Each and every day people around the world watch hundreds of millions of hours of video on YouTube. It’s a staggering statistic. One hour of new videos are uploaded to YouTube every second. People simply love video. It’s likely that the people watching your presentation love video, too. Are you capturing their attention?
I became a strong advocate of using videos in presentations when I studied Steve Jobs’ presentation style. As early as 1984 Jobs incorporated videos into product launches and keynote presentations. Whether it was the newest Apple commercial, customer testimonials or designer Jony Ive explaining how a product was made, Jobs used videos masterfully.
Steve Jobs was considered one of the most charismatic corporate communicators of our time and he used videos in nearly every presentation. If you want to impress your audience, incorporate videos into your PowerPoint, Apple Keynote or Prezi presentation. Here’s how.
1. Commit to using videos in nearly every presentation.
Just 4% of professionals “always” use videos in presentations. That means 96% of presenters are missing out on an effective and persuasive presentation tool. Many people simply don’t understand the sway video can have on an audience.
Dr. Richard Mayer teaches educational psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He’s an expert in multimedia learning. Mayer once told me, “It is better to present information in words, pictures and video.” In Mayer’s experiments, people exposed to “multi-sensory environments”—pictures and videos—always had much more accurate recall of the information presented, hours, days and even years later. When the brain is allowed to build two mental representations of an explanation—a verbal model and a visual model—the connections are that much stronger.
2. Keep video clips short
Use videos to enhance a lecture or a sales pitch, not to replace it. People don’t have long attention spans. Although the average video length on YouTube is four minutes and 20 seconds, few people stay to watch. But one study found that 75% of viewers will stick with a video that’s 60 seconds in length. Thirty to sixty seconds is ideal for a presentation video. It adds a multi-sensory element to the presentation, breaks it up nicely, and keeps people interested in the content.
3. Insert the video into the presentation
It doesn’t look professional (or seamless) to minimize a presentation and to bring up a separate video on your computer. I was an early adopter of Apple Keynote software because it easily allowed me to insert video directly into a slide and to play it without leaving the presentation. Today all the major programs make it easy, including PowerPoint. If you don’t know how to insert video in PowerPoint, these tutorials will walk you through the easy steps.
4. Favor authentic videos
With the exception of highly stylized music videos or television programs, people on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube favor more casual, authentic, and realistic videos. In a sales, marketing or business presentation, your audience might prefer video of an authentic 30-second interaction with a real customer over a highly produced corporate commercial.
Adam Braun is the founder of Pencils of Promise, a nonprofit that has built 380 schools in underdeveloped parts of the world. When Braun was scouting out the first school location in Laos, he pulled out a mobile phone and recorded a short conversation with three little girls who had wandered over, unsupervised and with no classroom to attend. Those girls were the organization’s first students.
Today when Braun delivers his fundraising presentations, he inserts the 40-second video in his PowerPoint. He says it’s always a hit. “There’s an authenticity to the footage because it’s not super high quality and it’s in the first person. You feel as though you are witnessing a special moment. The video is less than one minute long and it’s a powerful element for drawing out an emotional response,” Braun told me.
Videos enhance nearly every presentation. They’ll make your next pitch stand out.