how to make your presentations interactive

• Presentations
• Most Recent
• Infographics
• Data Visualizations
• Forms and Surveys
• Video & Animation
• Case Studies
• Design for Business
• Digital Marketing
• Design Inspiration
• Visual Thinking
• Product Updates
• Visme Webinars
• Artificial Intelligence

20 Ways to Create an Interactive Presentation That Stands Out

Written by: Chloe West

When you’re putting together a presentation, you want it to be engaging. Whether you’re presenting it live or embedding it on your website, you want to keep your audience entertained.

The best way to do that is by creating an interactive presentation that holds audience's attention and even allows them to participate.

Sitting in a boring presentation where the speaker simply talks at their audience can make eyes glaze over and cause the speaker to lose their listener.

Adding interactivity to your presentation is the best way to spice up your speech, engage your audience and stand out from other presenters. The best part is, it doesn't have to be more work!

With these 17 ways to create an interactive presentation, you’ll be sure to grab your audience’s attention and keep them entertained throughout the entire presentation.

Here’s a short selection of 10 easy-to-edit job presentation templates you can edit, share and download with Visme. View more templates below:

• An interactive presentation is a dynamic type of presentation that supports increased engagement and interactions with the audience.
• Try integrating media techniques like video clips, audio narratives, music, and interactive quizzes.
• Involve your audience by polling them, encouraging movement, getting them to ask questions, letting them lead the direction, and asking them to share with a hashtag for social interactions.
• Play with non-linear and other creative transitions, animations, and even props.
• Include animated data visualizations and stories to enrich the interactivity in your presentation.

Before we jump right in, let’s explain what an interactive presentation is

What is an Interactive Presentation

An interactive presentation is a dynamic type of presentation that supports increased engagement and interactions with the audience. It involves using interactive elements to create a more personal and engaging experience with your audience.

Whether you’re doing a live or pre-recorded presentation, there are various interactive tools for presentations and interactive ways to present information. It could be as simple as embedding audio and video in your presentation. Or, it could take the form of using charts, surveys, navigation, transitions, hyperlinks, hotspots and other elements in your presentation.

If you ever wondered how to make a presentation interactive, this is your opportunity to try out a variety of techniques. Implement one or two ideas first and see how it fits with your brand guidelines.

Remember that any interactivity you add to your presentations must make sense with the rest of the content, otherwise, it could be distracting instead of engaging.

If using Monday.com , create and share your presentation and collaborate easily inside your workspace using our account integration. Also, take advantage of our wide range of integrations to boost productivity.

Here’s how to make an interactive presentation

1 Start your interactive presentation with an icebreaker.

The first step is creating a rapport with your audience. You can do this by helping them to get to know you a little better and get to know each other as well.

The way you go about this will depend on the size of your audience. If you’re presenting in a small group setting or workshop, you can easily go around the room and have everyone share a bit about themselves.

However, if you’re speaking with a crowd or at a conference with a larger audience, it would make more sense to simply have your audience introduce themselves to a neighbor or two before you dive in.

You could ask the audience to answer a question out loud or to their neighbor, ask them to prepare a few questions about your topic or a list of things they'd like to learn or put together a fun icebreaker game.

Visualize the icebreaker question on a slide using text animations. Your Visme editor offers a variety of eye-catching movements for your textual content. Choose from options like typewriter, rise up, ease in and more.

Here are just a few icebreaker games you can choose from for your next interactive presentation. Also, read this article on how to start your presentation and 12 ways to keep your audience hooked.

2 Use video clips in a slide or two.

You don’t have to be the only one talking during your presentation. Videos are one of the most effective interactive learning tools for presentations.

Embed a video into one of your slides to switch up your audience’s focus. With Visme's animated presentation software , you can easily embed a YouTube or Vimeo video into your slide for your audience to view on their own or for you to feature during your interactive slideshow. Here's how you can do that.

Simply go to the Media tab in the left sidebar of your Visme editor and click on Insert Video.

Add a video from anywhere, your computer or your phone. Download the Visme iOS app and add videos to your presentations in minutes. Edit your presentation effectively by resizing, placing into shapes, trimming with the timeline editor and selecting playback settings.

Sharing video clips can be a great way to further emphasize your argument by bringing in other opinions or even to just add a break for your audience during longer presentations. You can also share a video of yourself demonstrating how to do something.

If you’re embedding the slideshow on your website, adding a video to a slide or two allows your audience to take a break from reading and jump into a different way of consuming your content.

There are so many other types of content you can embed into your presentation with Visme as well, like quizzes, surveys and more!

3 Add Animated Icons

Create interactive slides with unique touches like animated icons. Using vibrant design elements like beautiful icons that move your audience’s attention to the areas you want them to notice. Also, using icons instead of text offers white space for the viewer to feel a sense of balance on the slide.

Here’s how to do it:

Choose a slide where you’d like to add an animated icon. In terms of options, you have two; use the native, animated icons or animate static icons with the animation tools.

On the left toolbar, click on graphics and select the icons you want. The animated ones are at the bottom next to the animated illustrations, customizable characters, avatars and 3D arrows.

Place the icon and click on the Animate button on the top right. Select the style of animation and duration for each icon and ensure everything is balanced and not overdone. You might not need more than one or two repetitions for each icon.

4 Add Pop-Ups with Extra Info

A great way to inspire your audience to interact with your presentation is to add popups with extra info using hotspots. This is how you can do it.

Click on a text, shape or object you’d like to add a popup and hotspot to and click on the Actions button on the top right. Add an action and choose the function; it can be another slide, or a popup that you can design from scratch.

Add visual hotspots as markers for the audience to know there is something special going on.

Watch this video to learn how to create interactive pop up effects in Visme

Make your popups more interesting by using AI-generated graphics prompted by your visual brand guidelines.

5 Make your interactive presentation non-linear.

Not every slideshow you create needs to simply flow from slide to slide. Get creative with it and see if it makes sense to add in a non-linear flow. So, what exactly is a non-linear presentation?

When you create links between slides so you can click around different areas of your presentation, you’re putting together a non-linear presentation.

You’re not going from slide one to slide two to slide three, and so on. Instead, you’re creating an interactive way for you and your audience to jump around your presentation.

You can create a table of contents page and link it to the slides that start each section. If your presentation is embedded, this allows your audience to navigate in their own preferred order.

It also gives your presentation a different edge from the regular flow, and can keep readers intrigued about what’s coming next.

Hey executives! Looking to cut design costs?

• Spend less time on presentations and more time strategizing
• Ensure your brand looks and feels visually consistent across all your organization's documents
• Impress clients and stakeholders with boardroom ready presentations

Sign up. It’s free.

6 Have a Q&A session.

Want to get the audience involved? Ask them questions! This is a must-have interactive tool for presentations.

It’s also one of the most popular ideas for interactive presentations.

While many presenters always plan to host a Q&A at the end of their presentation for the audience to ask questions , it can go both ways.

You can easily put together a few slides where you’re asking your audience questions throughout your presentation. Before you move onto the next section, ask your listeners what they think first.

Don’t make it intimidating, like a pop quiz. A simple “What do you think about..?” can work wonders.

You can also take several breaks throughout your presentation to give the audience a chance to ask you questions. If you had them write down a few things they want to make sure they learn from you at the beginning of the presentation, this is a great time to ask.

7 Create an interactive quiz.

Take it a step further and actually create a quiz in your interactive presentation. This engaging presentation idea works well for both live and embedded presentations.

In Visme, you can link elements in your slide together so that one element appears when another element is clicked. So ask your audience a question, gather their answers and then click to expose the correct answer.

If you’re embedding the presentation, make sure you include a button that says something like “Click to see if you’re right!” so that your viewer knows they’re able to interact with the slide.

While you don’t necessarily want to use this as a way to sneakily check if your audience has been paying attention, it can be a fun way to gauge expertise in your audience and understand how much information you should cover.

Struggling to generate content for your quiz? Use Visme’s AI writer to generate high-quality content for your presentation, quiz or other aspects of your presentation.

8 Add a Flipbook Effect

Add another dose of interactivity for the audience’s viewing experience by using Visme’s flipbook effect . Mixing a physical “flipping” action with a digital document or presentation makes it easy for the audience to swipe from slide to slide. It’ll also create an emotional association with magazines and books, these are generally positive associations.

All presentations made with Visme, when shared via a live Visme link, will be viewable as a flipbook. You can turn the option and off in the sharing settings.

Flipbook isn’t just available for presentations, any document and even whiteboard can be shared as a digital flipbook. All your audience has to do is swipe and the slides/pages will flip like a magazine.

Like Kimberly Barrett, Wellbeing Consultant at Ameritas says, “You can do everything within Visme, you don’t have to use multiple tools to get something completed and delivered. Everything is just in one place, and it’s all-encompassing.”

9 Bring props along to your interactive presentation.

Want to really grab your audience’s attention? Want to really grab your audience’s attention? Props are also useful interactive tools for presentations.

Bringing props along with you to help you demonstrate and visually tell your story can be a great way to keep people watching and listening.

The first thing to keep in mind when deciding which props to help convey your story is that they need to be relevant. Don’t bring random props that are interesting but are a huge stretch to fit in with your content.

Instead, bring props that intrigue your audience but still make sense with the information you’re sharing.

Here’s a great example of a prop that definitely secured the audience’s full attention. Bill Gates released a swarm of live mosquitos into the audience during his TED Talk on Mosquitos, Malaria and Education.

Sanitary? Maybe not. Attention getting? You bet.

10 Tell your audience a story.

One of the most interactive ways to present information is storytelling. It’s an undeniable strategy for drawing your audience into your presentation. Even if your topic covers a lot of data, facts and statistics, your speech doesn’t have to be dry.

There are many different ways to incorporate stories into your presentation effectively.

A good story helps to create an immersive effect , bringing your audience in and making them feel like they’re a part of your presentation. It taps into their emotions, causing them to hang onto your words, making your presentation much more memorable in the long run.

Here's a great example of a presentation filled with data that still hooks the audience in with great storytelling.

11 Add an audio narrative.

You don’t have to speak the entire time. Much like videos, audio and sounds are helpful interactive tools for presentations.

In fact, sometimes, it can be nice to give yourself a break and pre-record some of your slides. This is also a great strategy to include for embedded presentations.

With Visme’s presentation maker , you are able to upload audio files that play in your slideshow. You can also record your own audio directly inside the Visme editor.

Some Visme users even create pre-recorded webinars using the software.

Adding audio into an embedded slideshow can be a great way to create an interactive presentation experience. You can add music or sound effects to slides to make them stand out. Or you can add an audio narrative that talks about your slide content in even more depth than your slide design allows.

12 Poll your audience.

Looking for other activities for presentations to keep your audience engaged?  Get your audience involved in your presentation by polling them. Give them multiple choice options to see which one is the most popular. Ask them to raise hands.

You can even use a polling software and have your audience input their answers via their smartphone and watch the results come in live on your screen.

Have fun with it. Ask your audience about their favorite football team, which ice cream flavor they’d choose between vanilla and chocolate and more. This is a great way to do icebreakers, as well as break up your presentation with some mindless fun.

Of course, you can also have polls relevant to your presentation topic . Consider all of the ways you can use a poll in your next interactive presentation.

13  Include discussion questions.

If you’re still searching for how to make a PowerPoint presentation interactive , consider adding discussion questions in. You can break your audience into small groups to discuss your questions or simply have them discuss it briefly with their neighbor.

Seminar presentations are the perfect setting for discussion questions, and this can also work well if you’re putting on a presentation to a group of people that are sitting at tables.

All you need to do is put a discussion question up on the board and ask your audience to go around their table with their answers. This creates an interactive environment with very little effort on your part.

14  Encourage movement in your audience.

Another way to create an interactive environment is by encouraging movement within your audience.

This can be as simple as taking an intermission during a longer presentation or giving your audience a few minutes to get up and stretch their legs.

Other methods include asking your audience yes or no questions and having them answer by raising their hands or standing up, having your audience move to different seats and introduce themselves to new neighbors, or calling people up on stage to participate.

15  Get your audience asking questions.

As I mentioned earlier in this post, having your audience take time at the beginning of your presentation to list out their questions on your topic is a great idea.

It’s a proven technique to make your PowerPoint presentation interactive.  

Several times throughout your presentation, take a pause to ask for audience questions. Allow your listeners to ask questions about the slides you’ve already covered and the ones that may be coming up.

Getting your audience to ask questions, and letting them know that there will be several opportunities to do so, is a great way to ensure they continue to pay attention, take notes and write down potential questions throughout. Make sure you set some time aside at the end of your presentation for the rest of their questions.

Worried that people won’t speak up? Have a few allies in your audience that start the question asking.

No, this is not sneaky or shady. Sometimes people need a bit of encouragement, and asking a friend that you know will be attending to start off the questions can help.

16  Let your audience decide the direction.

Again, your presentation doesn’t have to be linear. You can have a slide setup with your four (or however many you have) main points and ask your audience which one they want to hear first, second and so on.

This makes it fun for the audience because they actually get to participate in the order of your presentation.

While this means you need to be extra prepared for whatever route your presentation may take, it creates a fun, interactive setting that your audience will remember for years to come.

