member available to help presenters switch between slides or configure the presentation for streaming. This takes the pressure off your shoulders, allowing you to concentrate on the content to present. Remember, even Bill Gates can get a BSOD during a presentation .

Presentations, while valuable for conveying information and ideas, can be daunting for many individuals. Here are some common difficulties people encounter when giving presentations:

Public Speaking Anxiety

Glossophobia, the fear of public speaking, affects a significant portion of the population. This anxiety can lead to nervousness, trembling, and forgetfulness during a presentation.

Lack of Confidence

Many presenters struggle with self-doubt, fearing that they may not be knowledgeable or skilled enough to engage their audience effectively.

Content Organization

Organizing information in a coherent and engaging manner can be challenging. Presenters often grapple with how to structure their content to make it easily digestible for the audience. Artificial Intelligence can help us significantly reduce the content arrangement time when you work with tools like our AI Presentation Maker (made for presenters by experts in presentation design). 

Audience Engagement

Keeping the audience’s attention and interest throughout the presentation can be difficult. Distractions, disengaged attendees, or lack of interaction can pose challenges.

Technical Issues

Technology glitches, such as malfunctioning equipment, incompatible file formats, or poor internet connectivity, can disrupt presentations and increase stress.

Time Management

Striking the right balance between providing enough information and staying within time limits is a common challenge. Going over or under the allotted time can affect the effectiveness of the presentation.

Handling Questions and Challenges

Responding to unexpected questions, criticism, or challenges from the audience can be difficult, especially when presenters are unprepared or lack confidence in their subject matter.

Visual Aids and Technology

Creating and effectively using visual aids like slides or multimedia can be a struggle for some presenters. Technical competence is essential in this aspect.

Language and Articulation

Poor language skills or unclear articulation can hinder effective communication. Presenters may worry about stumbling over words or failing to convey their message clearly.

Maintaining appropriate and confident body language can be challenging. Avoiding nervous habits, maintaining eye contact, and using gestures effectively requires practice.

Overcoming Impersonal Delivery

In virtual presentations, maintaining a personal connection with the audience can be difficult. The absence of face-to-face interaction can make it challenging to engage and read the audience.

Cultural and Diversity Awareness

Presenting to diverse audiences requires sensitivity to cultural differences and varying levels of familiarity with the topic.

In this section, we gathered some tips on how to improve presentation skills that can certainly make an impact if applied to your presentation skills. We believe these skills can be cultivated to transform into habits for your work routine.

Tip #1: Build a narrative

One memorable way to guarantee presentation success is by writing a story of all the points you desire to cover. This statement is based on the logic behind storytelling and its power to connect with people .

Don’t waste time memorizing slides or reading your presentation to the audience. It feels unnatural, and any question that diverts from the topic in discussion certainly puts you in jeopardy or, worse, exposes you as a fraud in the eyes of the audience. And before you ask, it is really evident when a presenter has a memorized speech. 

Build and rehearse the presentation as if telling a story to a group of interested people. Lower the language barrier by avoiding complex terms that maybe even you aren’t fully aware of their meaning. Consider the ramifications of that story, what it could lead to, and which are the opportunities to explore. Then, visualize yourself giving the presentation in a natural way.

Applying this technique makes the presentation feel like second nature to you. It broadens the spectrum in which you can show expertise over a topic or even build the basis for new interesting points of view about the project.

Tip #2: Don’t talk for more than 3 minutes per slide

It is a common practice of presenters to bombard the audience with facts and information whilst retaining the same slide on the screen. Why can this happen? It could be because the presenter condensed the talk into very few slides and preferred to talk. The reality is that your spectators won’t retain the information you are giving unless you give visual cues to help that process. 

Opt to prepare more slides and pace your speech to match the topics shown on each slide. Don’t spend more than 3 minutes per slide unless you have to introduce a complex piece of data. Use visual cues to direct the spectators about what you talk about, and summarize the principal concepts discussed at the end of each section.

Tip #3: Practice meditation daily

Anxiety is the number one enemy of professional presenters. It slowly builds without you being aware of your doubts and can hinder your performance in multiple ways: making you feel paralyzed, fidgeting, making you forget language skills or concepts, affecting your health, etc.

Meditation is an ancient practice taken from Buddhist teachings that train your mind to be here in the present. We often see the concepts of meditation and mindfulness as synonyms, whereas you should be aware that meditation is a practice that sets the blocks to reach a state of mindfulness. For presenters, being in the here and now is essential to retain focus, but meditation techniques also teach us to control our breathing and be in touch with our body signals when stress builds up. 

The customary practice of meditation has an impact on imagination and creativity but also helps to build patience – a skill much needed for connecting with your audience in instructional presentations.

Having the proper set of presentation skills can be quite subjective. It goes beyond presentation tips and deepens into how flexible we can be in our ability to communicate ideas.

Different presentations and different audiences shape the outcome of our efforts. Therefore, having a basic understanding of how to connect, raise awareness, and empathize with people can be key ingredients for your career as a presenter. A word of advice: success doesn’t happen overnight. It takes dedication and patience to build communication skills . Don’t condition your work to believe you will be ready “someday”; it’s best to practice and experience failure as part of the learning process.

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How to Give a Killer Presentation

• Chris Anderson

For more than 30 years, the TED conference series has presented enlightening talks that people enjoy watching. In this article, Anderson, TED’s curator, shares five keys to great presentations:

• Frame your story (figure out where to start and where to end).
• Plan your delivery (decide whether to memorize your speech word for word or develop bullet points and then rehearse it—over and over).
• Work on stage presence (but remember that your story matters more than how you stand or whether you’re visibly nervous).
• Plan the multimedia (whatever you do, don’t read from PowerPoint slides).
• Put it together (play to your strengths and be authentic).

According to Anderson, presentations rise or fall on the quality of the idea, the narrative, and the passion of the speaker. It’s about substance—not style. In fact, it’s fairly easy to “coach out” the problems in a talk, but there’s no way to “coach in” the basic story—the presenter has to have the raw material. So if your thinking is not there yet, he advises, decline that invitation to speak. Instead, keep working until you have an idea that’s worth sharing.

Lessons from TED

A little more than a year ago, on a trip to Nairobi, Kenya, some colleagues and I met a 12-year-old Masai boy named Richard Turere, who told us a fascinating story. His family raises livestock on the edge of a vast national park, and one of the biggest challenges is protecting the animals from lions—especially at night. Richard had noticed that placing lamps in a field didn’t deter lion attacks, but when he walked the field with a torch, the lions stayed away. From a young age, he’d been interested in electronics, teaching himself by, for example, taking apart his parents’ radio. He used that experience to devise a system of lights that would turn on and off in sequence—using solar panels, a car battery, and a motorcycle indicator box—and thereby create a sense of movement that he hoped would scare off the lions. He installed the lights, and the lions stopped attacking. Soon villages elsewhere in Kenya began installing Richard’s “lion lights.”

• CA Chris Anderson is the curator of TED.

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Presentation Skills

Presenting information clearly and effectively is a key skill in getting your message across. Today, presentation skills are required in almost every field, and most of us are required to give presentations on occasions. While some people take this in their stride, others find it much more challenging.

It is, however, possible to improve your presentation skills with a bit of work. This section of SkillsYouNeed is designed to help.

Many people feel terrified when asked to talk in public, especially to bigger groups. However, these fears can be reduced by good preparation, which will also lay the groundwork for making an effective presentation.

