16: Developing Presentations in a Social Media Environment 16–12
Section 3: Delivering a Presentation
Learning Objective 3: Discuss five steps for delivering a successful presentation.
Delivering a successful presentation starts well before you begin to speak; the first step is choosing the
best presentation method.
Choosing Your Presentation Method
Depending on the circumstance of your presentation, you can choose from a variety of delivery
methods:
• Memorizing. Except for extremely short speeches, trying to memorize an entire presentation
is not a good idea. However, memorizing a quotation, an opening paragraph, and some strong
finishing remarks can bolster your confidence and strengthen your delivery.
• Reading. On rare occasions, you may need to read your speech from a prepared script.
Regardless of which delivery mode you use, be sure that you’re thoroughly familiar with your
subject. Knowing what you’re talking about is the best way to build your self-confidence.
Practicing Your Delivery
Practice is key to the success of presentations, no matter how much experience you have. Practice
helps ensure that you appear polished and confident, and it lets you verify the operation of visuals and
equipment.
A day or two before you’re ready to step on stage for an important talk, consider the following
questions to make sure you and your presentation are ready:
• Can you present your material naturally, without reading your slides?
• Is the equipment working, and do you know how to work it?
• Could you still make a compelling and complete presentation if you experience an equipment
failure and have to proceed without using your slides at all?
• Is your timing on track?
• Can you easily pronounce all the words you plan to use?
• Have you anticipated likely questions and objections?
16: Developing Presentations in a Social Media Environment 16–13
With experience, you’ll get a feel for how much practice is enough in any given situation. Practicing
helps keep you on track, helps you maintain a conversational tone with your audience, and boosts
your confidence and composure.
Preparing To Speak
In addition to knowing your material thoroughly and practicing your delivery, make sure that your
location is ready, you have everything you’ll need, and you’re prepared to address audiences from
other cultures, if that applies.
Whenever you can:
• Scout the location for your presentation in advance.
• Check the seating arrangement to make sure it’s appropriate for your needs and the
audience’s.
Overcoming Anxiety
Recognize that nervousness is an indication that you care about your audience, your topic, and the
occasion. These techniques will help you convert anxiety into positive energy:
• Put yourself into a positive frame of mind.
• Stop worrying about being perfect.
• Prepare more material than necessary.
16: Developing Presentations in a Social Media Environment 16–14
• Maintain eye contact with friendly audience members. Eye contact not only makes you
appear sincere, confident, and trustworthy but can give you positive feedback as well.
• Keep going. Things usually get better as you move along, with each successful minute, giving
you more and more confidence.
Preparation is the best antidote for anxiety; it gives you confidence that you know your material and
that you can recover from any glitches you might encounter.
Confident delivery starts as soon as you become the focus of attention, before you even begin to
speak, so don’t rush. As you approach the front of the room:
• Walk with confidence.
• Breathe deeply.
• Stand up straight.
If you are nervous, this slow, controlled beginning will help you establish rapport and appear more
confident. Make sure your nonverbal signals also send a message of confidence. Use silence instead
Handling Questions Responsively
Handing questions from the audience is often one of the most important aspects of a presentation.
Depending on the circumstances, you may answer questions as they come up, or you may have a
designated question-and-answer (Q&A) period near the end of your presentation.
Answering questions gives you a chance to:
16: Developing Presentations in a Social Media Environment 16–15
Don’t assume that you can handle whatever comes up without some preparation. Learn enough about
your audience members to get an idea of their concerns and think through answers to potential
questions.
When people ask questions, take the following steps to maximize the opportunity:
If you are asked a difficult or complex question, avoid the temptation to sidestep it:
• If you don’t know the answer, don’t pretend that you do. Instead, offer to get a complete
answer as soon as possible.
If a question puts you on the hot seat, respond honestly but keep your cool:
• Look the person in the eye.
• Answer the question as well as you can.
• Keep your emotions under control.
16: Developing Presentations in a Social Media Environment 16–16
Section 4: Incorporating Technology in Your Presentation
Learning Objective 4: Explain the growing importance of the backchannel in presentations, and list six
steps for giving effective presentations online.
Like most business communication, presentations have become high-tech affairs in many companies.
Two such aspects you will most likely encounter on the job are the backchannel and online presentations.
Embracing the Backchannel
Many business presentations these days involve more than just the spoken conversation between the
speaker and the audience.
By using Twitter and other digital media, audience members often carry on their own parallel
communication during a presentation via the backchannel.