Try a unique presentation structure like this, or one of these seven that your audience is sure to love.

17  Share a hashtag for social interaction.

If you’re speaking at an event that already has a branded hashtag, encourage your audience to tweet about your presentation using that hashtag. If you’re hosting a standalone presentation, come up with your own hashtag for your audience to use.

Your viewers can then share tidbits from your presentation as well as use the hashtag to ask questions for you to monitor and answer throughout.

Not only does this help to get your audience engaged, but it even helps to get their audiences engaged, learning about who you are, and interested in your content and presentation.

18  Add music to your interactive presentation slides.

Create a different ambiance by adding background music to your slides. Or get your audience pumped for new and exciting information with a pop song transition.

With Visme, you can easily upload audio files, including music clips, so that you can create an interactive experience for your audience. Your entire presentation doesn’t have to be centered around the sound of your voice. Adding in a music clip is a great way to refocus your audience on your content.

Plus, it can be a nice added touch in an embedded presentation.

19  Play with transitions and animations.

There are so many different ways to animate your slides , each more exciting than the next. You can animate different elements in your slides, like in the animated slideshow below.

You can also create seamless transitions between your slides by having each one of your elements slide in on its own, like in the presentation example below. To see the effect in action, click on the arrow buttons to transition to the next slide.

You can even add animated graphs and charts to your presentation slides . Animation should be fun, and toying with different ideas can make for great interactivity.

This is actually a big mistake that most people make while creating a presentation. If you're using a software like PowerPoint, you might go overboard with all the different options you have. Use a tool like Visme so you can access handpicked, proven animation and transition styles, like in the examples shown above.

Just remember to be consistent with your animations and transitions. Keep the same look and feel throughout your entire presentation rather than a million different animation types.

20  Use data visualization in your interactive presentation.

Last, but certainly not least, use data visualization to showcase your information in an engaging and easy-to-understand format.

Whether you’re a data expert, business leader, or trainer, interactive data visualization is a staple. It’s one of the most interactive ways to present information, especially when detailing with figures and statistics.

Data visualization can be anything from a chart or graph that visually represent actual statistics and numbers to an icon or graphic that represents words.

Visualizing your points can be a great way to argue your point, and creating charts, graphs and other figures helps your audience digest your content that much quicker and more easily.

Plus, Visme offers tons of ways to visualize data within your presentation slides.

Choose from one of our many data visualization tools, such as animated charts , graphs and data widgets, to start visualizing your facts and figures in a more interactive format.

Once you’re satisfied with how your presentation looks, you can share it online using a live link or download it in multiple formats, such as PPTX, PDF, PNG, JPG, MP4 and more. Also you track the performance (views, unique visits, average time spent and completion) of your presentation using Visme analytics .

Interactive Presentation FAQs

Q. why is interactive content better.

Interactive content is more effective because it grabs attention and provides an engaging and immersive experience that keeps users hooked on your content. This attribute makes it a brilliant strategy for educating your audience, increasing audience participation, boosting engagement, and improving their overall learning experience.

According to a DemandGen report , up to 90% of marketers admit interactive is effective in educating buyers but other marketers use it for lead generation (58%), brand awareness (57%) and conversion (49%).

Q. What Is the Best Interactive Presentation Tool?

There are many interactive presentation tools out there. Visme is the best, primarily because it offers a user-friendly interface, a full suite of animation and interactive tools, multiple customization options, an extensive library of templates and much more.

You can access animated 2D and 3D graphics, icons, illustrations and special effects that level up your visual content, as well as, animated enter and exit effects for your text and other design elements.

In addition, you can create a clickable menu or interactive table of contents, ink slides, pages or content blocks to objects on your canvas, and create hover effects or clickable pop-ups that reveal information when users take action.

The best part? Visme offers a variety of interactive templates and ready-to-use graphics that help users save time and create high-quality presentations quickly.

Q. Which Type of Presentation Is the Most Interactive?

When it comes to interactive presentations, there are several types that can be quite effective.

However, one of the most interactive types of presentations is one that involves the audience directly in the discussion and allows for active participation.

This can be achieved by using interactive presentation examples and tools such as videos, live polls, quizzes, Q&A sessions, interactive games, and hands-on activities. By engaging with the audience in this way, presenters can create a memorable experience that not only educates but also entertains.

Q. How Do I Make My Presentation Stand Out?

There are a few things you can do to make your presentation more memorable.

First, make sure you have a clear and concise message you want to convey to your audience. This will help you stay focused and avoid getting sidetracked during your presentation.

Next, use visuals like images, graphs, and charts to help illustrate your points and break up the text on your slides. Don't be afraid to use humor or storytelling as well, as these can help engage your audience and make your presentation more entertaining.

You can also consider adding animations and interactive elements to your presentation to make it more engaging. Interactive elements, such as quizzes, polls, or games, can also help to engage your audience and keep them interested in what you're saying.

Animations can be used to bring your content to life and keep your audience's attention focused on the screen. For example, you can use animations to highlight key points or to add a bit of visual interest to your slides.

Finally, practice your delivery and try to be confident and enthusiastic when you present. This will help you connect with your audience and leave a lasting impression.

Q. Are Interactive Presentations More Effective?

Interactive presentations can be more effective than traditional, static presentations because they engage the audience and keep them interested throughout the presentation.

When the audience is hooked, they become active learners and are more likely to retain the information.

Interactive presentations can also be customized to meet the specific needs and interests of the audience, making them more relevant and impactful.

Overall, incorporating interactive elements into a presentation can help to create a more dynamic and memorable experience for the audience.

Q. Is an Interactive Presentation Different From Interactive Content?

Yes, an interactive presentation and interactive content are two different things.

An interactive presentation is a type of content that conveys engaging information using multimedia elements such as videos, animations, and interactive graphics.

Interactive content, on the other hand, refers to any type of content—such as quizzes, polls, and games— that requires your audience to participate actively rather than consume the information passively.

Visme: The Best Interactive Presentation Software

Before now, you were probably thinking of which option you would use for your presentation to engage your audience. Before now, you were probably thinking of which option you will use for your presentation to engage your audience or how to make presentations interactive.

So now you see? Your next presentation doesn’t have to be boring and predictable. By incorporating these interactive presentation ideas , your audience will be engaged and their phones will be put away.

Visme offers tons of interactivity features right within our presentation software . Sign up and create a free account today to start trying them out. And if you’re running out of time, you can use AI Presentation Maker to create your presentation in minutes.

Beyond presentations, Visme offers an all-in-one visual content platform. You can use our infinite online whiteboard to brainstorm and build projects collaboratively, create marketing material, schedule and share it on social media right from the editor and access tons of design elements and tools to create powerful content.

Try Visme today and make your presentations interactive, entertaining and successful.

Did you find this article helpful? Which interactive presentation feature is your favorite? Let us know your thoughts and questions in the comments below!

Put together beautiful interactive presentations with Visme

Trusted by leading brands

Recommended content for you:

Create Stunning Content!

Design visual brand experiences for your business whether you are a seasoned designer or a total novice.

About the Author

Chloe West is the content marketing manager at Visme. Her experience in digital marketing includes everything from social media, blogging, email marketing to graphic design, strategy creation and implementation, and more. During her spare time, she enjoys exploring her home city of Charleston with her son.

Improve your practice.

Enhance your soft skills with a range of award-winning courses.

18 Ways to Make Your Presentation More Interactive

November 10, 2017 - Dom Barnard

It can be difficult to hold your audience’s attention for the entire presentation. According to a  Prezi study , half of the respondents said they did something other than listen during a co-worker’s presentation, including:

• Sending a text message (28%)
• Checking emails (27%)
• Falling asleep (17%)

An interactive presentation is much more likely to keep your audience’s attention and build rapport with them, and there are a few simple ways to achieve this, from live polling to asking questions throughout.

This article explores several different effective strategies for making the audience feel fully involved in your presentation and keeping your audience’s eyes away from their smartphones.

Why involve your audience?

Listening to a presentation for any length of time can be a difficult process. If you don’t involve the audience, they’ll start to play with their phones, talk to colleagues and generally lose track of what you are saying. Once this happens and you start seeing that the audience would rather be somewhere else, you’ll start feeling anxious and might try to speed up the presentation.

To engage a  large audience  fully, the presentation needs to be energetic, purposeful and staged, as if it is a direct conversation between both you and your audience. That way, they’ll absorb your ideas and insights and they’ll have learnt something in an enjoyable way.

1. Plan from the audience’s perspective

Before you start  writing your presentation , think about these points:

• What are the most interesting parts in my topic?
• How much will the audience know about my topic? What level do I target it at?
• Which members of the audience will most likely be disinterested?
• How can I help them learn and understand my topic?
• What is the size of the audience?

You can do this by researching the event or conference, investigating other speakers at the event and even contacting the organisers to find out more about the demographic.

By asking these questions about your audience and identifying answers, you are starting to think about your audience’s interests and needs. Remember, the aim is to give the impression that your presentation has been planned according to your audience’s specific interests.

2. Use an easy-to-follow structure

When building your presentation, focus on giving it a structure which people can easily follow. Start by introducing the core concepts and goals, then elaborate on the various points in a bit more detail, draw logical conclusions and leave your audience with a clear takeaway message. You want to flow naturally from one part to the next like you are telling a big story chapter by chapter.

3. Get the audience immediately involved

You audience will come to your presentation in a range of different moods. Try using a simple ice-breaker to re-energise them and get them focussed on your presentation.

For example, ask people to stand up and introduce themselves to their neighbours, or have them identify two or three questions they would like to hear addressed during your presentation. By starting with an ice-breaker, you show your audience that your talk will be interactive and require their participation.

4. Ask the audience questions during your presentation

The audience’s attention drops to zero after just 10-15 minutes of your presentation. To get their attention back, take a break from your presentation from time to time and interact with your audience. Ask for their questions and answer them during your presentation. This will help clear up any confusion the audience might have.

When planning your presentation, identify opportunities in your material for your audience to ask questions. If you’re not comfortable breaking the flow of your presentation, mention that you’ll be taking  questions at the end  so the audience can prepare some questions.

Asking rhetorical questions as you move through your presentation involves your audience by stimulating their own thought processes. This technique also helps move between sections of your presentation as it establishes a clear transition from one point to another.

If you’re comfortable with taking questions throughout your presentation, use a tools such as  Slido , which allows your audience to ask questions anonymously at any time, so even shy people can participate in the discussion.

Example of what can go wrong with audience interaction

Audience interaction:

Watch how the presenter tries but initially fails to get the audience to interact with the presentation. Notice how he encourages them to get involved and eventually they do join in.

5. Use storytelling to make it more memorable

Since our early ancestors, stories have always been a huge part of human culture and civilisation. Storytelling is the most universal way to captivate your audience’s attention, no matter where they are from or what they do for a living.

Stories are much more engaging and memorable than lists of facts and figures, but you wouldn’t think so looking at the majority of presentations (particularly academic ones).

People automatically tune in when you  start telling your story  because they want to know what happens next. A popular storytelling technique is when you present the status quo and then reveal an improved path to that end goal.

Think of your presentation as one arching narrative. As we mentioned earlier, give it the proper structure with a clear beginning, middle and end. Introduce conflict and provide a powerful resolution that reinforces your key messages.

6. Use non-linear presentation software

Instead of flipping through slide after slide, you can show the relationships between your ideas and give your audience the “big picture” view of your topic. Try letting your audience drive the presentation by laying out all of your main points, and then let them choose which topics they want to go to. Your audience will get a truly custom presentation based on their interests, which they will appreciate and more easily remember.

Prezi, shown above, is a popular non-linear presentation tool.

7. Add in a short video

Billions of hours of YouTube are consumed each month and advertisers have identified videos as having a high  retention rate  for users. However very few presentations ever use videos to engage with their audience.

Find a short video clip that reinforces your story or explains a concept better than words can. You can either embed the video directly into your presentation software or include a link to an external website. Just make sure you test your method on the day of the presentation and have a backup on a USB just in case you need it.

8. Invite people onto the stage

If you’re preparing a particularly long presentation, consider having other people to come on stage and talk for a bit. This will help you narrate the story and make the whole presentation more interactive.

Steve Jobs never pulled off the entire presentation by himself; he always invited several speakers, including designers, partners, and other executives, to help him introduce their latest product. Of course, this technique should always be arranged with your colleagues in advance.

9. Poll the audience

Polls are similar to quizzes in that they engage the audience during the presentation. Polls encourage participants to think not only about your questions but also about their answers. Moreover, live polls help create mental breaks, so your audience can regain attention and stay focused throughout your presentation.

By including everyone in answering the question, you also create a group experience that leaves the audience feeling like they all have been part your presentation.

10. Use (appropriate) humour

Some of the best speeches and presentations in the world feature plenty of humour. No matter the subject, a great speaker will use natural charisma, humour and language to convey their points and get the crowd excited about what they are saying.

A great example of building rapport with the audience through the use of humour is Barrack Obama talking about the government building Iron Man.

Another example is when  Morgan Spurlock  offers individuals the opportunity to buy the rights to name his TED talk—which he refers to again at the end, where he reveals the title. He peppers the entire presentation with humorous commentary that nonetheless supports his point.