There are Different Types of Presentations, but They’re All Presentations

There are any number of occasions when you may be asked to speak in public or to a group of people. They include:

• Presenting or making a speech at a conference or event.
• Objecting to a planning proposal at a council meeting.
• Making a speech at a wedding.
• Proposing a vote of thanks to someone at a club or society.
• On behalf of a team, saying goodbye and presenting a gift to a colleague who is leaving.
• Seeking investment or a loan to help you set up a new business.

These can all be considered presentations.

They do not, however, all require the same approach. You would not, for example, use PowerPoint to thank a colleague who was leaving. It would be unusual (though it has been done) to use it in a speech at a wedding. However, a conference audience would be somewhat surprised NOT to see slides projected onto a screen.

It follows, therefore, that there is no single set of rules that apply to all presentations. There are, however, some things that every presentation opportunity has in common. These include:

You will present better if you have prepared effectively . This does NOT necessarily mean that you have written out your speech verbatim and rehearsed it until you know it off by heart—although that might work for some people. It does, however, mean that you have to be confident that you are saying the right thing, in the right way, to the right people.

You need to be clear about your audience and your message . Every presentation will be better if you have clearly considered the message that you want or need to convey, and how best to convey it to your audience. These two pieces of information drive your style, structure, content, and use of visual aids.

You must never overrun your allocated time .  In other words, don’t outstay your welcome. Almost every speech or presentation is better if it is shorter. Nobody minds going for coffee early or finishing before they expected to do so. Everybody minds being held up.

Generally speaking, your audience starts on your side. As a rule, your audience is there (more or less) voluntarily. They have chosen to listen to you, and they want to enjoy your presentation. The occasion is yours to lose.

An Important Point

There is one very important point to remember: if what you’re doing or saying is not working, do something else.

One of the worst feelings as a presenter is that you have lost your audience. You know that’s happened, but you continue to stumble through your remaining PowerPoint slides for the next 15 minutes, as your audience checks their phones and wishes it was coffee time. You think you have no choice, but that’s not actually true.

When you present, you are in charge of the room . The audience has effectively handed you control and is sitting back waiting for you to do something. You may have prepared a specific talk, but if you see that isn’t working, you can always change it. You are, after all, the expert.

You can, for example:

• Skip through some slides to a section that they may find more interesting;
• Ask your audience whether there is particular information that they were expecting that you are not providing;
• Suggest that everyone looks a bit sleepy, and maybe it would be better to start questions early, or have a discussion; or
• Ask the audience at the start of the presentation what they are expecting and what they want you to cover. That way, you can tailor the presentation to fit their expectations.

Just as when you are facilitating, you want to help your audience get the most out of your presentation. The best way to do that is to accept feedback—which may include smiles, nods of interest, or people getting their phones out.

Quick Guide to Effective Presentations

If you need to improve your presentation skills quickly, then a really good place to start is with our Top Tips for Effective Presentations .

This will give you some ‘quick wins’ that will help you improve your presentations. If you’re already an experienced presenter, this page should be a useful refresher, or even take your skills from good to great.

Our tips include general ideas about connecting with your audience, information about the importance of voice and body language, and detailed tips about preparing slide-shows.

The most important tip of all, however, is to remember that it's all about your audience.

Keep that in mind, and your presentation skills will almost instantly improve.

If you have more time to develop your presentation skills…

…then the Presentation Skills section of SkillsYouNeed is designed to help.

Our Presentation Skills section is split into two parts.

• The first gives you a step-by-step guide to putting together and delivering a professional and effective presentation .
• The second provides more detailed information about presenting and communicating in particular circumstances .

You can either use our step-by-step guide to walk you through the presentation preparation and delivery process, or you can focus on particular areas that are an issue for you.

Preparing for Your Presentation

The guide starts by explaining What is a Presentation?

We define a presentation as a means of communication that can be adapted to various speaking situations, such as talking to a group, addressing a meeting or briefing a team. Effective presentations usually require careful thought and preparation—although this preparation need not take very long.

Preparation is the most important part of making a successful presentation.  Our page on Preparing For A Presentation explains what information you need before you can really start to plan your presentation and decide what you are going to say. The most important aspects include the objective of the presentation, the subject, and the audience.

Irrespective of whether the occasion is formal or informal, you should always aim to give a clear, well-structured delivery. To do so, you need to organise your presentation material . You can either do this in your head, or use a technique like mind-mapping to help you identify links and good flow.

By the time you come to write your presentation , you should know exactly what you want to say and the order in which you want to say it. You may want to use one of the standard presentation structures, such as ‘What, Why, How?’. You will also find it helpful to consider how to tell your story most effectively, and to use stories in your presentation to illustrate points. There is more about this in our page on writing your presentation .

You also need to decide on your presentation method . Presentations range from the formal to the informal. Your choice of presentation method will depend on many factors, including the audience, the venue, the facilities, and your own preferences.

Visual aids can add another dimension to your presentation, helping to hold your audience’s attention, and also act as a reminder of what you wanted to say. However, they need handling with care. Only use visual aids if they are necessary to maintain interest and assist comprehension . If visual aids are not used well, they can ruin a presentation.

See Working with Visual Aids to avoid falling into the trap of the dreaded ‘ Death by PowerPoint’ .

A particular case of visual aids is the use of data in a presentation.

There are times when using data in a presentation can really help you to tell the story better. It is, however, important not to blind your audience with statistics. You also need to remember that many people find numbers difficult to understand. Our page on Presenting Data gives some hints and tips about using data effectively in a presentation situation.

On the Day of the Presentation

There are a number of aspects to delivering your presentation on the day.

The practicalities of how you manage your presentation can make a significant difference to its success, and to your nerves! For example, turning up early means that you have will have a chance to see the room, and ensure that you can operate all the necessary equipment. There is more about how to cope, including managing sound systems, audio-visual equipment and lecterns in our page on Managing the Presentation Event .

Many people also feel very nervous before and during a presentation. This is entirely normal, and can even be helpful if you can channel it in the right way. There are some tried and tested strategies and techniques to manage your nerves so that you can concentrate on delivering an effective and engaging presentation.

See Coping with Presentation Nerves for some ideas that will help.

How you present yourself can also affect how your audience responds to your presentation.

You need to fit with your audience's expectations if they are not going to spend quite a large chunk of your presentation dealing with the differences between expectations and reality.

For more about aspects of self-presentation, see our page on Self-Presentation in Presentations .

You also need to consider how to manage your presentation notes .

Few people are able to give a presentation without notes. You will need to know your own abilities and decide how best to make the presentation. You might manage your talk by using full text, notes on cue cards, keywords on cue cards, or mind maps. There is more about this in our page on Managing your Presentation Notes .

After the presentation, you may be faced with a question-and-answer session. For many people, this is the worst part of the event.

Decide in advance how and when you wish to handle questions. Some speakers prefer questions to be raised as they arise during the presentation whilst others prefer to deal with questions at the end. At the start of your presentation, you should make clear your preferences to the audience. See our page on Dealing with Questions for more ideas about how to make the question session pleasant and productive, rather than something to dread.

Presenting Under Particular Circumstances

You may find that you need to give a presentation under certain circumstances, where your previous experience is less helpful.

Circumstances that may be new to you include:

• Giving a Speech , for example, at a wedding.

One particular special case is attending public consultation meetings.

Our pages on Attending Public Consultation Meetings , and Managing Public Consultation Meetings provide information to help whether you are a concerned member of the public, or responsible for organising a public meeting.

You may also find yourself required to organise or manage a press conference.

Although this may not strictly be what you would describe as a ‘presentation’, it is nonetheless an event at which you are required to present your organisation in a particular light.

Our page on Managing a Press Conference gives some ideas about how best to do that.