The backchannel presents both risks and rewards for business presenters. On the negative side,
listeners can:
On the plus side, listeners who are excited about your message can:
Follow these tips to make the backchannel work for you:
• Integrate social media into the presentation process.
• Monitor and ask for feedback.
Giving Presentations Online
Online presentations have become a routine matter in business communication.
They are conducted via internal groupware, virtual meeting systems, or webcast systems designed
specifically for online presentations. Therefore, your audience members will view your presentations
on a variety of devices.
16: Developing Presentations in a Social Media Environment 16–17
The benefits of online presentations are considerable, by providing the opportunity to:
However, the challenges for a presenter can be significant due to the added layer of technology
between you and your audience.
To ensure successful online presentations, keep the following advice in mind:
• Consider sending preview study materials ahead of time.
• Rehearse using the system live, if at all possible.
• Keep your presentation as simple as possible.
• Ask for feedback frequently. Visual feedback is limited, making it hard to know when
audience members are confused, and many online viewers are reluctant to call attention to
HIGHLIGHT BOX: COMMUNICATING ACROSS CULTURES
Making Sure Your Message Doesn’t Get Lost in Translation
1. Remind students of the importance of avoiding the use of colloquialisms when speaking with those
from another culture.
2. Suggested two-word/one-word verbs include:
HIGHLIGHT BOX: THE ART OF PROFESSIONALISM
Recovering from Disasters
1. This question has no simple answer, unfortunately. If the presentation is about to fall apart, it’s
Copyright © 2018 Bovée and Thill LLC
2. Anyone with experience giving presentations knows that sooner or later, something is bound to go
wrong. (Overhead transparencies may be clumsy and old school, but they never just disappear or
COMMUNICATION CHALLENGES AT BARNETT INTERNATIONAL
Individual Challenge
As students construct outlines for a compelling story with a distinct beginning, middle, and end, they
should pay attention to both the professional and personal sides of Calhoun’s journey. Lots of
entrepreneurs have created successful companies based on products they felt were missing in the market,
but not all of them are able to build companies that so accurately reflect their values and personalities.
Team Challenge
The Red Ants Pants website (http://redantspants.com/) has lots of photographs that reflect the company’s
vibe while showing its products and customers in action.
TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE
16.1. Presentations offer important opportunities to put all your communication skills on display,
including research, planning, writing, visual design, and interpersonal and nonverbal
16.3. Linear presentations follow a predetermined sequence from start to finish, whereas nonlinear
16.4. A planning outline helps with the creation process in the same way that outlines help with every
Copyright © 2018 Bovée and Thill LLC
16.11. During a presentation, entertainment can add value in several ways. First, it helps to relieve
opening “jitters” by relaxing the audience and presenter alike. Humor and levity of an appropriate
16.12. If you have specifically-worded phrases that you want to share with the audience, using exactly
that wording, it wouldn’t hurt to write these out and have them on hand on note cards, at least as a
16.13. Being relaxed and being careless are two entirely different things. The amount of preparation,
16.14. If a presenter does not embrace the backchannel, there will likely be unpleasant consequences.
Audience members are capable of and ready to (if disgruntled) take on a role of their own. They
can research the presenter’s claims the instant they’re made. This could bring up information that
PRACTICE YOUR SKILLS
16.15. Message 16.A
This exercise guides students through the analysis of an actual speech. Students may point out,
for example, that the introduction should preview the main points and that the close should restate
16: Developing Presentations in a Social Media Environment 16–21
Students looking for transitional phrases may find some hard to detect. This is an opportunity to
discuss whether subtlety is a wise choice in a speech and how transitions contribute to the
effectiveness of a speech. Ask students whether they think speakers should make direct statements
such as, “Now that we’ve explored such–and-such, let us move on to the next point.” Also suggest
that students compare notes to determine whether all have listed the same main points and
supporting points. What does this comparison suggest about the importance of transitions?
16.16. Message 16.B
Students were asked to listen to this podcast and identify at least two techniques the speaker uses
16.17. After students write their introductions and pair off to critique them, you might suggest they
rewrite and present them to the class. Does the introduction use humor, storytelling, statistics, or
visual aids to gain attention? Does it preview the speech and build the speaker’s credibility?
16.18 through 16.43. Students can use this list to help prepare a presentation on a topic that interests
16.44. In preparing their presentations, students should incorporate what they have learned regarding
preparing a presentation. They will need to clearly outline their presentation by including an
introduction, body, and close. They should have a preview that summarizes the main idea of their
presentation, identifies major supporting points, and indicates the order in which they’ll develop