Create relevant jokes or find a way to bring out the humour in your subject, and your audience will be much more engaged and more likely to remember your words.

11. Practice your delivery, again and again

Practicing is the most important part of delivering an interactive presentation. You’ll need to practice where to use live quizzes, when to accept questions, which points to emphasise with body language and many more. There are several options for practicing:

Practice Presentation Skills

Improve your public speaking and presentation skills by practicing them in realistic environments, with automated feedback on performance. Learn More

• In front of a mirror  – great for seeing and improving your body language, however it can be distracting to what you are saying.
• To friends or colleagues  – a useful way to get feedback on your presentation, try and action the feedback straight away to improve on it. You can also give the person some key areas to focus their feedback on if you believe you are weaker in those areas.
• Virtual reality  – practice in realistic  public speaking environments , whether it be in a virtual conference room or boardroom. Receive feedback on your speech with voice analysis technology.

With all three of these, you’ll want to work on your tone of voice, accent, pauses between sentences and facial expressions. The most important thing is to talk slowly and loudly enough to be heard and understood clearly.

A list of the best presentation skills courses you can practice with:

• Presentation Skills Training Courses

12. Try and relate to the audience

Make comparisons to events from everyday life that most people are more than familiar with. By making things look simple, not only will you help your audience get a better understanding of the subject by enabling them to visualize the information more clearly, you will also draw a connection between you.

After all, you are all just regular people with similar experience, you just happen to be performing different roles at the moment.

13. Strong body language (position, posture and gesture)

Non-verbal communication plays a large part in how we construct meaning, so it makes sense to consider how to use it in your presentation. You can make things more interesting for your audience by using  your body language  to enhance what you’re saying.

Body language goes beyond reinforcing your messaging – it’s useful from a biological standpoint. As discussed in her  body language TED talk , Amy Cuddy’s research found that using ‘assertive’ body language released testosterone and reduced cortisol in both men and women, thereby increasing confidence and decreasing stress.

An effective presenter pays close attention to the physical relationship with her/his audience. If you stand hidden behind an overhead projector or stand too far away from your audience, they will not develop a bond with you and this will limit the effectiveness of your presentation.

Your posture will also dictate levels of audience involvement. If you’re too relaxed and sit slumped in a chair to deliver your talk, the audience might drift away. Find a comfortable but purposeful position in relation to your audience and adopt an upright sitting or standing posture that allows for movement and gesture.

Audiences respond well to the physical energy and enthusiasm being conveyed by a presenter, and thus the use of clear and controlled gestures will greatly enhance your presentation. Gestures that are open and reach out to your audience serve to extend your presentation to them and thus help them feel more involved.

Examples of good body language:

• Use hand gestures when delivering key points
• Use calm, deliberate movements when highlighting certain information
• Keep arms and legs uncrossed

14. Maintain eye contact with all sections of the audience

Making eye contact is one of the most  powerful techniques  for involving your audience. If used well, eye contact can serve to make your address much more personal and thus more effective. If eye contact is avoided, the presenter can appear to be nervous and unconvincing.

It is important to share eye contact with all members of a small audience or all sections of a large audience. Avoid making eye contact with just the people you know, taking particular care not to deliver your entire presentation to the person who’s assessing your work. Remember that you will need to involve the whole audience if you are to make an effective presentation.

If you are nervous, eye contact can be very difficult to establish and maintain. Remember that some eye contact is better than none and that you should try to build your confidence over time.

15. Use live quizzes to better understand your audience

Live quizzes are a great way to understanding your audience better get them engaging with the material.

For example, if you’re giving a presentation on autonomous vehicles, you could ask questions such as:

• When do you think autonomous vehicles will become mainstream?
• Are you concerned by safety issues?
• If someone is injured or killed by the car, who is to blame?

These will surely create some interesting results which you, as the presenter, can talk about and discuss.

16. Use physical props if possible

You don’t need to be giving a product demo to use props during your presentation. Props are a great way to help the audience visually picture what you are talking about. While talking through your presentation, you can refer to the prop at certain points to highlight your point or make it clear to the audience.

Kenny Nguyen  does this will in his TEDx talk on ‘The Art of Saying No’. He refers to the “sword of yes” and “shield of no.” Naturally he picks up a sword and shield from the table to help demonstrate his points.

Another great example is when  Jill Bolte Taylor  brings a real human brain on stage during her TED talk to explain to what happened to her when she had a stroke. She touched the audience with this demonstration and left the audience in complete awe.

17. Extend your usual vocal range

Your tone of voice, your volume, and other vocal aspects affect how people listen and hear your message.

Julian Treasure’s  TED talk on ‘How to speak so that people want to listen’ is all about this, and at the end offers several tips ‘in our toolbox’ for how to master the use of voice, from changing your speaking pace to speaking in a different pitch.

Get feedback from a friend or colleague to see what works best for you.

18. Use language and literary techniques

Your use of language has a huge influence on the way you engage your audience. It’s important to use language your audience understands and is familiar with.

Avoid using language that is too formal or informal, too technical or too simplistic depending upon the nature of your talk and the knowledge base of your audience. Pitching your presentation at the right level can be a challenge but it is very effective for making the audience feel involved.

There are various  literary techniques  you can use, such as the Power or Three, to give greater impact to your message.

Involving your audience is essential to making an impact. Your presentation should pull them in, get their attention and stimulate their thoughts and understanding. This can be done in a number of ways.

The way that you plan your presentation will be critical in terms of using language and ideas that your audience will understand. You must also ensure that there is sufficient time for questions and discussion. The way that you deliver your presentation should create a bond with your audience.

Your use of eye contact, body language, spoken words and energy should  communicate effectively  and enthusiastically with all areas of the room, thus ensuring that the audience receives positive messages about you and your material.

How to Make a Presentation Interactive | 2024 Revealed 7 Creative Ways

Lakshmi Puthanveedu • 08 April, 2024 • 16 min read

Are your presentations putting people to sleep faster than a bedtime story? It’s time to shock some life back into your lessons with interactivity🚀

Let’s defibrillate the “Death by PowerPoint” and show you lightning-quick ways on how to make a presentation interactive .

With these tips, you’ll be able to activate that dopamine drip and get butts in seats leaning in – not delving deep into the chairs!

Table of Contents

What is an interactive presentation.

• Why Use an Interactive Presentation?

#1. Create icebreaker games🧊

• #2. Make use of props 📝

#3. Create interactive presentation games and quizzes 🎲

#4. tell a compelling story, #5. organise a brainstorming session, #6. make a word cloud for the topic, #7. bring out the poll express, easy interactive activities for presentations, more presentation examples you could learn from.

Start in seconds.

Get free templates for your next interactive presentation. Sign up for free and take what you want from the template library!

Keeping your audience engaged is the most critical and challenging part, regardless of the topic or how casual or formal the presentation is. 

An interactive presentation is a presentation that works two ways. The presenter asks questions during the production, and the audience responds directly to those questions.

Let’s take an example of an interactive poll .

The presenter displays a poll question on the screen. The audience can then submit their answers live through their mobile phones, and the results are immediately displayed on the screen, as shown in the image below.

Making an interactive presentation does not have to be complex or stressful. It’s all about letting go of the static, linear presentation format and using some tools and techniques to create a personal, more involved experience for the audience.

With software like AhaSlides , you can easily create interactive presentations with tons of interactive quizzes, polls, and live Q&A sessions for your audience. Keep reading to find out fired tips on how to make a presentation interactive 👇

Why Interactive Presentation?

Presentations are still one of the commonly used methods to pass on information. Still, no one likes to sit through long, monotonous presentations where the host doesn’t stop talking.

Interactive presentations can help. They…

• Increase audience engagement , allowing them to connect with you and the purpose of the presentation. 64% of people believe a flexible presentation with two-way interaction is more engaging than a linear one.
• Improve retention capacity . 68% say that it’s easier to remember the information when the presentation is interactive.
• Tips: Use a rating scale to gather feedback !
• Act as a break from the routine and allow participants to have an enjoyable experience.
• Interactive presentation ideas
• Interactive presentation games
• Interactive presentation techniques
• Interactive presentation ideas for students
• 11 Types of interactive presentation software

How to Make a Presentation Interactive

Whether you are hosting a virtual or offline presentation, there are many ways you can make it engaging, exciting and two-way for your audience.

Starting a presentation is always one of the most challenging parts. You are nervous; the audience might still be settling, there might be people not familiar with the topic – the list could go on. Get to know your audience, ask them questions about how they are feeling, how their day was, or maybe share a funny story to get them hooked and excited.

🎊 Learn: Use 180 Fun General Knowledge Quiz Questions and Answers to gain better engagement

#2. Make use of Props 📝

Making a presentation interactive does not mean you have to let go of traditional tricks of engaging the audience. You could bring a lighting stick or a ball to pass around to the audience when they want to ask a question or share something.

Games and quizzes will always remain the star of the show, no matter how complex the presentation is. You don’t necessarily have to create them related to the topic; these could also be introduced into the presentation as fillers or as a fun activity.

💡 Want more? Get 10 interactive presentation techniques here!

Stories work like a charm in any situation. Introducing a complex physics topic? You could tell a story about Nicola Tesla or Albert Einstein. Want to beat the Monday blues in the classroom? Tell a story! Want an icebreaker activity to start a presentation? 

Well, you know… ask the audience to tell a story! 

There are many ways you could use storytelling in a presentation. You could pitch an outline to the students and ask them to build the rest of the story. 

Or, you could tell a story till just before the ending and ask the audience how they think the story ended.

You’ve created a stellar presentation. You’ve introduced the topic and are mid-way through the exhibition. Wouldn’t it be nice to sit back, take a break and see how your students put some effort into taking the presentation forward?

Brainstorming helps get the students excited about the topic and allows them to think creatively and critically.

💡 Get an engaged class with 6 more interactive presentation ideas

Want to make sure your audience gets the concept or topic of the presentation without making it feel like an interrogation? 

Live word clouds are fun and interactive and ensure the main topic is not lost in the presentation. Using a live word cloud generator , you can ask the audience what they think is the main topic for the production.

How do you feel about using visual aids in your presentation? It’s not anything new, right? 

But what if you can merge funny pictures with an interactive poll? That’s got to be interesting! 

“How do you feel right now?” 

This simple question could be turned into an interactive fun activity with the help of images and GIFs describing your mood. Present it to the audience in a poll, and you could display the results on the screen for everyone to see.

This is a great, super simple icebreaker activity that can help revitalise team meetings, especially when some folks are working remotely.

💡 We’ve got more – 10 interactive presentation ideas for work .

Whether you’re hosting something for your colleagues, students or friends, retaining their attention for a while can be a daunting task.

Games such as What Would You Do? and 4 Corners are easy interactive activities to help the audience get back on track with your presentation …

What Would You Do?

Isn’t it interesting to know what someone would do in a particular situation or how they would handle it? In this game, you give the audience a scenario and ask how they would deal with it.

Say, for example, you are having a fun night with your friends and family. You could ask questions like, “What would you do if you could be invisible to the human eye?” and see how they handle the given situation.

If you’ve got remote players, this is a tremendous interactive Zoom game .

This is a perfect game for anyone with an opinion. It’s a great way to start a conversation on your presentation’s topic before diving into the meat of it.

You announce a statement and see how everyone feels about it. Each participant shows how they think by moving to one corner of the room. The corners are labelled ‘strongly agree’, ‘agree’, ‘strongly disagree’, and ‘disagree’. 

Once everyone has taken their place in the corners, you could have a debate or discussion between the teams.

🎲 Looking for more? Check out 11 interactive presentation games !

The 5 Best Interactive Presentation Software

Making a presentation interactive is so much easier with the right tool.

Many interactive presentation websites let your audience respond directly to the content of your presentation and see the results on the big screen. You ask them a question in the form of a poll, word cloud, brainstorming or even a live quiz, and they respond with their phones.

#1 – AhaSlides

AhaSlides presentation platform will let you host fun, interactive presentations for all your needs, with quizzes, live Q&As, word clouds, brainstorming slides, and such.

The audience can join the presentation from their phones and interact with it live. Whether you are presenting to your students, a businessman who wants to hold team-building activities, or someone who wants to have a fun quiz game for your friends and family, this is a great tool you can use, with a ton of fun interactive options.

If you are looking for ways to boost your team’s creativity at your workplace, then Prezi is an excellent tool.

It is a bit similar to how a standard linear presentation would be but more imaginative and creative. With a huge template library and many animated elements, Prezi lets you create a cool, interactive display in no time.

Although the free version does not come with many features, spending a little on the tool is worth it to create content for any occasion.

🎊 Learn more: Top 5+ Prezi Alternatives | 2024 Reveal From AhaSlides

NearPod is a good tool that most educators would get a kick out of. It is specifically designed to cater to educational needs, and the free basic version lets you host a presentation for up to 40 students.

Teachers can build lessons, share them with students and monitor their results. One of the best features of NearPod is the Zoom integration, where you can merge your ongoing Zoom lesson with the interactive presentation.

The tool also has various interactive features such as memory tests, polls, quizzes and video embedding features.

Canva is an easy-to-use kit that even a person with no design experience could master in a few minutes.