Finally, should you be unlucky enough to be involved in a serious crisis or disaster that affects your organisation, our page on Crisis Communications gives some ideas about how to manage press and public relations on these occasions.

Start with: What is a Presentation? Top Tips for Effective Presentations

See also: Personal Appearance Interpersonal Communication Skills

How to Give a Presentation During a Meeting (Without Screwing Up)

Tips and tricks for being persuasive and keeping your audience engaged.

A methodology for amazing meetings. Say goodbye to boring, long, and unproductive meetings.

Giving a presentation during a meeting may seem easy on the surface, but many factors can get in the way of being effective.

You may be shy and stumble over your words. You may get nervous and rush through things too quickly in hopes of “getting it over with.”

You may even confuse your audience by sharing information in a scattered or illogical way.

It happens to the best of us.

The good news is, with thoughtful preparation, even the shiest among us can give killer presentations that captivate our coworkers.

Here’s how:

• How to start a presentation
• Effective presentation skills ‍
• When to use PowerPoint ‍
• Presentation tips and tricks

<div id="1"></div>

<span class="h-circle">1</span> How to start a presentation

The best presenters capture audience attention from the beginning. They know that a lackluster start to anything will immediately sow seeds of disengagement.

Whether or not you believe human attention spans are like goldfish , the fact is, a strong start to your presentation will fill the room with energy that perks people up, while a weak start paves the way for staring off into space and discretely checking email.

Here are a few tips to start your next meeting presentation right:

Ask a question

Everyone likes feeling heard. One of the easiest ways to hook an audience from the start is by inviting them to respond to a relevant prompt. If a VP of marketing were giving a presentation about the company’s upcoming brand refresh, they might start by asking something like “How many people here feel like they have a good sense of how we’re perceived as a company?”

Share a story

As humans, we’re wired to pay attention to stories. They’re especially useful when the subject matter at hand isn’t particularly interesting on its own. If a CEO were giving a presentation aimed at motivating the entire company, they might share a story about how many people it once took to operate a battleship.

<div id="2"></div>

<span class="h-circle">2</span> Effective presentation skills/techniques

Effective presentations are usually the result of careful preparation. Here are a few skills to refine during the preparation phase:

Knowing your audience

Giving an effective presentation means knowing your audience. To earn and sustain their attention, you need to assess what they already know about the subject and how much they care about it.

Use this information to calibrate your approach. You don’t want to assume they’re enthusiastic experts if they’re not, but you also want to respect their intelligence by meeting them where they are without lecturing them.

It’s a delicate balancing act, but when you get it right, you’ll leave them enough room to figure some things out on their own.

WHAT Ask questions that anyone in the audience could answer. ‍ WHY This allows you to engage the room and keep the audience energy level high.

Framing your story

If you’ve ever watched TEDTalks, you know firsthand that many of the best presentations unfold like a detective story. The speaker presents a problem, describes the quest for a solution, and leads the audience to a collective “aha” moment where their perspective shifts and they become even more engaged. 

Take the time to plot your points in a meaningful way so that your message is not only easy to follow, but also easy to remember. That means eliminating any diversions that don’t serve the story. 

When framed correctly, even the most serious and complex subjects can be riveting.

<div id="3"></div>

<span class="h-circle">3</span> When to use a PowerPoint and when not to

PowerPoints have become the de facto tool of choice for meeting presentations. You can share visuals, advance slides with the click of a mouse, and they don’t take a ton of technical or design chops to look pretty.

The problem is, people tend to hide behind them. While it’s undeniably handy, PowerPoint isn’t the best vehicle for every presentation.

You should use a PowerPoint when:

• You want to review team progress against metrics
• You need to share a revenue report
• You have a lot of technical and/or data-rich information to convey

You shouldn’t use a PowerPoint when:  

• You need to create a strong connection with your audience
• You have an important story to tell (e.g. why the company is pivoting)
• You want to motivate and inspire people

If you’re still on the fence about whether you should use a PowerPoint for your next presentation, consider the goal of the meeting.

When your meeting goal is something straightforward, like assigning action items or reviewing team performance, go for the PowerPoint. 

If you’re aiming to convey something less cerebral—and potentially more emotional—don’t distance yourself from the message. Leave PowerPoint (and all technology) out of the equation.

<div id="4"></div>

<span class="h-circle">4</span> Presentation tips and tricks

There are a few universal tips that will make your next presentation more effective no matter what it’s about:

Follow a logical structure ‍ Even if you can’t think of a relevant story, the information you present have a clear structure to keep people on track.

Slow down ‍ Speaking too fast breeds boredom and confusion. Even if you think you talk slow, talk slower.

Use questions as segues ‍ In addition to being great presentation starters, asking questions enables the presenter to shift from one topic to another without losing momentum.

Build your confidence ‍ Letting your personality shine through is a surefire way to convince people they should listen. Practice your presentation until it feels like you’re talking to a friend.

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How to Give a Presentation During a Meeting

February 7, 2022 - Dom Barnard

Presenting at a meeting, even for the most experienced speakers, can be a scary experience. Some people react with panic when they hear the word ‘presentation’. Keeping track of the time and  managing visual aids  while speaking is hard enough for most professionals.

It is crucial to impress the audience with credibility and confidence in the information being shared, whether addressing colleagues, clients, a board of directors, or business partners. Rather than just getting by, a few practical tips can you successfully present in a meeting.

Develop an audience-focused perspective

It is vital to shape a meeting for the  specific audience it is addressing . This requires a thorough understanding of them. For instance, a presentation for technical developers would differ greatly from a presentation targeted at CEOs, even if it is the same project.

The presenter should take into account what the audience already knows and what they are looking for from the presentation. When planning a business meeting, the speaker must reckon with:

• Audience size
• The level of complexity at which to address the topic
• Part of the audience that might be disinterested
• How to help even the least informed to understand the subject

The audience is always right. If a new product fails in the market, prospective customers did not make a mistake in refusing to buy it. It is better to place faith in the wisdom of the target audience when preparing a presentation. Then they can judge what will resonate well with them. After all, it’s theirs to gain.

When addressing a new audience, it pays to research the demographic and perhaps consult with other leaders before the meeting to explore the agenda. Investigating an audience helps to know better their needs and interests. The ultimate goal is to make a bid, motion, or proposal that’s focused on the listeners’ perspective.

Manage your nerves

The fear of public speaking, also called glossophobia, is a common phenomenon. According to  Psychology Today , an estimated 25% of the world population has this problem.

Even mild glossophobia can have severe implications in some individuals. Even some experienced public speakers get anxious when presenting a business idea. In short, the most challenging part of making a business presentation is managing the nerves. A few tips would help overcome anxiety.

1. Silence voices in the head

Some voices in the head can damage one’s confidence, suggesting that the presentation is boring, embarrassing, and not good enough. Such voices of insecurity only make the presenter self-conscious.

The important thing is to identify and dismiss them as lies. Practising this attitude will eventually lead to more confident presentations.

2. Focus on the point, rather than oneself

Some people are so afraid of public humiliation that they end up messing up and embarrassing themselves. They forget the meeting is not about them but the matter in question.

The best approach is to stop perceiving the presentation as a contest or a source of judgement. Shifting the attention from oneself to the main objective eliminates the anxiety.

3. Turn anxiety into excitement

Nervousness and excitement are closely related. Proficient business presenters see themselves as excited rather than nervous moments before getting on stage.

4. Use notes as shorthand reminders

Notes should guide the presenter on what to cover and in what sequence. The points should be used as support, not scripts. It is about delivering the ideas, not reading them.

