Easy tips for better conference presentations

Whether you are presenting at a conference for the first time or this is something that you’ve done hundreds of times before, it is natural to want to make a great impression. It is often the most engaging and interesting presentations that are the most memorable and enjoyable for the audience – but what can you do to ensure that yours is as good as it can be?

Here we take a look at some great tips for giving better conference presentations. These small changes can make a big difference to your talk.

Get interactive

Many presenters at conferences make the mistake of talking too much, and this is one thing that you should avoid. You might argue that the whole point of your presentation is to talk – but actually the point is to get your argument and message across, and you won’t do that if you lose the attention of your audience.

Remember that in the middle of a conference full of people talking, attention spans will naturally shorten. This means you need to do something to ensure you keep their focus. A great way to do this is to use an audience response system (ARS) so that your presentation is interactive. This could include polling or quizzing your audience – any kind of interactivity is a good thing.

Keep practicing

You need to really know your presentation inside out. It is the case that you can’t practice your presentation enough. If you want to come across as confident and engaging for the duration of your talk, you can’t be fumbling over words or over-filling sentences with hesitations.

Even if you think you know your presentation pretty well – keep practicing. It might seem like a lot of effort but it will pay off.

Don’t overload slides

It is also essential that you should avoid overloading your presentation slides. Your slides really do not need to feature your whole text. They are much more useful when they are filled with supplementary information or statistics. You can even add in funny images and GIFs, which will be appreciated far more than a huge block of text that no-one is going to read.