With the drag-and-drop feature of Canva, you can create your slides in no time and that too with copyright-free images and a ton of design templates to choose from.

🎉 Learn more: Canva Alternatives | 2024 Reveal | Updated 12 Free and Paid Plans

Keynote for Mac

Keynote is one of the most popular bits of presentation software for Mac . It comes pre-installed and can be easily synced to iCloud, making it accessible across all Apple devices. Along with creating engaging presentations, you can also add a little bit of creativity by adding doodles and illustrations to your presentation.

Keynote presentations can also be exported to PowerPoint, allowing flexibility for the presenter.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do i make my presentation more interactive.

You can make a presentation more interactive with these 7 simple strategies: 1. Create icebreaker games 2. Make use of props 3. Create interactive presentation games and quizzes 4. Tell a compelling story 5. Organise a session using brainstorming tool 6. Make a word cloud for the topic 7. Bring out the Poll Express

Can I make my PowerPoint interactive?

Yes, you can use PowerPoint’s AhaSlides add-in to save time and effort while still being able to create interactive activities like polls, Q&A or quizzes.

How can you make presentations interactive to get students involved?

Here are some effective ways to make presentations more interactive and get students involved: 1. Use polls/surveys 2. Use quizzes, leaderboards, points to make the content feel more game-like and fun. 3. Pose questions and cold call on students to answer and discuss their thinking. 4. Insert relevant videos and have students analyse or reflect on what they saw.

• Presentation outfit
• TED talks presentation
• Body language during a presentation
• How to get over Stage Fright
• Personality in a presentation
• Benefits of presentation software
• Zoom presentation tips
• Easy topic for presentation

To help you craft an impactful presentation, let’s explore some common pitfalls and how to overcome them

• Bad speeches
• Bad presentation at work
• Death by PowerPoint

Lakshmi Puthanveedu

A small-town girl enthralled by culture, languages, and sunsets. Casual artist and musician looking to make memories every step of the way. Now changing the way humans live and have virtual interactions with AhaSlides.

Tips to Engage with Polls & Trivia

More from AhaSlides

Power Up Your Presentations: Interactive Techniques to Engage and Impress Your Audience

Transforming your presentation: tips for engaging both in-person and online audiences, transforming a standard presentation into an interactive experience, why interactive presentations are beneficial for your career development, 9 effective ways to make your presentation interactive, engaging your audience with icebreaker questions, improving your career: the art of storytelling, start with a personal story, add multimedia elements, create a connection, using interactive polls to enhance engagement during presentations, using quizzes to enhance your career presentation, engage your audience with questions: tips for better career presentations, enhancing your presentation with demonstrations, engaging your audience, effective communication, memorable impressions, how movement can enhance your presentation, enhance your presentations with props, using surveys to improve your presentation skills, exploring different types of interactive presentations, improving your career: the power of informative presentations, inspiring your audience through storytelling, collaborative presentations for achieving outcomes, improve your presentation skills with instructive techniques, enhancing your presentations: a guide to interactive presentations.

To make an impact with your speech or lecture, it takes more than just being an articulate speaker. It’s important to engage your audience with both you and the material you’re presenting. However, with the increase in Remote work , it’s becoming more difficult to cater to a virtual audience without the benefit of a physical space.

In fact, studies show that 76% of individuals with teleworkable jobs work remotely some, most, or all of the time, making presentations even trickier when the viewers are a mix of in-office and remote workers.

Developing a good presentation that incorporates the needs of both in-person and online audiences may seem daunting, but there’s a solution to transform passive listeners into active participants – interaction.

Learning how to make your presentation interactive can help capture and maintain your audience’s attention, allowing them to remember your session and its key takeaways. By introducing interactive elements like Q&As, live demonstrations, and fun quizzes, you can create a more exciting and memorable experience for everyone involved.

As a professional aiming to improve your career prospects, you might have come across presentations that seem to drone on endlessly as the speaker stands at the front, talking at the audience. If you want to avoid putting people in this situational stupor, consider making your presentations interactive with these steps.

The key to an interactive presentation is to initiate elements that actively involve the attendees from the beginning. Instead of “talking at” your audience, engage them in conversation. Ask questions, seek their opinions, and encourage interaction throughout the conversation. Utilizing online polls, quizzes, and face-to-face activities, makes the conversation even more engaging.

If you have given presentations in the past and received few questions or engagement, you have likely experienced the “standard presentation.” Such presentations lead to disengaged audiences and distracted attendees who often miss crucial messages. According to studies, around 90% of people admit to daydreaming during meetings and presentations that lead to retention failures.

However, with interactive presentations, attendees get transformed from inattentive viewers to active collaborators and critical contributors. This approach ensures everyone stays present throughout the meeting, making it easier to grasp the information presented.

Interactive presentations offer a way to create connections and improve comprehension while personalizing the experience for your audience. As you develop your career, you’ll find that the inclusion of interactive elements in your presentations can help you stand out and make a lasting impression. Here are some benefits worth considering:

• Better Connections: Interactive presentations allow for more engagement between the presenter and audience. This back-and-forth creates a sense of familiarity and helps form a connection that benefits all parties.
• Improved Comprehension: Interactivity can also help the audience better understand and retain the information you’re presenting. Studies show that when conversation partners’ brain activity synchronizes, it can improve comprehension.
• Increased Engagement: Offering interactivity during your presentations can lead to greater employee engagement, improving overall company culture. It also helps keep the audience interested and invested in the moment.
• Shared Participation: Soliciting contributions or setting up group activities means you won’t have to do all the talking for the whole presentation, giving you a much-needed break. Plus, it can help build a sense of teamwork and cooperation in the room.
• Personalization: Drawing on audience input during interactive presentations creates a customized experience that will be more meaningful to your audience, resulting in memories that stick. Plus, varying levels of interactivity mean you can keep your material fresh and exciting every time you present it.

As you can see, the benefits of interactive presentations go far beyond just keeping your audience interested. Incorporating these elements into your presentations can provide many advantages that can benefit your career and help you stand out in your industry. Give it a try and see the difference for yourself!

Presentations can often be boring and unengaging, causing your audience to lose interest. However, incorporating interactive elements can help capture their attention and enhance their overall understanding. To make your presentation stand out, try experimenting with some of these interactive methods:

• Include engaging visuals such as infographics, charts, and diagrams to help illustrate your points and break up the monotony of text-heavy slides.
• Introduce interactive activities such as quizzes, polls, and games to keep your audience engaged and actively involved in your presentation.
• Encourage participants to ask questions and provide feedback throughout your presentation to ensure they are following along and engaged with the material.
• Use case studies or real-life examples to help make your presentation more relatable and interactive.
• Include short video clips or animations to help demonstrate complex concepts and provide additional visual stimulation.
• Invite guest speakers to share their expertise on a particular topic and offer a fresh perspective for your audience.
• Provide handouts or worksheets for participants to follow along with and complete as you present, keeping them actively involved.
• Offer group discussions or breakout sessions to encourage attendees to work together and collaborate on ideas related to your presentation.
• Engage your audience with a call to action, encouraging them to take steps based on what they’ve learned.

By incorporating one or more of these strategies, you can create a more dynamic and engaging presentation that will leave a lasting impression on your audience.

Icebreaker questions are a great way to establish a connection between yourself and the audience. Whether you opt for a simple and straightforward question or a group activity like charades, a good icebreaker helps everyone relax and sets the tone for the presentation to come.

By starting with an icebreaker, you create a comfortable atmosphere and encourage greater participation from the audience. Don’t be afraid to get creative and think outside the box—consider the preferences and demographics of your audience and select an icebreaker that will resonate with them.

Remember, the goal is to establish a sense of connection with your audience right from the start. By doing so, you can ensure that your presentation is more engaging and memorable.

Effective communication plays a pivotal role in shaping your career. As you work on enhancing your soft skills, one aspect that deserves your attention is storytelling .

The human brain is wired to respond well to stories. Crafting a compelling narrative can help you engage more deeply with your audience and create a lasting impact. Here are some tips to help you improve your storytelling skills:

To captivate your audience right from the beginning, start your presentation with a personal anecdote. Sharing a story from your own life helps your listeners connect with you on a more personal level. It also provides a framework for your talk, as you can refer back to your story to illustrate key points throughout your presentation.

To add an extra layer of interest, consider incorporating multimedia elements into your storytelling. This can include music clips, video clips, or sound effects that complement your narrative. These elements can help keep your audience engaged and make your talk more memorable.

Sharing a good story can help you establish a connection with your audience. When people can relate to your story, it creates empathy and a shared experience. Use this connection to your advantage by creating a clearer line of thought throughout your presentation. When you refer back to your story to illustrate key points, your audience will be more engaged and better able to understand your message.

By mastering the art of storytelling, you can enhance your career trajectory. Use personal anecdotes, multimedia, and a connection to your audience to craft compelling narratives that resonate and make a lasting impact.

Engaging your audience is essential to leave a lasting impression during a presentation. One effective way to achieve this is by incorporating interactive polls into your presentation. Interactive polls demonstrate that you value your audience’s opinion and provide valuable insights into their thoughts and feelings.

By utilizing a poll, you can gauge the interest level of your audience in a specific topic and gather feedback on the presentation in real-time. The results from the poll can also be used to spark a discussion or transition smoothly into the next segment of your presentation. This serves to keep your audience engaged and invested in the direction of the presentation.

The immediate feedback provided by interactive polls will also allow you to assess the impact of your content on your audience and make adjustments in real-time. By catering to your audience’s preferences, you can deliver a compelling and effective presentation that communicates your message effectively.

Are you looking for new ways to improve your career presentations? Adding an interactive quiz is a great way to engage your audience and assess their understanding of the subject matter. By giving a quick quiz at the end of each section, you can easily identify areas where your audience needs more clarification.

One popular app for creating interactive quizzes is Kahoot, which allows everyone to join in using their smartphones. The friendly competition of a quiz can also motivate your audience and make the presentation more enjoyable for everyone.

So, the next time you are giving a career presentation, consider adding an interactive quiz to keep your audience engaged and ensure they retain the information you share.

As you aim to improve your career and life, effective Presentation skills are crucial. Holding a Q&A session can be a great way to engage your audience, but timing is everything. Rather than leaving the Q&A until the end of your talk, try inviting participants to ask their questions at key points throughout the presentation.

This approach is more effective because it allows the audience to ask questions while the information is still fresh in their minds. It also breaks up the monotony of a lecture and creates a moment of conversation that can help boost engagement.

As John, a successful public speaker, puts it, “When I hold a presentation or talk, I always try to invite questions along the way. It’s much better than leaving the Q&A until the end because people may lose interest or forget what they wanted to ask.”

For individuals seeking to enhance their presentation skills , incorporating demonstrations can be a game-changer. Rather than merely discussing a product or concept, consider showing it in action. Delivering a hands-on demonstration can offer a more immersive experience than words alone, ultimately making a greater impact.

Do you have a new app to launch or a groundbreaking concept to share? Don’t bore your audience with a long, drawn-out speech. Instead, incorporate an interactive demonstration to showcase the product’s benefits. By doing so, you are offering an effective communication approach that allows your audience to get a better sense of how your product or concept works.

Incorporating demonstrations into your presentation will enable you to leave a lasting impression on your audience. Rather than giving a standard presentation, you are offering a more profound and memorable experience that will resonate with your audience. Utilize demonstrations to make a significant impact and solidify your message.

Are you tired of giving monotone presentations that bore you and your audience to death? Do you want to create a more personal connection with your listeners? If so, it’s time to work on your movement skills.

Instead of standing at the front of the room throughout your presentation, try moving around the venue space. You can pace around or speak directly to different sections of the audience as you share your ideas and insights. By doing so, you’ll be able to build a stronger connection with your listeners by breaking down the physical barriers between you.

Furthermore, your proximity and body language can help reinforce the connection you’ve built throughout your presentation. So get up and move around – it might just be the difference between an average and a great presentation!

When it comes to public speaking, grabbing your audience’s attention can be tough. One way to add some engagement is by incorporating props into your presentations.

A well-chosen prop can bring your message to life and make your presentation memorable. It allows your audience to interact with the item and can help break the fourth wall, making your content more personal and relatable.

To select the perfect prop, consider using an object that represents your topic, either literally or symbolically. For instance, instead of simply describing her experience during a stroke, Jill Bolte Taylor showed a real human brain during her TED talk, allowing her audience to visualize what happened.

By using props, you can add an element of fun to your presentations, making them engaging and memorable to your audience.

As an individual looking to improve your career and life, understanding how well you are doing in your presentations can help you make the necessary improvements. While indirect feedback such as receiving thank-you emails from your audience are helpful, they do not provide you with actionable data. This is where post-event surveys come in handy.

By incorporating post-event surveys, you give your audience a chance to share their thoughts and opinions with you in a constructive way. This gives you an opportunity to gather actionable feedback that can help you improve your presentation skills before your next talk.

As someone looking to progress in your career, it is important to take advantage of all feedback opportunities presented to you. Incorporating post-event surveys in your presentations is a fantastic way to get constructive feedback from your audience that can help you improve your craft.