5. Authenticity

Many business presenters mess things up by trying to fake things. An audience will respond best to authentic behaviour, even if it’s not perfect. By contrast, a presenter who sounds artificial damages their reputation, breaks the connection, and reduces audience engagement.

Being audible enough is critical to passing a powerful message during a meeting. Loud voice projects confidence, authority, and leadership.

Body language

Business leaders use  body language  to their advantage. This is a preeminent visual that the audience needs to see. It is how the body communicates non-verbal, i.e., through posture, gestures, stance, and facial expressions.

Depending on the body language, which can be conscious or unconscious, a presentation can evoke confidence, frustration, boredom, anger, or excitement. Some of the most powerful board meetings have been delivered by applying body language tips highlighted below.

• Holding eye contact with delegates to enhance credibility
• Smiling more to build trust
• Standing still (reduce the pace) to sound more powerful
• Use of hands to express emotions and emphasize key points
• Utilising the entire space and walking around to encourage engagement
• Standing upright with relaxed arms to demonstrate confidence

Audience participation

Most people don’t like lengthy presentations. When bored, they start murmuring to their neighbours or checking their phones. To avoid monotony, the  audience must be involved . Ice breakers and introductions, for instance, re-energise attendees so they can concentrate. Some of the effective ways to engage the audience are as follows.

• Telling a joke or story
• Getting people to read information out loud
• Sharing a personal experience
• Including a Q&A session in a PowerPoint presentation
• Relating ideas to a current trend
• Bringing slides to the attendees’ hands with appropriate tools
• Asking provocative questions
• Provide a comical observation about the audience

The first five minutes of a business presentation is the perfect time to ask people in the room to raise their hands and answer simple questions. This is probably the best moment to capture their attention and spark interactions.

A  killer opener  is the fastest way to convince a crowd. If the audience can respond to a poll or agree with the underlying premise, they are more likely to accept the call to action.

Streamline the PowerPoint

While having text on PowerPoint (or similar software such as Keynote) is the easiest way to recall points, it is easier to lose the audience when reading directly from the slides. Many executives make this mistake in their first year of running a company.

Instead, they should  create simple, clean visuals  with consistent colours to explain concepts. Images must be relatable to the audience’s perspective. Text must be less than 10 words per slide and in bold font, if necessary.

Visuals should illuminate rather than misrepresent an explanation. Pictures and graphs showing percentages can be more effective than text. However, complex imagery gives the viewers a hard time trying to fathom the agenda. Some attendees may be short-sighted, so there’s a need for larger and clearer fonts. All in all, simplicity and consistency are fundamental to helping the audience follow along.

No matter how complex a business presentation seems, it is of utmost importance to capture the attention of the audience and keep them hooked till the end. The advice on this page can take a formal meeting from merely good to great. The tips above can be used by all presenters across the board, regardless of their experience level.

10 Presentation Skills That Every Great Presenter Must Have

It’s no secret that effective presentations can help you get ahead in business. After all, what better way to show off your knowledge and expertise than by delivering a well-crafted presentation? The right presentation skills give you the ability to share your ideas with an audience convincingly and engagingly.

Unfortunately, not everyone is born a natural presenter. If you’re not used to standing up in front of an audience, the prospect of doing so can be daunting. Fortunately, there are a few simple things you can do to improve your presentation skills.

In this article, we’ll share some tips on how to do just that, allowing you to deliver an effective presentation.

Let’s get right into it.

What are Presentation Skills?

Presentation skills are the abilities you need to deliver a clear and effective presentation. After all, a good presenter is someone who can communicate their ideas in a way that engages and motivates their audience.

There are many different aspects to presentation skills, from knowing how to structure your talk to using visuals effectively, to dealing with nerves.

Developing strong presentation skills will help you to communicate your ideas more effectively and make a positive impression on your audience.

Presentation skills are important because they can help you to communicate your ideas clearly and effectively. A good presentation can make a big impact on your audience and can help to persuade them of your point of view.

Presentation skills are also important in other areas of life, such as job interviews, sales pitches, and networking events. Being able to present your ideas clearly and concisely can give you a big advantage over others who are not as confident in their presentation skills.

Why Is it Important To Recognize Presentation Skills & Their Benefits?

One of the most important reasons to recognize presentation skills is because they are a valuable skill for any profession. Good presentation skills can help you in your career by making it easier to sell your ideas, get promoted, and be successful in business.

In addition, good presentation skills can also help you in your personal life by making it easier to give speeches, make presentations, and teach classes.

In addition, recognizing presentation skills can also help you improve your presentations. If you are not aware of the importance of presentation skills, you may not be using them to their full potential.

By taking the time to learn about presentation skills and how to use them effectively, you can make your presentations more effective and persuasive.

Here’s a list of benefits that come with good presentation skills:

• Increased confidence
• The ability to think on your feet
• Improved public speaking skills
• Enhanced written communication skills
• The ability to lead and motivate others
• Enhanced problem-solving abilities
• Improved negotiation skills
• Stronger time management skills
• Greater creativity
• The opportunity to make a positive impact on others

10 Examples of Presentation Skills

Let’s now explore some practical examples of presentation skills that will help you ace your next big presentation.

A Clear And Confident Voice

One of the most important aspects of a great presentation is having a clear and confident voice. If you’re mumbling or speaking too quietly, your audience is going to have a hard time understanding you.

On the other hand, if you’re shouting or speaking too fast, they’re going to get overwhelmed and tune out. So, it’s important to find that happy medium where your voice is audible and easy to understand.

The Ability To Engage With Your Audience

Another key presentation skill is the ability to engage with your audience. This means making eye contact, using gestures, and speaking in a way that is relatable and easy to understand.

If you’re just standing there reading off a slide, chances are your audience is going to get bored pretty quickly. But if you can find ways to keep them engaged, they’ll be more likely to listen to what you have to say.

Good Eye Contact

One of the best ways to engage with your audience is through eye contact. When you make eye contact with someone, it shows that you’re interested in what they have to say and that you’re engaged in the conversation. It also helps to build trust and rapport.

So, if you can find ways to make eye contact with your audience members, it will go a long way in keeping them engaged.

Natural Gestures

Another great way to engage with your audience is through natural gestures. Using your hands and arms to gesture can help emphasize points and keep your audience engaged. Just be sure not to go overboard – too much gesturing can be distracting.

Positive Body Language

Your body language is also important when it comes to presentations. If you’re slouching or looking down at your feet, it’s going to show that you’re not confident in what you’re saying.

On the other hand, if you’re standing up straight and making strong eye contact, it’s going to give off a positive impression. So, be aware of your body language and try to project confidence through it.

The Use Of Visual Aids

Visual aids can be a great way to engage your audience and make your points more clear. Using slides, charts, and graphs can help illustrate your ideas and make them easier to understand. Similar to using gestures, just be sure not to overdo it – too many visuals can be overwhelming and confusing.

The Ability To Handle Questions

At some point during your presentation, you’re likely going to get questions from your audience; how you handle those questions can make or break your presentation. If you’re able to answer them confidently and without getting flustered, it’ll show that you know your stuff.

But if you start to get tongue-tied or defensive, it’s going to reflect poorly on you. So, be prepared for questions and try to stay calm when answering them.

An Organized Structure

Another important presentation skill is having a well-organized structure. This means having an introduction, main body, and conclusion to your presentation.

It also means using transitions between sections to help your audience follow along. If your presentation is all over the place, it’s going to be hard for your audience to stay engaged and they’ll quickly tune out.

