5 Lessons To Be Learned From Social Media When Presenting on Video
Today's post is a guest post from Maurice De Castro, an expert in designing presentation's to connect with audiences. We're excited to share his thoughts with you, as after all, all videos are presentations!I’ve written many articles extolling the virtues of high impact presenting and public speaking and in some I’ve even gone on record as promoting it as the most important skill in business today.
Its significance is only paralleled by its difficulty.
In a world where there are so many demands placed on our attention where we are awash with information it’s becoming increasingly difficult to both get an audience’s attention in a presentation and keep it.
It can be extremely challenging for many professionals to capture and hold their audience’s attention in a ‘live’ setting when they are physically in the room with them. Imagine how arduous it can be when you don’t actually have them sitting in front of you and you are presenting through video.
The good news is when you know what to do and how to do it things become a great deal easier for both you and your audience. What’s even better is that the lessons are right in front of us and most of us are using them every day in the form of social media.
1. Facebook first
Let’s face it, that’s exactly what many people are doing whilst they are watching a video presentation. With no one else watching what a great opportunity it is to check out what’s happening on their Facebook page or on their emails.
Many of the reasons that Facebook is so powerfully addictive are the very same lessons to be learned for presenting on video.
- We are curious
We want to know what’s going on and to be certain that we aren’t missing out on anything. For video presenter’s we have to craft and deliver a presentation which will make our audience instantly curious about what’s coming next. We have moments to do that and so we have to open our presentation with a bang.
Forget the niceties and formalities and make yourself stand out from the crowd.
Ask thought provoking question
Share a shocking fact or statistic
Tell them a short, relevant and powerful story
Make them smile
Once you have aroused their curiosity say something that will leave them in no doubt that everything you have to say from now on will be of great benefit or value to them.
If it isn’t them why are you making the video anyway?
Make them a promise you can comfortably keep.
- We want to connect
Seriously, that’s why we are all here and it’s the one thing that we crave more than anything else; to feel a sense of connection.
Help your audience to connect with you by letting them into your world, be prepared to be a little vulnerable and show them who you really are.
Ditch the corporate spokesperson and have a conversation instead.
- We are bored
It sounds terrible I know but I believe that the reason so many of us tune into Facebook so frequently throughout the day is because we are bored; even at work.
If you are presenting on video and your audience feel the slightest hint that they are likely to soon be bored, they’ve gone. Make certain that everything you plan to say, show and do is personal to them, interesting and of value.
Ask yourself why you would stay tuned in if you were them.
2. Think like a tweet
I’ve often said that I believe that far too many professionals present their ideas to others as though they are comedians.
That doesn’t mean that I think that they are funny.
A comedian gets paid to tell a story and save the punchline for the end.
Many business presenters tell their story saving their key message (their punchline) for the very end.
It works with a joke but it’s painful in a presentation.
If you can’t clearly, concisely and richly deliver your message in the form of a tweet then I don’t believe you have a powerful one to share.
Craft your message with absolute clarity in less than 140 characters and make certain you give it to your audience right at the start, especially in a video.
3. Get them LinkedInEveryone now and then a proud father will post a picture of their son's first Karate lesson. You may even stumble across the odd holiday sunset in Bali but for the most part its business.
As I'm writing this article I switched over to LinkedIn for a moment and the first 3 articles on my timeline are:
How can you tell if someone is going to be a good team fit?
Scrap your work from home policy
A rough guide to leading organisational change
In other words once you've found your 'tweet' aka your message stay completely focused on it.
To craft your video presentation ask yourself 3 very important questions.
So what? In other words what's so important in this video to keep someone watching it for 20 minutes?
As a result of watching it what tangible difference will it make to their personal or professional lives?
The moment I finish speaking how do I want those watching it to feel?
4. Take PinterestPinterest has become enormously successful as a virtual pin board through the use of images.
For some considerable time now much research has suggested that most of us are visual learners.
In other words we like to see things in pictures.
With over 100 million monthly active users Pinterest has more than demonstrated that human beings like images.
Next time you're presenting on video do yourself and your audience a favour and use relevant, colourful and compelling images to help animate your words.
5. Google+ or just plus
My choice and reference to Google plus centres around two aspects:
Firstly, the idea of crafting and delivering video presentations which are so compelling that you naturally create your own circles. Where the content is so rich and well delivered that people watching it will go out of their way to share it.
My second point is to focus on the word plus.
In essence that revolves around creating a video that dares to be different, that stands out from the crowd and most of all makes a difference.
Of course following these 5 tips will go a very long way in helping you with a 'live' presentation too.