Interactive presentations have become a popular tool for engaging audiences in a variety of settings. Whether you’re presenting Sales data or inspiring a group of students, the way you present your information needs to be tailored to your audience’s needs. Here are five types of interactive presentations:

1. Q&A Session: If you’re presenting information to a small group, a Q&A session can be an effective way to engage your audience. Encourage participants to ask questions and provide detailed answers to ensure they leave with a clear understanding.

2. Simulation: Simulations can help audiences visualize complex concepts easier. For example, a game-like simulation of a historical event can be more engaging and memorable than simple text or slides.

3. Polling: Polling helps to create a more interactive and engaging presentation. By asking your audience to respond to questions or provide their opinions, you can receive valuable feedback and insights, while actively involving your audience.

4. Storytelling: Stories have a way of capturing and engaging audiences, allowing them to emotionally connect with the information. Weave anecdotes and narratives into your presentation to create a more memorable experience for your audience.

5. Games: Games are a playful way to engage and motivate audiences. For example, a Jeopardy-style quiz or trivia game can be a fun way to test your audience’s knowledge and create a competitive atmosphere.

Remember, the type of interactive presentation you choose should depend on your audience and the information you’re presenting. By combining different elements of these types of presentations, you can create a unique and engaging experience for your audience.

If you want to succeed in your career, improving your presentation skills is a must. One important type of presentation to master is the informative variety. This type of presentation is all about educating your audience in a direct, no-nonsense way.

During an informative presentation, you should use quizzes or polls to test your audience’s knowledge and understanding. By doing this, you can make sure that your listeners are engaged and have a good grasp of the information you are sharing. Another effective strategy is to use props or visual aids to help convey complex information.

For instance, imagine you are a marketing team leader tasked with introducing a new style guide to your team. You could deliver an informative workshop that includes a quiz to test your team’s understanding of the new guidelines, ensuring they fully grasp the material before they begin implementing it in their work.

When it comes to making a sales pitch or convincing an audience to take specific actions, a persuasive format can be most effective. Engaging your audience with props, movement, and Q&As all work quite well as they help your audience stay attentive and give them the opportunity to learn more about the topic at hand.

For instance, let’s say you’re leading a public meeting aimed at encouraging citizens to start recycling and composting. You could try bringing in a full garbage bag to represent the amount of waste each person produces in a day. This would serve as concrete evidence of the issue and help your audience understand the importance of their actions.

A great way to boost morale or inspire change among your audience is through storytelling. The format of a TED talk is a perfect example of how storytelling can influence people and have a positive impact on their lives. To make your presentation more dynamic and engaging, try incorporating an icebreaker question or moving around the space while you deliver your story.

For instance, imagine giving a speech about how you climbed the ranks at your workplace. By moving around the room and connecting with your audience, you could inspire them to follow in your footsteps and achieve similar success. By sharing your story, you allow your audience to relate, aspire, and take action towards achieving their goals.

If you’re looking to maximize interaction with your audience, consider using a collaborative presentation structure focused on achieving outcomes. This approach involves working together with participants to brainstorm solutions to problems or determine the steps needed to reach a desired outcome. It’s a great way to encourage engagement and participation.

To make the most of your presentation, try incorporating polls, quizzes, or surveys to facilitate discussion and gather feedback. For example, if you’re holding a meeting to develop a social media strategy for a new client, you could use an anonymous survey to gather input from team members on their ideas and suggestions.

Do you want to deliver presentations that leave a lasting impact on your audience? One way to achieve this is by utilizing instructive techniques. This approach involves providing a complete understanding of a topic or concept so that your audience can easily connect with it.

When presenting with an instructive style, it’s essential to take a deep dive into the subject matter. Your audience should leave with a clear understanding of the topic at hand, be it an idea, concept, or even a product. One technique to achieve this is by using storytelling, which helps to make your presentation relatable. Additionally, incorporating props like diagrams, illustrations, or even a product sample helps to demonstrate complex concepts more simply than words can often do.

For instance, suppose you want to give a talk about the benefits of using solar panels on domestic buildings. In that case, you could bring in an actual solar panel with a lightbulb to demonstrate how it works. This way, your audience would be able to visualize how it can fit into their daily lives and understand the value of investing in one.

Public speaking can be nerve-wracking, especially when you’re facing a large group of people. However, there are ways to make your presentations more interactive and engaging, which can help you to connect with your audience and ease your own anxiety.

Whether you’re presenting about the success of a marketing campaign or speaking passionately about a topic close to your heart, incorporating interactive elements into your presentation can make it more memorable and impactful. By encouraging audience participation and engagement, you can transform a one-sided lecture into an interactive event that truly resonates with your listeners.

Next time you’re faced with the task of delivering a virtual team building exercise or presenting sales figures from the previous month, consider incorporating some of these interactive presentation ideas to keep your audience engaged and interested, regardless of their background or level of expertise. With a little creativity, your presentations can become an engaging and memorable experience for all involved.

10 Ways to Make a Presentation More Fun & Interactive [How-to Guide]

Dreading a blank-eyed audience or classroom staring back at you while you talk? It's our worst nightmare — but there are easy solutions! Keep your team or students from being bored using good interaction.

We've been running events for years and have put together a list of great ways to make your presentations interactive — and keep your group engaged.

1. Do a Live Poll 

Live polls are among the best ways to increase interaction during your presentation . This idea not only engages your audience but also provides a fun way to present information so that people don't look at bulleted points the entire time you're talking. 

Here's a pre-made template you can build on to create your live poll (and don't worry—it's super easy to customize and requires no tech skills or code): 

How to customize the template: 

• Access the template by creating a free account here: https://slideswith.com/    
• Click the template and press "Copy and Use this Slide Deck."
• On slides 1, 2, and 7, personalize the copy and update any images.
• Create your own questions and answer options on slides 3-6 (or you can keep the ones already on the slides).
• Add more personal touches by using the navigation menu at the top of the template!

How to play:

• When you're ready to play, log into your account. Click your game. 
• Press "Start Event." It's in the top right corner. 
• Showcase your screen to your audience. If your presentation is virtual, share your screen. 
• Ask your audience to join the fun by scanning the QR code. The game is free for up to ten people!
• Go through each slide and tell everyone to use their mobile devices to submit their answers. 

This template comes with built-in features like avatars, word clouds, ratings, and text answer slides. So, your audience is sure to interact once they start playing! 

2. Use Your Entire Space

Strong, positive body language is critical to connecting with listeners and increasing interaction. Fortunately, there's no better way to show good body language than using your entire space. 

How to use this idea: If you're in a classroom, walk between the rows of desks.

If you're in a conference room, walk around while presenting. And if you're in a huge venue, walk up and down the aisles.

Your audience will feel connected and close to you when you move toward them instead of staying away. And they'll think you're relatable and personable, increasing their desire and comfort to ask questions, raise their hands, and interact. 

3. Create and Trend a Hashtag

Chances are your listeners are checking their phones during your presentation. Even in classrooms, students will sneak a peek at their phones or use their laptops to check social media or text messages. 

Instead of reprimanding listeners for paying attention to your screen and the one on their digital devices, use the battle for their attention in your favor by trending a hashtag. That way, your audience uses their phones to interact with you instead of entertaining distractions.

How to use this idea: 

• Before your presentation, decide on a hashtag that aligns with your topic. 
• Once your presentation starts, share the hashtag with your audience. 
• Tell your audience to share their thoughts and questions on Twitter using the hashtag throughout your presentation.
• At certain points in your presentation, pause to check what listeners are saying and asking on Twitter. Use a few minutes to comment on and answer questions. (When your audience sees you engaging with the hashtag throughout your presentation, they'll be more likely to use it.)
• Leave a good last impression by checking the hashtag after your presentation ends and responding to comments and questions you didn't address! Your audience will appreciate you for taking the extra step, and this will show those who didn't attend the event that you like to interact with listeners.

4. Gamify Your Content

Incorporating games into your presentation will boost your audience's engagement, excitement, energy, and interaction! The best part? This idea is incredibly easy to implement, and there are tons of ways to gamify your presentation content . 

How to use this idea:

• Play the Telephone Game: Whisper something about your presentation topic into someone's ear. Have the individual relay the message to the person sitting next to them and keep this going until the last person gets the message. Ask the last person to tell everyone the final message. Compare the final to the initial statement—if the message is the same, tell everyone to give themselves a round of applause. 
• Play Word of the Day: Choose a word of the day (it can also be a phrase) and tell your audience what it is. Use the word throughout your presentation. Your audience should acknowledge it by shouting it back whenever they hear it.
• Play 20 Questions: Have an audience member you trust choose a picture related to your presentation topic. Make sure you can't see the image (if you're in person or presenting virtually, turn your back to the screen). Start asking yes or no questions about the photo. You can only ask 20 questions to get it right. 

5. Play a Quiz 

Another great way to make your presentation interactive is with a quiz! This idea gives listeners a reason to pay attention and sparks fun, friendly competition to see who can answer the most questions correctly.

However, for this interactive presentation idea to work, you must create a fun quiz. Here's a pre-made template with engaging, built-in features that'll get your audience amped :

• Create a free account to access the template: https://slideswith.com/    
• Click the game and press "Copy and Use this Slide Deck."
• On slides 1, 2, and 8, personalize any images and copy.
• On slides 3 and 4, create your own questions and answer options.
• Duplicate slides to add more questions to your quiz!
• When it's time to play, log into your account and click your game. 
• Look in the top right corner and click "Start Event." 
• Showcase your screen to your listeners. 
• Tell your audience to scan the QR code to play! 
• Go through each slide and quiz your audience. Players can use their mobile devices to submit their answers. 
• Give the person who answered the most questions correctly a round of applause. 

The template accommodates up to 250 people, so it's great for large audiences. Also, it comes with polls, ratings, multiple choice, an answer review slide, a leaderboard slide, and more to keep your audience interacting and engaged the whole time!

6. Take Your Audience's Guidance 

Instead of steering your presentation, let your audience take the wheel and decide what topics to cover first. With this interactive presentation idea, listeners will feel like participants instead of recipients, and that differentiation is critical to boosting interaction. 

• When creating your presentation, include a slide in the beginning that lists all the topics you'll cover.
• At the beginning of your presentation, show your audience the list of topics. 
• Say each topic aloud and ask your listeners to raise their hands to vote for the one they want to discuss first. 
• Move forward with the topic that has the most votes. 
• After covering the first topic, go back to the list and repeat. 

7. Create Discussion Groups

While it's great to ask your audience questions directly, some people interact better in small groups. To ensure more introverted people get a chance to engage, create small discussion groups that make your presentation interactive. 

• Divide your listeners into small groups of five. 
• Tell everyone what to discuss. The topic should be relevant to your presentation. For example, you could ask the groups to solve a specific problem or discuss how they'd implement a solution you recommended. 
• Give the group 10 minutes to chat. 
• Once time is up, ask each group to share what they discussed. 

8. Encourage Your Listeners to Move

It's normal for people to get antsy when sitting in a seat all day. But if you encourage your audience to move around and keep the blood flowing, they won't get distracted or constantly eye the nearest exit. So, instead of letting everyone stay in their seats, make time for listeners to get moving. 

• Before your presentation, think of 15 yes or no questions that pertain to your topic. 
• At the beginning of your presentation, ask five questions. Have people stand if their answer is "yes." People should sit if their answer is "no." 
• In the middle of your presentation, ask the next five questions. Again, standing means "yes," and sitting means "no."
• Toward the end of your presentation, ask the last five questions. Have listeners stand to answer "yes" and sit to answer "no."

9. Solicit Questions (More Than Once)

It's normal to have a Q&A session at the end of your presentation, but an interactive presentation isn't interactive at the end. It's interactive throughout the entire time you're talking. That means your listeners should be able to ask questions before, during, and after your discussion, and you should encourage them to do so to boost engagement. 

• At the beginning of your presentation, break the ice by opening the floor for your audience to ask any questions about you. 
• After answering people's questions, tell your audience that they can ask questions throughout your presentation—they don't need to wait until the end. 
• NOTE: If you want this overall idea to stick, before your presentation, tell a few people you know to help increase engagement by asking questions first or when no one else is doing so. Sometimes, listeners need to see others doing it before they muster the courage to do it as well. 

10. Play Call and Response

One of the most fun and silly ways to increase interaction at your presentation is with call and response. This idea will keep energy levels high, maintain engagement, and ensure your audience stays focused! 

• Pick a phrase that relates to your presentation. You can do this before your presentation or with your audience before your discussion starts. 
• Agree on the action everyone (including you) must take when you say the phrase. The action could be dancing, clapping, standing, or something random like high knees if you have the space.
• Use the phrase throughout your presentation to trigger the action. 

Give Listeners the Interactive Presentation They Want

No matter where you're speaking, today's audience wants an informative presentation that's engaging, interactive, and fun. Gone are the days of creating PowerPoint slides with bullet points and a few images. 

Audiences want you to design a presentation with their preferences in mind, and they prefer content that's intriguing. Failing to give them that means you don't know your audience as well as you think. 

"Designing a presentation without an audience in mind is like writing a love letter and addressing it 'to whom it may concern" - Ken Haemer. Alison Davis,  19 Quotes That Will Inspire You To Create An Amazing Presentation

So, let modern-day listeners know you understand them by giving a presentation that speaks to their desire for interaction and excitement. You want your audience to be on the edge of their seats, facing forward, and tuned in, not slouching with their heads on their hands, ready to fall asleep.