The Use Of Storytelling

Storytelling is a great way to engage your audience and make your points more memorable. And while it might not seem like a traditional presentation skill, it can be extremely effective. So, if you can find ways to weave stories into your presentation, it’ll go a long way in captivating your audience.

Last but not least, confidence is one of the most important presentation skills you can have. If you’re not confident in what you’re saying, it’s going to show – and your audience is going to pick up on it.

So, even if you’re not feeling 100% sure of yourself, try to project confidence. It’ll make a big difference in how your audience perceives you and your message.

How To Identify & Master Presentation Skills

The good news is that presentation skills are not rocket science. Anyone can develop and master them with the right guidance.

Here’s a 5-step process to help you identify and master presentation skills.

Determine The Purpose Of Your Presentation

Are you trying to inform, persuade, or entertain your audience? Knowing the purpose of your presentation will help you focus on the right content and delivery.

Know Your Audience

Who will be watching or listening to your presentation? What are their needs, wants, and concerns? The better you understand your audience, the more effectively you can address their needs.

Structure Your Content

Organize your thoughts into an introduction, body, and conclusion. The introduction should grab your audience’s attention and set the stage for the rest of your presentation. The body should contain the meat of your argument, and the conclusion should drive home your main points.

Choose Your Delivery Method

Will you be using slides, props, or other visual aids? Will you be speaking extemporaneously or reading from a script? Choose a delivery method that best suits your content and audience.

Practice, Practice, Practice

The only way to become a master presenter is to practice, practice, practice! Experiment with different techniques and find what works best for you. Then keep practicing until it becomes second nature.

Also, consider that the right strengths test can help you understand your presentation skills better – both the strong ones and the ones to get better at. To this extent, the High5test.com strengths test is a great resource.

How To Improve Presentation Skills in The Workplace

The workplace is one of the most important places to hone your presentation skills. After all, in the business world, first impressions are key, and being able to deliver a polished and professional presentation can make all the difference in whether or not you’re successful.

Here are a few tips to help you improve your presentation skills in the workplace:

Preparation Is Key

This may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s worth repeating. When you’re preparing for a presentation, take the time to do your research and gather all of the necessary information. This will help ensure that your presentation is well-organized and flows smoothly.

Be Aware Of Your Body Language

Your body language speaks volumes, so it’s important to be aware of what you’re communicating with your nonverbal cues. Make sure you’re standing up straight, making eye contact, and using gestures appropriately. These small tweaks can make a big difference in how your audience perceives you.

One of the best ways to improve your presentation skills is simply to practice as much as you can. The more you present, the more comfortable you’ll become and the better you’ll be at thinking on your feet and handling questions from the audience.

Seek Feedback

After each presentation, take some time to reflect on what went well and what could be improved. If possible, seek feedback from your colleagues or boss. This will help you learn from your mistakes and continue to improve.

By following these tips, you can start to improve your presentation skills and make a positive impression in the workplace.

How To Highlight Presentation Skills In Resume & Job Interview

Another important skill that is often overlooked is the ability to highlight presentation skills in both a resume and a job interview. This can be the difference between getting the job and not.

When you are applying for a job, your resume is often the first thing that potential employers will look at. It is important to make sure that your resume includes any relevant presentation skills that you may have.

You can do this by including any experience you have in public speaking, leading presentations, or teaching courses. If you do not have any experience in these areas, consider listing any other relevant skills that could transfer over into presenting, such as customer service or sales experience.

In addition to your resume, it is also important to be able to highlight your presentation skills during a job interview. This is often done through behavioral interviewing, where you will be asked to describe specific examples of times when you have presented in the past. It is important to be prepared for this type of question and to have a few examples ready to go.

When you are highlighting your presentation skills, it is important to focus on any successes that you have had. This could be anything from getting positive feedback from an audience to successfully teaching a new course.

No matter what the specific example is, it is important to focus on how you were able to positively impact the situation. This will show potential employers that you can effectively present information and that you are someone they would want on their team.

Bonus Tip: How to Improve Presentation Skills in School As a Student

School students often have to present in front of their classmates and teachers. This can be a daunting experience, especially if you don’t feel confident in your abilities. However, there are some things you can do to improve your presentation skills while you’re still in school.

Join A Club Or Organization That Requires Presentations

This will force you to get up in front of people regularly and hone your skills. If no club or organization at your school requires presentations, start one!

Give speeches in front of the mirror.

Practicing in front of a mirror can help you identify any nervous habits you have (like fidgeting or pacing) and correct them before you have to give a real speech.

Use Note Cards Instead Of A Script

Reading from a script can make you sound robotic and unauthentic. Note cards will help you stay on track without sounding like you’re reciting memorized lines.

Record Yourself Giving A Presentation

Then, watch the recording back to see how you can improve. This exercise can be painful, but it’s one of the best ways to identify your weaknesses and work on them.

Find A Mentor

Ask a teacher or another adult you trust to give you feedback on your presentations. They can offer helpful tips and criticism that will help you improve.

By following these tips, you’ll be well on your way to becoming a great presenter in no time!

Presentation Skills FAQs

What are the 7 presentation skills.

The 7 presentation skills are:

• Eye contact

What are the 4 types of presentation skills?

The 4 types of presentation skills are:

• Verbal communication
• Visual aids
• Non-verbal communication
• Listening skills

What is the rule of presentation?

The rule of presentation is to always keep the audience in mind. This means knowing who your audience is, what they want to hear, and how to best deliver your message so that they will listen and be able to understand it.

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• Open access
• Published: 09 April 2024

Voices of conference attendees : how should future hybrid conferences be designed?

• Sai Sreenidhi Ram 1 , 2 ,
• Daniel Stricker 1 ,
• Carine Pannetier 3 ,
• Nathalie Tabin 3 ,
• Richard W Costello 4 ,
• Daiana Stolz 5 , 6 ,
• Kevin W Eva 7 &
• Sören Huwendiek 1  

BMC Medical Education volume  24 , Article number:  393 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

126 Accesses

1 Altmetric

Metrics details

With conference attendees having expressed preference for hybrid meeting formats (containing both in-person and virtual components), organisers are challenged to find the best combination of events for academic meetings. Better understanding what attendees prioritise in a hybrid conference should allow better planning and need fulfilment.

An online survey with closed and open-ended questions was distributed to registrants of an international virtual conference. Responses were then submitted to descriptive statistical analysis and directed content analysis.

823 surveys (Response Rate = 4.9%) were received. Of the 813 who expressed a preference, 56.9% ( N  = 463) desired hybrid conference formats in the future, 32.0% ( N  = 260) preferred in-person conferences and 11.1% ( N  = 90) preferred virtual conferences. Presuming a hybrid meeting could be adopted, 67.4% (461/684) preferred that virtual sessions take place both during the in-person conference and be spread throughout the year. To optimise in-person components of hybrid conferences, recommendations received from 503 respondents included: prioritising clinical skills sessions (26.2%, N  = 132), live international expert presentations and discussions (15.7%, N  = 79) and interaction between delegates (13.5%, N  = 68). To optimise virtual components, recommendations received from 486 respondents included: prioritising a live streaming platform with international experts’ presentations and discussions (24.3%, N  = 118), clinical case discussions (19.8%, N  = 96) and clinical update sessions (10.1%, N  = 49).

Conclusions

Attendees envision hybrid conferences in which organisers can enable the vital interaction between individuals during an in-person component (e.g., networking, viewing and improving clinical skills) while accessing virtual content at their convenience (e.g., online expert presentations with latest advancements, clinical case discussions and debates). Having accessible virtual sessions throughout the year, as well as live streaming during the in-person component of hybrid conferences, allows for opportunity to prolong learning beyond the conference days.

