Presenting at Webinars: What Speakers Should Know

Being asked to present at a webinar can be an exciting and nerve-wracking experience. Whether it’s your first time presenting to an audience, or you’re a seasoned in-person speaker, presenting virtually can introduce challenges. However, with the right support system and knowledge, your presentation can go off without a hitch! 

There are many different types of skills required for effective public speaking. While most of these translate over to virtual presentations, you still need to take the time to fine-tune your presentation and prepare yourself to address an audience in an online format. To help you excel during your presentation, we’ve compiled three must-knows for all virtual webinar speakers: 

1. You Need an Engaging Presentation 
2. Different Skills Are Needed for Virtual Presentations
3. Support Can Improve Your Presentation

Giving your audience an excellent event experience will make you a memorable presenter while growing your speaking confidence and skills. Whether you’re an experienced presenter or a first-timer, this guide will help you make the most of your webinar speaking experience. 

1. You Need an Engaging Presentation 

Creating an effective presentation doesn’t start when you open up PowerPoint. It begins with the initial planning and storyboarding stages that ensure your final product reflects your purpose and engages your audience. Be Brilliant Presentation Group recommends creating your presentation in four big stages to ensure a high-quality final product:

1. Plan your presentation. During this stage, you want to identify your presenting strengths and weaknesses, determine the best organizational structure for your presentation, and outline the opening, middle, and ending sections of your presentation.
2. Storyboard your presentation. Before you open your laptop, you should “storyboard” your presentation by sketching out each of your slides on paper. The purpose of this is not to design your entire slideshow, but to lay out the main points of each slide and your key visuals. 
3. Design your actual presentation. Now it’s time to start creating your final product. If you’ve planned and storyboarded effectively, this step will be all about filling in the details and fine-tuning the visual and design elements
4. Practice, practice, practice. Lastly, to ensure that your presentation keeps your audience’s attention, you need to practice effectively. Even with the best slide deck, your delivery will be the final key to wowing your audience. 

When planned with care and attention to the details that are important for virtual presentations, speakers of any level can create a presentation that will make any virtual event more engaging. 

2. Different Skills Are Needed for Virtual Presentations

While many of the same presentation skills will apply, even seasoned public speakers will have to make adjustments to how they present to accommodate a virtual audience. 

It can often be much more difficult to maintain the attention of a virtual audience, making it even more crucial that your presentation is extremely well organized and that your delivery is well-practiced. The way you structure your virtual presentation will also largely depend on whether it’s a live or asynchronous presentation. Even if your audience is live during the time of your presentation, if the webinar will be recorded and distributed afterward, you’ll have to consider how you can make your speech more evergreen. 

Just like with an in-person presentation, you want to have expertly-designed slides that feature interesting visuals. However, it’s even more important that your visuals are engaging and even interactive when presenting virtually. Consider using video and animated graphics or other visuals to keep your audience members’ eyes glued to the screen.

Additionally, you want to ensure that your delivery is well-timed to keep your audience engaged. With the ability to speed up videos online, most audience members won’t have the patience for a very slow-paced presentation. But, of course, you also don’t want to speed through your talking points. Practicing with a coach beforehand can help you perfect your delivery speed, expressions, and gestures so that your audience never feels the urge to check their email or texts during your presentation. 

3. Support Can Improve Your Presentation

Sometimes, deferring to a speaker training expert is the most effective way to prepare for a speaking engagement. Depending on your experience level and the type of presentation you’re giving, you may want a lot of support or just a little expert feedback. 

Some of the benefits of getting support are that you can: 

• Plan more efficiently. While anyone can benefit from strategic organization and planning, if you’re new to public speaking or virtual presentations, support during the planning process can help you quickly grow your skills and understanding of public speaking principles. 
• Get an outside perspective. A friend may be able to weigh in on some aspects of your presentation, but an expert support specialist will provide you with more focus and useful feedback to help you excel. 
• Hand off your presentation design. Sometimes, all you need is someone to lighten your load by managing the design aspects of your presentation in PowerPoint. Whether this is all you need or something you want alongside additional support, you can definitely find a presentation expert who can help with this. 
• Practice in the most effective way for your strengths and weaknesses. Everyone has a unique presenting style and personal strengths and weaknesses. The way you practice should reflect this. However, you likely don’t know how to practice according to your strengths and weaknesses. Working with an expert can ensure that you are prepared to wow your audience. 

Overall, whether you need extensive support or help polishing your delivery, getting support before your presentation will help you better prepare for your virtual speaking event. Extra preparation will only help, not hurt! 

Presenting at an online event like a webinar can be a new experience, even for many experienced speakers, and it presents unique challenges. To make your presentation as memorable as possible, take the time to customize your preparation and final presentation for a virtual audience to ensure a successful webinar. 

About the Author:

Patti Schutte is the CEO, Founder, and Principal Coach of Be Brilliant Presentation Group. Be Brilliant Presentation Group’s coaching system results in speakers moving from fear and avoidance to confidence and purpose. 

Her diverse presentation experiences include classroom and corporate training, growing and motivating an independent sales force, developing a team of national presenters, speaking at conferences, and transforming the presentation skill of professionals. She believes everyone deserves the advantage of brilliant presentation and speaking skills.