Subscribe for more articles like this

Try slides with friends for free.

The easiest way to host meetings your team will love

Engagement delivered to your inbox

We'll email you 1-2x per month with brand new, ready-to-run events and ideas. Subscribe to stay ahead of the curve and keep your lessons, meetings, and events fresh and engaging.

• September 2022
• December 2021
• October 2021
• August 2021
• August 2020
• Google Slides Themes
• Guides and Tutorials
• PowerPoint Templates
• Entries feed
• Comments feed
• WordPress.org

20+ Best Business PowerPoint Presentation Templates

25+ Best Marketing PowerPoint (PPT) Presentation Templates

20+ Best Minimalist PowerPoint Presentation Templates

How to engage your audience with an interactive virtual presentation – 12 virtual presentation tips and tricks.

How to Create a Project Management Timeline in 5 Effective Steps

Effective presentations have always been important communication tools in the business world. A productive presentation can help individuals deliver their ideas clearly and concisely and engage and persuade their audience.

In recent years, with the rise of technology, the way we deliver presentations has changed dramatically. Virtual presentations are now commonplace, and it is essential to know how to deliver a strong presentation online.

A successful virtual presentation requires careful preparation and practice. However, by following these effective virtual presentation tips, you can ensure that your online presentation positively impacts your audience.

To improve your virtual presentations, consider these ideas to captivate and engage your audience: Make them interactive by using live polls, Q&A sessions, and collaborative whiteboards for real-time participation. Also, use captivating visuals and concise slides to illustrate your points better.

Read this article to learn more tips and tricks for improving your online presentations. It provides strategies to improve your presentation structure and use technology to make your virtual presentation impactful and memorable. Use these insights to deliver your message clearly and engage your audience better.

Explore this article to know more about how to make a virtual presentation interactive . Understand these virtual presentation ideas to better the engagement and effectiveness of your online presentations.

Table of Contents

What Is a Virtual Presentation, and How Can It Help Your Business?

A virtual presentation is a type of presentation where the presenter and audience are not in the same physical space. Instead, they communicate via some form of technology, such as teleconference, webinar, or video conferencing.

It has a number of advantages over traditional, in-person presentations. For one, they can be much more cost-effective since you don’t have to incur the expense of travel. They also offer greater flexibility since participants can join anywhere worldwide.

Virtual presentations have become increasingly popular in business, offering several advantages over traditional face-to-face presentations.

Firstly, virtual presentations allow businesses to reach a wider audience, as they can be easily shared online and viewed by anyone with an internet connection.

Secondly, virtual presentations are more cost-effective than face-to-face presentations, as there is no need to cover travel costs or hire venue space.

Lastly, virtual presentations allow businesses to track viewer engagement and collect data on who is watching the presentation and for how long. This information can be used to improve future virtual presentations and ensure they are more targeted and effective.

Overall, virtual presentations offer a handful of advantages for businesses, making them an essential tool for any modern organization.

What Are Its Benefits Over Traditional Presentations?

Virtual presentations have various advantages over traditional, in-person presentations. The most obvious benefit is that they allow presenters to reach a wider audience. With a traditional presentation, only those who are physically present can view the content.

With a virtual presentation, however, the audience is limited only by the number of people who can log onto the system. Additionally, virtual presentations offer greater flexibility in terms of format and content.

Presenters can be more creative in their approach, incorporating multimedia elements and interactive features that engage the audience and enhance the overall experience. Eventually, virtual presentations are more cost-effective than traditional presentations, as they eliminate the need for travel and accommodations. Overall, it will provide a slew of benefits that should make them an attractive choice for both presenters and audiences.

Effective Virtual Presentation Tips to Make Your Presentation More Engaging

Engaging your audience and keeping their attention is important when giving a presentation. This can be challenging enough when you’re presenting in person, but it can be even more difficult when you’re presenting virtually.

Luckily, a few effective virtual presentation tips can help you engage your audience and ensure your presentation’s success.

Let’s talk about some of the most essential tips you should know.

• Make a great first impression.
• Use a professional webcam and microphone.
• Dress professionally for your video call.
• Make sure the lighting in your room is good.
• Test your internet connection before your presentation.
• Use gestures to help emphasize your points.
• Use high-quality visuals to support your message.
• Keep your presentation concise.
• Be prepared to answer questions from the audience.
• Practice, practice, practice.
• Stay calm and confident throughout the presentation.
• Use the best presentation templates to impress your audience.

Make a Great First Impression

Just as with an in-person presentation, you want to make a great first impression when giving a virtual presentation. This means starting off on the right foot by opening with a strong hook that will capture your audience’s attention.

You can do this by starting with an interesting statistic, asking a rhetorical question, or telling a personal story. Once you have your audience’s attention, it is important to set the stage for what they can expect from your presentation. Give them an overview of the main points you’ll be covering, and make sure to stress the importance of your topic.

By taking the time to make a strong first impression and set the stage for your presentation, you’ll be well on your way to giving an effectual virtual presentation.

Use a Professional Webcam and Microphone

If you’re using a built-in computer camera and microphone, your audience will likely get distracted by the poor quality. To avoid this, use the best professional webcam and microphone. This will ensure that your audience can see and hear you clearly, making it easier for them to focus on your presentation.

A professional webcam with a microphone can be bought for around a small amount. If you use a laptop, you may need to purchase an additional mount in order to position the webcam at the correct angle. For desktop computers, many types of webcams are available, so it’s important to do some research to find one that will suit your needs.

Investing in a good-quality webcam and microphone ensures that your online presentations are clear and professional.

Dress Professionally for Your Video Call

It is essential to remember that first impressions matter, even on a video call. You want your audience to see you as a professional, so you should dress accordingly.

It is advisable to wear a professional dress during the meeting or presentation as it will make you feel more confident and comfortable. Of course, you don’t need to wear a suit or anything too formal, but you should avoid wearing sweats or pajamas.

Choose clothes you would feel comfortable wearing to an in-person meeting or presentation. This way, your audience will see you as a competent professional that they can take seriously.

Make Sure the Lighting in Your Room Is Good

The lighting in your room can play a big role in how well your virtual presentation is received. If you’re presenting in a dark or dim room, it can be more challenging for your audience to see you and your slides.

Conversely, if you’re in a bright room with intense overhead lighting, it can be difficult for your audience to see your slides.

The best lighting for online meetings is a mix of natural light and artificial light. If you can, open curtains or blinds to let in some natural light. Then, supplement that light with a desk lamp or floor lamp.

You want to avoid having any strong light sources behind you, as that can create a glare on your screen. By using a mix of natural and artificial light, you’ll create an optimal lighting situation for both you and your audience.

Test Your Internet Connection Before Your Presentation

Giving a presentation can be nerve-wracking enough without having to worry about technical difficulties. A spotty internet connection is one of the most common problems that can occur during an online presentation, and it can make it very difficult for both the presenter and the audience to engage with the material.

Fortunately, the simple solution is to always test your internet connection before you start. By ensuring that your connection is solid and stable, you can avoid any significant issues during the presentation. And if you do run into any problems, you’ll be prepared to troubleshoot them quickly and efficiently.

So, next time you’re getting ready to give a presentation, don’t forget to check your internet connection first. It could make all the difference in delivering a successful presentation.

Use Gestures to Help Emphasize Your Points

When you’re giving a presentation, it’s important to use your body language to help emphasize your points. This can be a little more difficult when you’re speaking virtually, but it’s still possible.

Use gestures to help draw attention to what you’re saying and to help emphasize your points. For example, if you want to highlight a particular point, you could use a hand gesture to draw attention to that area of the screen. Or, if you’re making a contrast between two ideas, you could use open and closed palms to show the difference.

Using gestures, you can help ensure that your audience follows along and engages with your presentation.

Use High-Quality Visuals to Support Your Message

No matter what type of virtual presentation you’re giving, visuals are always going to be an important part of your overall presentation. After all, people are more likely to remember what they see rather than what they hear. So, ensure your visuals are high quality and support your overall message.

If you’re presenting a PowerPoint presentation , ensure the pictures and graphics you use are relevant to your topic. Avoid using too many words on your slides—people will have a hard time digesting all that information.

If you’re giving a webinar , consider using a live video feed to help engage your audience. This is especially effective if you’re presenting to a large group of people.

In either case, make certain that your visuals are high quality and add value to your presentation.

Keep Your Presentation Concise

It is easy to get caught up in the details when giving a presentation, but it is important to remember that your audience’s attention span is limited. Keep your presentation concise by focusing on the most essential points and leaving out any unnecessary information. This will help ensure that your audience remains engaged throughout the presentation and will be more likely to remember the key points you want them to take away.

When preparing your presentation, consider the most important points and what can be left out. It may also be helpful to practice presenting in front of a small audience or in front of a mirror to get a feel for how long your presentation should be.

Remember, keeping your audience’s attention is essential for delivering a successful presentation.

For easier-to-understand PowerPoint presentations, check out some of the best presentation templates available from FlySlides . Discover a wide range of pre-made presentation templates .

Be Prepared to Answer Questions from the Audience

There’s always a chance that the audience will ask you questions, no matter how much you think you know your content.

It might be difficult to get noticed in a virtual environment, especially if there are so many voices clamoring for attention. But if you’re prepared to answer questions, you’ll be able to keep the audience’s attention focused on you.

When you’re planning your presentation, think about what questions the audience might ask and have answers prepared. This way, you’ll be able to keep the conversation going even if there are technical difficulties or other interruptions.

Practice, Practice, Practice

The more you practice, the better you’ll get at delivering talks. So, set aside some time to review your presentation several times before giving it. This will help you to identify any areas where you need to improve or make changes.

It will also help you become more comfortable with the material and deliver it more confidently. Practicing will also allow you to fine-tune the timing of your presentation so that it flows smoothly.

Remember, online presentations require a different approach than in-person presentations, so take the time to prepare and practice accordingly. With a little effort, you can deliver an impressive and effective presentation.

Stay Calm and Confident Throughout the Presentation

When you’re giving a virtual presentation, it’s important to remember that your audience can’t see your nonverbal cues. This means you need to be extra aware of your tone and keep your energy up throughout the presentation.

If you sound bored or disinterested, your audience will be too. Keep your energy level up by speaking with enthusiasm and interest, and slow down so your audience can keep up with you.

Remember that you’re still presenting to a group of people, even if they’re not in the same room as you are. By being aware of your tone and keeping your energy up, you can give a successful virtual presentation.

Use the Best Presentation Templates to Impress Your Audience

Best presentation templates always come down to two things: the content and the way it is delivered. If you’re using an excellent presentation slide template like PowerPoint , Google Slides , or Keynote , guarantee your presentation is well-designed and follows a consistent theme.

If you’re not using a presentation template, now is the time to start. Your presentation should be clear, concise, and easy to follow. The finest presentation templates will help you deliver your message in a way that is visually appealing and easy to understand.

They can also help you save time by providing a consistent format for your slides. Investing in a good presentation template will make your presentations more effective and efficient in the long run.

Follow these 12 virtual presentation ideas and tips to create a truly outstanding virtual presentation if you’re unsure about how to make your virtual presentation interactive, fear not! This article is here to guide you through the process.

The Don’ts of Virtual Presentations

Just as there are dos to making an effective virtual presentation, there are also some don’ts that you’ll want to avoid. Here are a few of the most common mistakes that people make when giving virtual presentations:

• Don’t rely on PowerPoint slides alone. PowerPoints are great for reinforcing your points, but they should never be the only thing that you use to deliver your presentation. If all you’re doing is reading off of your slides, your audience is going to tune out quickly.
• Don’t forget to engage your audience. Just because you’re not in the same room as your audience doesn’t mean that you can’t interact with them. There are certain ways to engage your audience virtually, so take advantage of them!
• Don’t make it all about you. A virtual presentation is not the time to give a self-indulgent monologue. Remember that you’re there to provide value to your audience, so focus on delivering information that they will find useful.

What Does the Future Hold for Virtual Presentations?

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many companies and organizations to reevaluate their business practices. One of the most notable changes has been the increased use of virtual presentations.

Platforms like Zoom and other platforms have allowed businesses to continue operating, even when in-person meetings are not possible. While the shift to virtual presentations has been relatively seamless for many businesses, the question remains: what does the future hold for this new way of doing business?

There are many factors that suggest virtual presentations are here to stay.

First, they are more convenient than in-person meetings, particularly for businesses with employees who are located in different parts of the world.

Second, they are often more cost-effective since there is no need to cover travel expenses.

Finally, virtual presentations can be just as effective as in-person meetings if they are well-planned and executed. In fact, some experts believe that virtual presentations might have advantages over in-person meetings, such as being less distracting and allowing for more audience interaction.

Of course, there are also some challenges that need to be addressed before virtual presentations can become the norm. For example, technical problems can often disrupt a presentation, and building rapport with an audience can be difficult when you are not in the same room.

Overall, though, the future of remote presentations looks promising. As businesses continue to adapt to the new normal, it is likely that virtual presentations will become an increasingly common way of doing business.