Peer Review reports

In-person meetings have long offered important opportunities for professional development for clinicians and academics alike by promoting research, education, and career advancement. Among other things, such events have enabled networking and the introduction of new technologies and techniques into practice [ 1 ]. Research has suggested that in-person dialogue and debate through lectures, poster sessions and roundtable discussions are keys to conference success [ 2 ]. In addition, meeting other researchers, maintaining networks [ 3 , 4 ], and discovering career opportunities [ 5 , 6 ], are all important to attendees. Further, collaborative exchange between multidisciplinary members has demonstrated positive impacts on collaborative outcomes [ 7 ]. Such activity, however, is not without cost as meetings require effort (e.g., travel to conference venues, disruption to work and personal lives, and complex logistical planning for parents or caregivers) as well as money to cover registration, airfare, mileage, accommodation, and meals [ 8 ].

Those challenges amplified in response to the pandemic, as many conferences were forced online [ 9 ], requiring organisers and delegates alike to adapt to virtual environments. Research conducted on the transition has shown that motivations for conference attendance differ between in-person and virtual conferences, demanding a re-think about delegate priorities [ 10 ]. Virtual conference experiences have generally been reported as satisfactory [ 11 ] due to their being far more accessible, inclusive, and sustainable compared to in-person formats [ 12 ]. They appear to enable new learning [ 11 ] and allow populations with fewer resources to participate, thereby supporting equity, diversity and inclusion efforts [ 12 ]. Attending from the comfort of one’s own home or office [ 6 ] fosters a comfortable environment, but creating opportunities for interacting, networking and collaborating in a virtual format is challenging as chat boxes are a pale alternative to face-to-face discussion [ 13 ]. However, overwhelming digital-meeting fatigue, impersonal interactions and challenging time zones [ 14 ] also present challenges. Furthermore, online experiences have not been able to substitute for the hands-on learning via direct interaction with senior colleagues [ 15 ]. This is particularly notable within medical skills training (e.g., surgical procedures) [ 16 ]. That said, the benefits listed along with reduction in environmental impact [ 17 ] all suggest that virtual interactions are here to stay rather than reflecting a transitory adjustment.

In compromise, as the pandemic has subsided, hybrid conferences have become more prominent [ 18 ] and pressure on organisers to maintain hybrid formats is mounting as the majority of attendees now express preference for hybrid conferences [ 19 ]. That is, it has been shown that the majority of conference delegates prefer hybrid formats [ 15 ] because such meetings combine the advantages of in-person and virtual meetings [ 20 ]. For example, in-person conferences allow better interactivity with other delegates, better networking opportunities and better concentration whereas virtual conference formats were preferred for being time saving, cheaper and safer during the pandemic while also being more globally inclusive [ 10 ]. Hence, the combination of both allows for catering to diverse attendees’ needs.

As with anything, however, there are many ways in which a seemingly straightforward idea like “hybrid conferences” can be operationalised, requiring greater clarity regarding what organisers should prioritise as they continue to seek innovative ways to strengthen learning, global accessibility, and flexibility [ 10 ]. In other words, although there is a preference for hybrid formats, it is to date unclear how to optimise hybrid conferences to meet attendees’ needs. Suggestions from recent literature include that hybrid conferences may take the form of local in-person hubs, with a small number of participants meeting in parallel with online and virtual activities that include lectures to wider audiences [ 20 ]. While social interactions are more efficient during in-person gatherings, enabling virtual interaction with a wider array of individuals is more challenging. Ideas to address this include creating opportunities for social interactions through a virtual portal in which speakers can engage in discussions with delegates [ 20 ]. How to manage such innovations in the context of large-scale conferences, however, as well as what attendees would prioritise has not yet been published.

To address this gap, we surveyed conference delegates regarding how future hybrid conferences should be designed. Our main research question was “What are conference attendees’ preferences for in-person versus virtual components of hybrid conferences?” We triangulate on this question by asking meeting attendees about their preferences both in general terms and by inquiring about what could have been improved in the context of a large-scale virtual conference. By conducting this research, we aimed to provide insights into ways to increase the overall utility of academic conferences by providing guidance regarding what should be prioritised by meeting organisers.

This study was conducted in conjunction with the second virtual European Respiratory Society (ERS) annual congress, which took place in September 2021. 16,888 international delegates registered for the meeting, which occurred face-to-face until 2019. The conference attracts individuals with an interest in respiratory medicine from a variety of disciplines and career stages, coming together to present and discuss the latest scientific and clinical advances in the field. Traditionally, the conference included expert presentations with structured sessions for knowledge, clinical skills and networking. When the COVID-19 pandemic emerged, the ERS congress moved to a virtual format for its September 2020 meeting. That virtual conference included a live online streaming platform that was structured similar to news channels (i.e., attendees could stream a variety of “programmes”) that included presentations delivered by the world’s respiratory experts to enable discussion of the latest scientific and clinical advances across the field of respiratory medicine. In addition to providing knowledge updates, clinical debates and case discussions were encouraged. In addition, attendees were given the opportunity to virtually present their own local, regional and international research with experts chairing each session.

Study design

A survey was developed and distributed that was comprised of 2 parts: (1) overall motivations regarding why participants attend conferences; and (2) preferences for conference format and optimisation. The first part is largely a replication of previous work while the second is the primary focus of this study ( see Appendix 1 ). Both sections were designed using AMEE Guide No. 87 [ 21 ] with full details on how the guidelines were followed outlined in the Appendix of Ram et al. [ 19 ].

In particular, six main steps were followed. Summarised with particular attention to their relevance for this study, they consisted of the following:

(1) Literature review and alignment with previous research: Using prior research and the study results reported by Ram et al. [ 19 ], we knew that the majority of respondents would like to see hybrid conferences in the future and we were able to make adjustments to prioritise focus on what particular components of virtual and in-person conferences would be considered optimal by attendees.

(2) Interviews to understand how others conceptualise the concept: SR had previously conducted semi-structured interviews with thirteen ERS stakeholders who had extensive conference attendance experience [ 19 ]. They were asked what they believed motivates conference attendance. A theme extracted from that work pertained to convenience, so we added questions focussed on barriers to in-person attendance.

(3) Findings synthesis and (4) Question development: Our previous success with the online survey format and inclusion of both closed questions and free text questions led us to adopt a similar structure for this work. Mandatory closed questions included aspects of virtual and in-person conferences that make them successful, delegate satisfaction with a virtual conference, and format preferences. Open free-text questions were used to gain a more descriptive account of respondents’ viewpoints regarding what should be prioritised during in-person and virtual components of hybrid conferences, improvements that could be made to virtual only conferences and barriers to in-person conference attendance. Demographic variables included age, gender, country, workplace and professional role.

(5) Expert validation: ERS educational chair members were invited to review the survey and refine any items they felt required clarification.

(6) Pilot testing: Three cognitive interviews were conducted with conference attendees from various disciplines and who were at different stages of their career. This was done to check whether all the items were understandable and to assess how long the survey would take to complete online.

Data collection

SurveyMonkey ( https://www.surveymonkey.com ) was used to obtain informed consent from participants, and to execute the study. 16,888 attendees were invited to participate, via email, after the conference. Invitations included a brief description of the study, and a link to the survey with consent form included. Two reminder emails were sent over the course of a month with an incentive to win a free registration to the ERS Congress 2022. After gaining informed consent from participants, measures were taken to ensure confidentiality and anonymity of the data and by removing any identifying information from participant responses.