The fact is these suggestions they are extremely video friendly. In fact, check out this great example from Microsoft.
After all each of these social media sites have built enormously successful empires without even using the spoken word.
Imagine the impact you could have if you applied these powerful principles in your next video.
Its significance is only paralleled by its difficulty.
In a world where there are so many demands placed on our attention where we are awash with information it’s becoming increasingly difficult to both get an audience’s attention in a presentation and keep it.
It can be extremely challenging for many professionals to capture and hold their audience’s attention in a ‘live’ setting when they are physically in the room with them. Imagine how arduous it can be when you don’t actually have them sitting in front of you and you are presenting through video.
The good news is when you know what to do and how to do it things become a great deal easier for both you and your audience. What’s even better is that the lessons are right in front of us and most of us are using them every day in the form of social media.
1. Facebook first
Let’s face it, that’s exactly what many people are doing whilst they are watching a video presentation. With no one else watching what a great opportunity it is to check out what’s happening on their Facebook page or on their emails.
Many of the reasons that Facebook is so powerfully addictive are the very same lessons to be learned for presenting on video.
- We are curious
We want to know what’s going on and to be certain that we aren’t missing out on anything. For video presenter’s we have to craft and deliver a presentation which will make our audience instantly curious about what’s coming next. We have moments to do that and so we have to open our presentation with a bang.
Forget the niceties and formalities and make yourself stand out from the crowd.
Ask thought provoking question
Share a shocking fact or statistic
Tell them a short, relevant and powerful story
Make them smile
Once you have aroused their curiosity say something that will leave them in no doubt that everything you have to say from now on will be of great benefit or value to them.
If it isn’t them why are you making the video anyway?
Make them a promise you can comfortably keep.
- We want to connect
Seriously, that’s why we are all here and it’s the one thing that we crave more than anything else; to feel a sense of connection.
Help your audience to connect with you by letting them into your world, be prepared to be a little vulnerable and show them who you really are.
Ditch the corporate spokesperson and have a conversation instead.
- We are bored
It sounds terrible I know but I believe that the reason so many of us tune into Facebook so frequently throughout the day is because we are bored; even at work.
If you are presenting on video and your audience feel the slightest hint that they are likely to soon be bored, they’ve gone. Make certain that everything you plan to say, show and do is personal to them, interesting and of value.
Ask yourself why you would stay tuned in if you were them.
2. Think like a tweet
I’ve often said that I believe that far too many professionals present their ideas to others as though they are comedians.
That doesn’t mean that I think that they are funny.
A comedian gets paid to tell a story and save the punchline for the end.
Many business presenters tell their story saving their key message (their punchline) for the very end.
It works with a joke but it’s painful in a presentation.
If you can’t clearly, concisely and richly deliver your message in the form of a tweet then I don’t believe you have a powerful one to share.
Craft your message with absolute clarity in less than 140 characters and make certain you give it to your audience right at the start, especially in a video.
3. Get them LinkedInEveryone now and then a proud father will post a picture of their son's first Karate lesson. You may even stumble across the odd holiday sunset in Bali but for the most part its business.
As I'm writing this article I switched over to LinkedIn for a moment and the first 3 articles on my timeline are:
How can you tell if someone is going to be a good team fit?
Scrap your work from home policy
A rough guide to leading organisational change
In other words once you've found your 'tweet' aka your message stay completely focused on it.
To craft your video presentation ask yourself 3 very important questions.
So what? In other words what's so important in this video to keep someone watching it for 20 minutes?
As a result of watching it what tangible difference will it make to their personal or professional lives?
The moment I finish speaking how do I want those watching it to feel?
4. Take PinterestPinterest has become enormously successful as a virtual pin board through the use of images.
For some considerable time now much research has suggested that most of us are visual learners.
In other words we like to see things in pictures.
With over 100 million monthly active users Pinterest has more than demonstrated that human beings like images.
Next time you're presenting on video do yourself and your audience a favour and use relevant, colourful and compelling images to help animate your words.
5. Google+ or just plus
My choice and reference to Google plus centres around two aspects:
Firstly, the idea of crafting and delivering video presentations which are so compelling that you naturally create your own circles. Where the content is so rich and well delivered that people watching it will go out of their way to share it.
My second point is to focus on the word plus.
In essence that revolves around creating a video that dares to be different, that stands out from the crowd and most of all makes a difference.
Of course following these 5 tips will go a very long way in helping you with a 'live' presentation too.
The fact is these suggestions they are extremely video friendly. In fact, check out this great example from Microsoft.
After all each of these social media sites have built enormously successful empires without even using the spoken word.
Imagine the impact you could have if you applied these powerful principles in your next video.