Giving a presentation can be stressful, whether it’s in person or virtual. If you’re presenting virtually, there are some extra things to keep in mind to ensure your presentation succeeds. By following these practical virtual presentation tips, you can rest assured that your next presentation will be engaging and interactive, no matter where you’re presenting from.

Now that you have this helpful information, it’s time for you to apply these ideas and give a successful presentation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it possible to incorporate interactive elements such as polls and quizzes into my virtual presentation.

As virtual presentations become increasingly popular, finding ways to keep your audience engaged and interested in your content is important. One effectual approach is to incorporate interactive elements such as polls and quizzes. These elements break up the presentation with fun and engaging activities, encourage audience participation, and provide valuable insights into their perceptions and opinions. Adding polls and quizzes to your virtual presentation is relatively easy with the right tools and preparation. Just be sure to choose the right questions and give clear participation instructions. With these interactive elements in place, you’ll be well on your way to delivering a presentation that stands out and leaves a lasting impression on your audience.

How can I maintain audience engagement during a virtual presentation?

Keeping your audience engaged during a virtual presentation can be quite challenging. One effective way to maintain audience engagement is to incorporate interactive elements such as quizzes, polls, and video demonstrations. This will not only keep your audience attentive, but it will also provide them with an opportunity to participate and give feedback actively. Additionally, incorporating storytelling and relatable examples can help create an emotional connection with your viewers and hold their attention. Speaking confidently and clearly and maintaining eye contact with your camera to convey your message effectively is important. Implementing these tips can help you keep your virtual presentation exciting and engaging for your audience.

Can more than one person present in a virtual presentation?

With the increased prevalence of remote work and virtual events, many are curious as to whether multiple people can present in a virtual presentation. The answer is yes! Multiple presenters can share the screen, making it possible to collaborate and create a more engaging presentation. However, it’s vital to have clear communication and organization beforehand to avoid any confusion or technical difficulties during the presentation. Having a designated moderator or team leader can help keep the presentation running smoothly and ensure a cohesive flow. Overall, incorporating multiple presenters in a virtual presentation can add depth and diversity to the content while showcasing teamwork and collaboration.

How do I determine if my virtual presentation was successful or effective?

When it comes to a virtual presentation, there are a few key factors to consider when determining its success or effectiveness. First and foremost, you’ll want to examine your audience engagement. Did they seem attentive, interested, and actively participating throughout the presentation? Other metrics to consider include the number of attendees, participant feedback, and any measurable outcomes or goals achieved during or after the presentation. You may want to evaluate the technical aspects of your presentation, such as the audio and visuals, to ensure that they were running smoothly and didn’t hinder the overall experience. By taking these factors into account, you can better assess the effectiveness of your virtual presentation and make improvements for future presentations.

What are the optimal dimensions for slides used in virtual presentations?

When it comes to creating slides for virtual presentations, size matters. The optimal dimensions for your slides will depend on the platform you’re presenting on and how you plan to share your screen. As a general rule of thumb, it’s best to aim for slides that are easy to read and don’t require too much scrolling or zooming in. A safe bet is to create your slides at a 16:9 aspect ratio, which will fill most modern display screens without requiring any adjustments. It’s always a good idea to test your slides on the platform you’ll be presenting on to ensure that they look good and are easy to follow for your audience. Ultimately, the goal is to create a seamless, professional-looking presentation that engages your audience and effectively conveys your message.

What is the recommended number of slides for a virtual presentation?

For those new to virtual presentations, it’s natural to wonder about the recommended number of slides. The truth is, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. The ideal number of slides for a virtual presentation depends on a variety of factors, including the purpose, audience, and content of the presentation. As a general rule of thumb, aim for a concise and well-organized presentation that keeps your audience engaged without overwhelming them with too much information. Remember, the goal is not to include as many slides as possible but rather to communicate your message clearly and effectively. Ultimately, the key to a successful virtual presentation is prioritizing quality over quantity and tailoring your approach to suit your unique situation.

What are the design guidelines for creating virtual presentation slides?

When it comes to creating virtual presentation slides, there are a few significant design guidelines to keep in mind. First and foremost, keep the slides visually appealing and engaging, using high-quality images and graphics to capture your audience’s attention. Keep the text on your slides concise and to the point, avoiding long paragraphs and overwhelming the viewer with too much information. Consider the layout of your slides, making sure they flow logically and are easy to follow. Remember that virtual presentations are often viewed on smaller screens, so be sure to use legible fonts and appropriate contrast to ensure your message comes across clearly. Following these guidelines will help you create compelling virtual presentation slides that leave a lasting impression.

Is it possible to utilize pre-made templates to create virtual presentation slides?

Virtual presentation slides have become essential for meetings, lectures, and webinars across all industries. In today’s fast-paced world, where time is of the essence, many opt for pre-made templates to expedite the process of creating effective slides. The possibilities are endless, and a wide range of templates are available, from minimalist designs to flashy animations. Utilizing a pre-made presentation template doesn’t mean sacrificing creativity or originality. In fact, it can save time and effort while ensuring that the visual elements align with the message you are conveying. While some prefer to create their own custom slides, utilizing pre-made PPT templates can be an efficient and stress-free option for those looking to create professional, engaging, and eye-catching virtual presentations.

If you’re seeking stylish and modern PPT presentations, FlySlides is the top recommendation. The platform offers a large number of captivating slide designs that can be customizable to meet your needs. Additionally, you will receive lifetime updates to ensure that you always have access to the latest features and improvements.

20+ High Quality Modern PowerPoint Template Designs

What is the purpose of a customer journey map and its 4 main elements.

Find the Best Fonts for Your Next Presentation and Make It Look Great

What Does Product Life Cycle Mean and Its Stages? (Definition and Examples)

How to Create an Eye-Catching Infographic in Minutes | 5 Easy Steps

• Presentation Design

How to Make an Interactive Presentation

• By: Amy Boone

When I ask speakers what makes them nervous about presenting, their answers usually fall into one of two categories. Either they are worried about not performing well, or they are worried about boring their audience. Interactive presentations offer a solution for both of those worries.

First, they give the presenter short breaks by involving others. They also make the presentation feel more like a conversation than a performance which takes the pressure off the speaker. Second, interactive presentations allow for greater audience engagement which, in turn, boosts audience interest.

So today we are giving you 4 ways to make your presentations more interactive (and more fun, and more engaging, and more interesting, and more conversational–you get the point).

1. Encourage breakout discussion

Research shows that you can expect your audience to have optimal attention spans somewhere around 18-20 minutes . That’s why TED talks normally fall in this range. In my classes I use a technique I call “brain breaks.” My goal is never to speak for more than 20 minutes without offering my students some kind of break. Normally, it’s a chance to talk and engage with those around them.

This same technique can work well if you are giving a longer presentation. Around the 20-minute mark, plan to let your audience engage in breakout discussion with those around them. Think carefully about the purpose of the break. Do you want the audience to dig deeper into a concept you’ve been discussing? Do you want them to chat about something completely unrelated to the presentation, so they connect on another level? There are some real icebreaker gems in BuzzFeed’s 63 Deep Questions to Start a Conversation with Anyone (you may be surprised how strongly some people feel about sharing fries). Once you know the purpose of the break, make sure you control the discussion time. Here’s how:

• Include clear instructions for what you want them to do. If they don’t know each other, you might suggest they start by telling each other their names, hometowns, jobs, etc.
• Create a slide with the question or prompt that you want them to discuss.
• Include a countdown timer on the slide with the prompt so the transition back to the presentation is controlled and smooth.

2. Use live polling

If you want to give the audience a voice in your presentation or gather their feedback quickly, consider taking a live poll. There are many programs you can use to gather real time audience feedback. Check out Mentimeter or one of the 10 programs listed on SurveyLegend’s Top 10 list for live polling.

One of the more innovative ways to gather audience feedback is to have them create an interactive word cloud. Word clouds take textual data (words) and arrange them according to size. So the words that are used the most are the biggest.  And by simply adding the Poll Everywhere plugin, you can do this right in PowerPoint. The program works by having the audience text their responses to a number you include on your slide.

For example, say you are a personal trainer and nutritionist who has been contracted to implement some health initiatives for a company. In your initial presentation, you create an interactive word cloud by asking the employees to share one word that comes to mind when they think of health. This gives you real-time feedback on the pre-existing opinions the audience has about your topic and allows you to address them on the spot.

3. Ask questions

One of the more traditional forms of interactive presentations involves asking short answer questions. But communication theorist and speaking coach Nick Morgan says there is a right and a wrong way to approach audience questions. In an article in Forbes , he says that speakers too often settle for rhetorical questions in which everyone in the audience already knows the answer. If you ask something like, “is everyone ready to get started?”, it feels more like a gimmick than an honest attempt at interaction. The audience knows you are going to start the presentation no matter what, or if, they answer.

Instead, Morgan suggests using real questions that require real answers.  Things like “what comes to mind when I say the word health ?” And don’t be afraid to wait a little bit for responses. It takes some time for the question to sink in and for the audience to speak up. Plus, your willingness to wait shows the audience that their answers really matter to you.

4. Harness the power of social media & smartphones

Social media and smartphones offer plenty of opportunities to make your presentation interactive. You could ask the audience to take photos or post comments using a certain hashtag on their social media accounts. You can ask them to look something up on their phones or take a quick quiz or live poll, as mentioned above. However, you should always use this method with caution. Typically, you want to do everything you can to prevent the audience from reaching for their phones. It’s simply too easy to lose them. So if you plan to use this method, have a clear way to reengage them.

Interactive presentations aren’t just an option, they are a necessity for presenters who really want to engage their audiences. Don’t be afraid to share the stage during your next presentation by fostering breakout discussion, polling the audience, asking questions, or using social media and smartphones. When you do, you make your audience active participants, and you’ll reap great results.

For more ways to take your presentation to the next level, get in touch with one of our presentation experts now .

Join our newsletter today!

© 2006-2024 Ethos3 – An Award Winning Presentation Design and Training Company ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

• Terms & Conditions
• Privacy Policy
• Diversity and Inclusion

Top 5 Tips to Make PowerPoint Presentations Interactive

If you’ve ever had to make your presentations more interactive, and were struggling to do so, you’ve come to the right place. This article will focus on some of the best ways you can make your presentations interactive. Keep your audience engaged and interested throughout the presentation with these tips. Make sure you read till the end of the article for the best tips!

5. Gamify your Presentations

Gamify your presentations and incorporate game mechanics like points, badges, and leaderboards to encourage and incentivize audience participation and engagement. This can make your presentations more fun and encourage healthy competition during your presentation, making it more interactive. You could split the audience into 2 groups and make them engage with your presentations. At the end of the presentation, the group with the most points wins. Could be a fun thing to try out during your next presentation.

4. Encourage Discussions

Something you could try is having discussions during your presentations. Encourage your audience to form groups (if needed) and discuss and form their opinions on a topic related to your presentation. This makes your presentation interactive, and helps your audience understand the topic on a deeper level. Encourage open-ended discussions and let your audience share their thoughts on the topic.

3. Add Images, Videos and GIFs!

It goes without saying that images, videos and even GIFs can enhance your presentation and help make it more engaging. In case of a training presentation, having helpful videos in your presentation can make it more interactive, ensuring that the audience stays focused.

2. Add Polls, Quizzes, Games

You can add fun questions and activities to keep your audiences engaged. This helps keeps things interesting and makes your presentations more interactive.

This could be something as simple as displaying a bunch of questions on your slides, to creating interactive slides where the audience can select the right answer. Take a look at this example below:

You can also check out this trivia presentation template for more ideas on how you can make your presentations more interactive.

1. Use The Power of Non-Linear Storytelling

Presentations do not need to follow a linear progression. Sure it is the simplest way to deliver presentations. You can have an intro, then go to the next slide, and so on.

But to make your presentation more interactive consider using non-linear storytelling techniques in your presentations. This can be achieved with clickable elements, zoom transitions and buttons. Instead of going A to B and C, you can structure your presentations to go from A to B, C, or D and then back to A.

Here’s an example to give you clearer picture of what I’m talking about:

View this post on Instagram A post shared by SlideBazaar | PowerPoint Templates (@slidebazaar)

Using slide zooms and interactive buttons on your presentations can definitely make them more interactive.

I hope you can put these tips to good use and make your presentations more interactive. For more articles like this, consider bookmarking SlideBazaar.com and subscribing to our newsletter. Also feel free to check out the website for presentation templates that will help you create awesome presentations quickly!

At SlideBazaar, we help you create engaging and memorable presentations. Choose from our collection of professional templates or opt for our custom design services for a personalized touch. Your presentations deserve to be elevated to new heights, and we’re here to help you achieve just that!

BROWSE BY CATEGORY

• PowerPoint Templates
• Keynote Presentations
• Infographic
• Free slides

QUICK LINKS

• Frequently Asked Questions
• Terms & Conditions
• Privacy Policy
• DMCA Policy

EMAIL NEWSLETTER

Get updates of our PowerPoint templates and slide designs before anyone else.

How-To Geek

Virtual powerpoint presentations don't have to be boring: 7 ways keep people engaged.

Don't create "just another" virtual PowerPoint. Entertain your audience with an engaging presentation.