Data analysis

Closed questions were summarised through descriptive statistics and open free-text questions were analysed using directed content analysis [ 22 ]. The latter involved extracting keywords from the literature review that informed stage 1 of survey development. They predominantly fell into two categories: in-person attendance challenges and virtual conference challenges. Namely, for in-person attendance challenges, cost , conference registration , travel effort , language difficulties , time commitment , and accommodation were all issues that were used to define the focus of any given comment; for virtual conference challenges, internet connection , virtual networking , and time zones were known to be key issues. These served as a starting point with additional codes being added as the analytic process continued whenever a substantive issue was raised that could not be coded using one or more of these key words. That is, any text that could not be categorised with the initial coding scheme was used to develop a new code that was then added to the code book.

Chi-squared analyses were conducted to compare the distribution of responses when participants were asked to comment on in-person versus virtual components of hybrid conferences.

823 attendees (Response Rate = 4.9%) completed the survey. 40.5% ( N  = 333) reported being male, 39.9% ( N  = 329) reported being female, 0.4% ( N  = 3) preferred not to say and 19.2% ( N  = 158) did not answer. Age was normally distributed with a peak in the 41–45-years-old range ( Appendix 2 ). The modal workplace (39.3%, N  = 261) was a university hospital ( Appendix 3 ). 75.0% ( N  = 617) had attended the previous ERS virtual congress in 2020. 27.8% ( N  = 229) of participants had never attended an ERS congress (i.e., either a past in-person congress or the virtual ERS Congress in 2020).

From a total of 665 attendees who indicated their geographic location, 56.8% were from Europe ( N  = 378), 26.3% were from Asia ( N  = 175), 6.2% were from Africa ( N  = 41), 4.5% were from South America ( N  = 30), 4.2% were from North America ( N  = 28), and 2.0% were from Oceania ( N  = 13). While no demographics are available for all of the 2021 ERS congress attendees, these proportions compare well to those of a previous conference [ 19 ].

Conference preferences

Consistent with our previous work, the majority − 56.9% (463/813) - of respondents claimed they would prefer conferences to use a hybrid format in the future. 32.0% (260/813) preferred in-person meetings and 11.1% (90/813) preferred virtual formats alone. Barriers to attendance at in-person conferences were primarily cost related (reflecting 74.0% (361/488) of the reasons given for difficulty attending in-person). 21.5% (105/488) of the barriers expressed related to travel challenges (including the time required) and a small minority mentioned other things such as difficulty getting out of clinical duties and language barriers.

Optimising in-person components of hybrid conferences

503 free-text responses were received to the question: “We are thinking of moving to Hybrid conferences (combination of virtual and in-person components) for the future. What would you like to see in the in-person component?” In descending order of prevalence, 132 (26.2%) indicated a desire for clinical skills sessions, 79 (15.7%) wanted experts’ presentations and discussions, and 68 (13.5%) mentioned opportunities for interaction between all members (e.g., attendees, speakers, patients). Full details of the direct content analysis codes and their frequencies for in-person components of hybrid conferences are included in Table  1 . 21.9% of participants (180/823) selected a preference for the in-person component to be held over Friday-Saturday-Sunday , closely followed by a preference for Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday , which was chosen by 20.1% (165/823) of participants, and Thursday-Friday-Saturday , which was chosen by 19.8% (163/823) of participants.

Optimising virtual components of hybrid conferences

When respondents were asked to reflect on their preferences for the virtual components of hybrid conferences, 67.4% (461/684) indicated desiring virtual sessions both during the in-person congress and spread throughout the year. 18.0% (123/684) preferred virtual sessions only during the in-person event and 14.6% (100/684) preferred virtual sessions throughout the year rather than during the in-person event.

486 free-text responses were received to the question: “We are thinking of moving to Hybrid conferences (combination of virtual and in-person components) for the future. What would you like to see in the virtual component?” In descending order of preference, 118 (24.3%) indicated a desire for live streaming of experts’ presentations and discussions; 96 (19.8%) wanted virtual clinical case discussions; and 49 (10.1%) mentioned knowledge update sessions. Full details of the direct content analysis codes and their frequencies for virtual components of hybrid conferences are included in Table  1 .

Chi-squared analyses conducted on codes that are applicable to both in-person and virtual conference components showed that the preference for “Clinical skills sessions” was mentioned a greater proportion of the time in the context of in-person components whereas “Clinical case discussions” and “Poster and oral presentation sessions” was mentioned a greater proportion of the time in the context of virtual components of hybrid conferences.

Means of improving a large-scale virtual conference

In addition to asking attendees for their preferences for the virtual and in-person component of hybrid conferences in general terms, we also asked attendees “What improvements would you suggest for this year’s virtual congress?” as a means of understanding how to improve virtual components of conferences. 58.6% ( N  = 482) of respondents were highly satisfied (assigned 6 or 7 on a 7-point scale) with the 2021 ERS virtual congress. The factors that drove that success were dominantly “quality of speakers and presenters” (as indicated by 67.8% ( N  = 558) of respondents), the “relevance of topics/content of sessions” (65.1%; N  = 536), and “interactivity within sessions and audience participation” (38.5%; N  = 317).

361 attendees commented on improvements they would prioritise. They primarily focussed on greater interaction between members in the virtual platform (23.3%, N  = 84), technical improvements (22.4%, N  = 81) and increased variation of topics (14.4%, N  = 52). Table  2 demonstrates direct content analysis codes and their frequencies outlining ways of improving a large-scale virtual conference.

Our respondents indicated that the majority of them would prefer future meetings to take place in a hybrid format, with virtual sessions spread throughout the year in addition to during the congress itself. In doing so, they identified aspects of conferences they would prioritise for both in-person and virtual components. For in-person components of hybrid conferences, respondents recommended prioritising increasing the number of clinical skills sessions and live plenaries of experts’ presentations (e.g., latest scientific advancements, clinical debates and case discussions and, opportunities for interaction between delegates). For virtual components of hybrid conferences, respondents similarly recommended prioritising live streaming of experts’ presentations, but they also suggested increasing the overall number of clinical case discussions and facilitating opportunities for virtual discussions with experts. Suggested improvements for a large-scale virtual conference include prioritising both interaction between participants (attendees, speakers, patients) and technical improvements. Cost remains a major barrier for in-person conference attendance in addition to the challenges associated with travel.

As organisers strive to offer conferences that enable learning, global accessibility, and flexibility, the preference of candidates to have virtual components take place during the meeting and throughout the year takes on great importance. The literature, however, suggests that segregating the community of people with interest in a subject area into those who attend traditional in-person conferences and those who attend virtual meetings should be avoided, for fear of creating subgroups rather than taking proper advantage of the full community’s inherent ability to broaden the conference’s diversity and strengthen social networks [ 23 ]. This highlights a need to focus on continuing with hybrid formats with the now improved clarity of what aspects should be included in the respective in-person and virtual components.

While cost will inevitably prevent some people from attending in-person conferences [ 24 ], delegates’ desires for hybrid meetings reinforces the inequity of holding meetings that are purely in-person; incorporation of virtual components during hybrid meetings might help to enable greater interaction between those with more and those with fewer resources.

Focussing more granularly, respondents suggested that practicing live clinical skills should be prioritised for the in-person component of hybrid conferences (26.2% compared to 4.5% for the virtual component of hybrid conferences), in addition to networking. The former could include use of bronchoscopes and practice of novel surgical incisions in a simulated setting to broaden skill development. Conferences that can provide such in-person live clinical skills sessions, with experts facilitating, appear likely to attract attendees by offering direct learning they can translate back to their local setting. Recent literature suggests that more virtual reality–based technology may be used to improve the use of hands-on workshops after virtual sessions to reinforce the concepts learned in lectures and during live operative demonstrations [ 15 ]. Whether or not that can be made as effective as learning during in-person meetings remains to be seen given that face-to-face meetings allow participants additional benefits of listening to information while observing the speaker’s body language, facial expressions, and gestures (i.e., cues that are often difficult to detect virtually, but improve the ability of people to communicate effectively [ 25 ]).

That said, our findings suggest that clinical case discussions are more valued as part of the virtual component of the hybrid conferences compared to the in-person component (19.8% compared to 4.8%), thus supporting the idea that knowledge (as opposed to skill development) should be the focus when conducting virtual sessions. Consistent with that observation is that poster and oral presentation sessions were more frequently mentioned for inclusion in the virtual component of hybrid conferences. Such may be preferred by attendees in a virtual setting because they create the opportunity to present one’s findings to support continuous professional development through improving presentation skills and acquiring mandatory CPD points. They also grant the opportunity for learning from other presentations within the designated session, perhaps from the convenience of home. It is important to keep in mind, however, that previous research has reported that it should not be assumed that conference goers are a homogenous group; rather, subgroups of attendees and their different motivations for attendance likely need taken into account [ 19 ].

With respect to the large-scale nature of the conference focused upon in this study, it is noteworthy that the results show that participants envisioned the quality of speakers/presenters and relevance of topics/content of sessions to be fundamental determinants of their satisfaction with virtual conferences. Those findings are similar to those shared by Rubinger et al. [ 6 ] in their discussion of how to maximise virtual meetings and conferences following a review of conference best practices (i.e., they drew particular attention to speaker quality). Attracting high quality speakers may be more feasible in a large-scale virtual conference because conference organisers usually require a budget to cover travel costs for those who are invited to in-person conferences; the finances freed up might be used to source the best experts within a field. To ensure they meet the needs of attendees, Rubinger et al. stress the importance of ensuring that speakers have appropriate support documents and template presentations that take into account what participants should take away from the presentations [ 6 ]. Our own prior research comparing virtual conferences with past in-person conferences [ 10 ] suggested that participants would like the opportunity for knowledge gain from conferences to extend beyond that of the conference days, effectively lengthening the meeting by providing preparatory and follow-up resources. For conference organisers, pre-reading material, take-away messages in a summary document or virtual multiple-choice questions to test knowledge before and after the conference may be beneficial for attendees by lengthening the timespan in which they engage in learning.

In any case, a dominant issue for respondents in this study was the importance of greater interaction between all members in the virtual platform and the need for technical improvements. This highlights that networking is a main priority for attendees even in virtual conferences although they would prioritise in-person networking opportunities when hybrid formats are used. When conferences must be run entirely online, virtual networking opportunities may be particularly important for younger members of the community (e.g., students who may not have access to the financial means to travel to large-scale international conferences but are able to join online).

Strengths, limitations and future research

Strengths of this study include its large-scale survey design and utilising an international and multidisciplinary population that was forced to grapple with questions of conference priorities (the focus of the research) as a result of the constantly changing circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic. Conducting this study after the second ERS virtual conference, that is, created considerable opportunity to gather experience-informed guidance for conference organisers who now need to determine how to proceed with meetings in the future. Through investigation of delegate preferences and barriers faced, we were able to identify inequities inherent in offering in-person formats alone. This information will help conference organisers increase the utility of their meetings for all attendees.

The limitations associated with our study include a low response rate (4.9%) despite the use of multiple follow-up reminders and a lottery incentive, as suggested by [ 26 ]. Concern deriving from that fact is lessened to a degree by the sample size being large and the demographics being similar to what is expected from the conference delegate population. Selection bias may still exist, however, given that, for example, respondents with greater technical prowess may have been more readily able to fill out the survey. More generally, the decision to recruit from the delegate list of a virtual meeting means that we are missing the perspectives of those who did not attend the conference because they do not value the learning/interaction that is on offer through virtual meetings. It is noteworthy, however, that only 11% of respondents expressed a preference for virtual meetings alone, suggesting that participants were not simply those who were particularly supportive of the format in which the ERS took place. Unfortunately, the conference is unable to provide demographics for the full set of delegates, making it impossible to judge the representativeness of our sample but we would note that the gender and geographic distribution are similar to that of previous years [ 19 ].

Future research should include investigation into what specific sessions attendees would like to see within in-person and virtual components of hybrid conferences (e.g., online flipped-classrooms, live simulation multi-disciplinary team sessions to tackle respiratory emergencies) as well as how structured virtual socialising is perceived by attendees and/or supervisors, experts and mentors.

Our study has given light to conference organisers regarding how future hybrid conferences might best meet the preferences and priorities of attendees. Such conferences would ideally include (a) an in-person component focussed on live clinical skills sessions and networking and (b) a virtual component with sessions, throughout the year, focussing on speakers who are experts in their field and able to deliver good online teaching and learning on a variety of topics. By targeting this balance in a hybrid conference, organisers can enable the vital interaction between individuals during the in-person component (e.g., networking, viewing and improving on clinical skills) while enabling them to access virtual content at their convenience.

Data availability

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on request.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the participants of this study and the European Respiratory Society ( https://www.ersnet.org ) for funding this study as part of a PhD research project.

SRs PhD is sponsored by the ERS; however, it was made sure that the study was designed and supervised by SH and KE who were all not affiliated with the ERS.

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Institute for Medical Education, Department for Assessment and Evaluation, University of Bern, Mittelstrasse 43, 3012, Bern, Switzerland

Sai Sreenidhi Ram, Daniel Stricker & Sören Huwendiek

Graduate School for Health Sciences (GHS), University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

Sai Sreenidhi Ram

European Respiratory Society, Lausanne, Switzerland

Carine Pannetier & Nathalie Tabin

Department of Respiratory Medicine, Royal College of Surgeons, Dublin, Ireland

Richard W Costello

The Clinics of Respiratory Medicine and Pulmonary Cell Research, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland

Daiana Stolz

Clinic of Respiratory Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany

Centre for Health Education Scholarship, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

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Contributions

The study was part of a PhD project and hence included the PhD candidate SR, and her supervisors SH and KE. The overall research group included members of the ERS; both within the educational council, DSto and RC and employed members of the educational event organisational team, CP and NT. The collective research team including all authors contributed to the conception, study design and refinement of survey and interview guide. SR conducted all interviews with NT and CP supporting the distribution of the survey and data anonymisation. Data analysis and interpretation was conducted by SR and SH with additional interpretation support from KE. SR, SH and KE drafted the preliminary article with RC, DSto, DStr, CP and NT contributing critical revisions. All authors approved the version to be published and were in agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

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Correspondence to Sai Sreenidhi Ram .

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SRs PhD is sponsored by the ERS. No other authors have no competing interests.

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The study was deemed exempt from ethical review after application to the Regional Ethics Committee of the Canton of Bern (member of the Swiss Association of Research Ethics Committees, Switzerland) BASEC-Nr: Req-2021-00833 (Acquired: 22/07/2021). To gain informed consent, all attendees of the ERS Congress 2021 were e-mailed with a brief description of the study which contained a link to the survey. It was explicitly stated that by filling in the survey, participants were providing consent for their answers to be used as part of a PhD research project. Measures were taken to ensure confidentiality and anonymity of all data by removing any identifying information from participant responses.

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Ram, S.S., Stricker, D., Pannetier, C. et al. Voices of conference attendees : how should future hybrid conferences be designed?. BMC Med Educ 24 , 393 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05351-z

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05351-z

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