Quick Links

Add interactive in-slide features, embed your webcam, choose your layout carefully, limit your animations, use live chat (and have a moderator), pre-record your presentation, have a backup plan.

With online conferencing the twenty-first-century norm, you might find yourself creating and presenting a virtual PowerPoint presentation. You may well be used to delivering a slideshow to a live audience, but you can face a completely different set of challenges when doing this online.

The biggest difference between in-person and virtual presentations is that you're less likely to be able to read people's body language or glean verbal feedback when presenting online, so it can be more difficult to adjust your tone or pace accordingly. Your audience might also be more easily distracted by the dog barking in the background or a child running through the room, so you have to use methods that are more likely to keep your audience engaged.

As someone who led a school's English Department through the pandemic, I'm all too used to staring at my camera in the hope that my colleagues haven't zoned out, so I'd like to share some tried and tested ways to make virtual PowerPoint presentations at least a little more gripping.

One way to engage your virtual audience is to get them to interact directly with your PowerPoint presentation . Two examples that work for me are adding a QR code and including a countdown timer.

QR codes are a great way to direct your audience to a website or quiz. On Microsoft Edge, right-click anywhere on a web page where there isn't already a link, and left-click "Create QR Code For this Page." You can then copy or download the code to wherever you like in your presentation.

People like using their phones, so even if you can't see your audience, it's a safe bet that as soon as you direct them to scan a QR code with their camera, they'll engage straightaway. If the QR code directs people to a quiz-building website, such as Google Forms or SurveyMonkey, you can use this as a way to check if your audience has been listening!

Countdown Timer

In any situation, it's human nature to feel the pressure of a countdown timer. Countdown timers are a really effective way to maintain your audience's attention , as people will naturally keep checking back in with your PowerPoint slide to see how long they have left to do whatever you've tasked them to do. They're also a handy way to let your audience know when you plan to move on to the next slide in your presentation, serving as a clear boundary marker.

To create a countdown timer, you need to add the Disappear animation to text boxes or shapes containing your countdown numbers , adjusting the timing to one second for each.

Another reason a virtual audience might be less engaged is that, to them, seeing the presenter and their expressions is as important as reading the content of the slides. PowerPoint recognizes this, which is why they have the Cameo tool that lets you embed your webcam into your slideshow .

Providing you or your organization are subscribed to Microsoft 365, using Cameo is very straightforward. Simply type Cameo into your PowerPoint search box at the top of your window, and choose from the options there. To keep your webcam visible throughout your presentation, click "All Slides."

If you go down this route, make sure you avoid placing a prominent light directly behind you (otherwise, you'll just appear as a silhouette!), and make a conscious effort to repeatedly look at your camera directly as often as you can.

If you are creating an in-person PowerPoint presentation that will be beamed onto a large projector screen, you can afford to have smaller fonts and more writing on your slides. However, when you're running a virtual presentation, it's worth remembering that some people may well be viewing it on a mobile device with a small screen.

As a result, if you have lots of diminutive text on your slides, you're more likely to frustrate and, ultimately, disengage your audience. As a rule of thumb, I try to avoid using anything smaller than a size-40 font in a virtual presentation, and I also make every effort to have no more than four lines of text on each slide.

As well as adapting your layout to suit the virtual setting, also consider reducing the number of fancy animations in your slideshow.

As you're streaming your presentation over the internet, you can't rely on your viewers to have a strong connection and a decent device. An animation that appears to last a second on your screen can be jumpy and take longer on someone else's, resulting in a laggy presentation that looks unprofessional.

Regardless of whether you're presenting in-person or online, it's always a good idea to reduce the number and variety of animations you use in PowerPoint. That's not to say you shouldn't use any animations at all—after all, you are trying to keep your viewers engaged—but sticking to the Fade entrance animation will help you to make sure your presentation isn't a visual overload for your audience, doesn't experience jumpiness, and looks professional.

One of the most frustrating barriers to a successful virtual presentation is having people interrupt each other—not least when people try to jump in over you , the presenter. Similarly, that annoying two-second delay often causes awkward and unwanted speech overlaps.

Most videoconferencing platforms, including Microsoft Teams and Google Meet, let you stream your PowerPoint presentation within the call and have a live-chat facility at the same time, and you can make use of this feature so that your session runs as smoothly as possible.

When creating your PowerPoint presentation, plan in some time for you to address written comments that your audience is adding to the live chat as you present.

By doing this, you're giving your viewers the opportunity to ask questions, something that is often lost in virtual presentations, while also helping yourself to stay focused and finish whichever segment of your slideshow you are currently presenting.

Even better, if you are able to recruit a moderator, they can answer the typed questions for you within the chat as the presentation is ongoing, so you can just focus on giving an excellent presentation.

Are you presenting a particularly difficult topic? Or is it that you're simply not the most confident of presenters? One way to overcome these potential pitfalls is to pre-record either your whole presentation or even just the more complicated parts.

To do this, click "Record" in the top-right corner of your window, and when you finish, your slides and voiceover will be saved as an MP4.

You can then play the video or videos of your presentation during your video conference, pausing when necessary to answer any questions or elaborate on one of your points. Using this method will mean you can rehearse and perfect your slideshow, keeping your viewers engaged as a result.

We at How-To Geek know all too well about the unreliability of technology, and things always seem to go wrong at the most inconvenient moments. Even if you have perfected your PowerPoint layout and rehearsed its content to death, you should always have a backup plan in case things go awry.

Before your meeting begins, send the PowerPoint file to your viewers, and print off a copy of the slides for you to have by your side. This way, if your PowerPoint glitches for any reason, you can instruct your audience to open their copy of the presentation, and you have your notes ready to go so you can carry on from where you left off.

Many people make the same mistakes in their PowerPoint presentations, regardless of whether they're designed for a virtual or in-person meeting. Make sure you check out our top tips to avoid making these mistakes and impress your audience with the perfect slideshow.

Here’s How to Make Your Next Interactive Presentation the Best One Ever

No one wants to sit through a lengthy, boring, or predictable presentation, even on an interesting subject. That’s why we’re changing how presenters, content marketers, and storytellers engage, excite, and retain their audiences. Even mundane topics can be a good time!

But engaging virtual presentations need the right tools. Want to include videos, audio, animation, quizzes, and more? With Tiled, your presentations can go from static to dynamic. Here are nine tips on how to do it.

1. Allow Your Audience To Choose Their Next Step

Incorporate an interactive menu that allows the audience to choose the order and flow of your presentation. Using hotspots, which is what Tiled calls links, your audience can move about your content experience as they choose. For example, if you’re presenting about solar panels, you can include a list of panel types, installation options, and corresponding benefits or customer testimonials that your audience can navigate through in the way that best serves their needs.

2. Videos Say A Thousand Words

Videos are another great way to make a presentation engaging, virtually transporting your audience into your content. Imagine real estate presentations that include video tours of your properties, for instance.

3. Add Audio

Incorporate audio into your content to bring a variety of subjects to life. For example, you could use audio to share customer testimonials or product instructions. And keep accessibility in mind by incorporating audio scripts for visually-impaired members of your audience.

4. Use Dynamic Charts and Graphs

When you’re using charts and graphs, dynamic elements help your audience dive into critical data. Selecting a slice of a pie chart to display additional detail, highlight trends, or provide more context is an effective way to show the details that matter. Don’t just present — tell a story.

5. Incorporate Zoom and Scroll Options

You can also give users the ability to zoom in and scroll on individual slides. See how SkullCandy does it : During their self-guided presentation, customers can zoom in on an image of the headphones to highlight its features.

6. Make Transitions Functional

Thanks to touch-enabled smart devices, interacting with content through haptics has become normal. Take advantage of this instinct and enable thoughtful, smooth transitions from one idea or concept to the next.

7. Include a Quiz or Survey

Many presentations are created to train employees . Including a quiz at the end of the presentation (or after each section) to find out how well employees understand the information. In a Tiled microapp, you can incorporate a quiz right in your sales playbook and gather data on how well employees have retained the information.

8. Inspire Action

Make it easy to take the next step by concluding your presentation with a call to action. Invite your audience to place an order, join a mailing list, or submit contact information. Take advantage of this feature in a variety of situations, such as gathering information for contacting potential customers during an event.

9. Include a Feedback Form

No need to wait for feedback from your employees or audience members. Quickly and easily determine how well the presentation went and discover new ways to improve in the future with a feedback form in your microapp, like the contact form in this one .

Improve Interaction With Tiled

Learn how to make virtual presentations interactive with presentation software and easy-to-use templates from Tiled. Simply insert your content into the placeholder spots on the template to end up with impressive and interactive slides every time.

Discover even more creative ways to make a presentation interactive with hotspots and other innovative tools, then share your final product with your whole team. Contact us to request a demo today.

Sr. Director of Demand Generation at Tiled

You may also like....

5 reasons your sales presentations need to be interactive experiences

The Secret to Successful Customer Proposals

Meet the Tiled Score

The importance of personalization in an impersonal world…

Four things to consider when creating content that drives action

How to Develop a Customer Experience Strategy That Encourages Interaction

Ux design for microapps, what’s new: march 2021, what’s new: february 2021.

Do You Need to Worry About the Employee Experience Gap?

Why Design Matters in Employee Journey Mapping

Microapps As Digital Employee Experience Software

What is a Microapp?

A Peek into Peaks.

We won an hr tech award.

Product Announcements

What’s new: november 2020.

Turning Figma designs into interactive experiences has never been easier

Release notes: may 2019.

6 Fun Ways to Create Interactive Presentations to Engage Your Audience

Let’s be honest, most presentations are boring. We’ve all zoned out during endless slideshows, wishing we were anywhere else. But what if your presentations could be exciting and engaging? The secret ingredient is interactivity .

Interactive presentations grab your audience’s attention, get them to participate, and make your message stick. Platforms like Slidone make it super easy to add interactive elements. So, how can you make your presentations stand out from the crowd? 

Different Ways To Create Interactive Presentations More Engaged:

1. live polls: check the vibe.

Imagine kicking off your presentation by asking a question and seeing your audience’s answers pop up instantly in a colorful chart. Live polls are a great way to break the ice, understand what people think, and tailor your presentation to their interests.

Example: If you’re a teacher talking about a historical event, use a live poll to ask students what they already know. This helps you adjust your lesson to fit their current understanding.

Read More: To Know About What is Live Polls In Detailed.

2. Live Q&A: Let’s Talk

Forget waiting until the end for questions! With live Q&A, your audience can ask questions throughout your presentation. This keeps everyone engaged and ensures no one’s questions get lost in the shuffle.

Example: If you’re presenting a business proposal, encourage potential investors to ask questions using the live Q&A. This shows you’re open and honest and lets you address any concerns right away.

3. Word Cloud: Picture This

Want to see your audience’s thoughts come to life? Word clouds are a cool way to gather answers to open-ended questions. As people respond, the most popular words get bigger, creating a dynamic picture of everyone’s ideas.

Example: A professor explaining a complicated scientific theory could use a word cloud to see students’ initial thoughts and understand how well they grasp the concept.

Read More: To Know About What Is Word Cloud In Detailed.

4. Quizzes: Time to Test Your Knowledge

Turn your presentation into a fun learning experience with interactive quizzes. This helps you check if your audience understands the material, reinforce key points, and see where you might need to explain things further.

Example: A trainer teaching employees new skills could use quizzes throughout the workshop to ensure everyone is on track and identify areas where they might need extra help.

5. Surveys: Tell Me How I Did

Want to know what your audience really thought? Surveys are a simple way to gather feedback and improve your presentations. Use them to understand what worked well, what could be better, and how you can make your next presentation even more awesome.

Example: After a sales pitch, use a survey to gather feedback on the product or service, identify any concerns, and gauge customer interest.

6. Analytics: Measure Your Success

Go beyond basic impressions and dig deeper into your presentation’s impact with analytics. Track audience engagement, participation rates, and quiz results to get valuable insights that help you fine-tune your content and delivery.

Example: A marketing pro presenting a new campaign strategy can use analytics to see which slides grabbed the most attention and which key messages resonated best, allowing for data-driven improvements.

Conclusion:

Interactive presentations are the future of communication. By using features like live polls, Q&A, word clouds, quizzes, surveys, and analytics, you can transform your presentations from boring lectures into engaging experiences that captivate your audience and leave a lasting impact. Platforms like Slidone make it easy to create interactive presentations, so why wait? Start exploring these features and take your presentations to the next level!

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

• Interactive Presentation Software

Join our PPT experts community

Meet and learn the tips and tricks from creators & companies who share how they use PowerPoint to create better presentations in minutes.

Quick Links

• Integrations
• Case Studies
• Help Center

Security Policies

• Terms & Conditions
• Privacy Policy
• Refund/Cancellation Policy
• Disclaimer Notice
• DMCA Policy
• GDPR Policy
• CCPA Policy
• Cookies Policy

Copyright © 2024 Slidone. All rights reserved.

Template egg.

Home Blog Presentation Ideas 23 PowerPoint Presentation Tips for Creating Engaging and Interactive Presentations

23 PowerPoint Presentation Tips for Creating Engaging and Interactive Presentations

PowerPoint presentations are not usually known for being engaging or interactive. That’s often because most people treat their slides as if they are notes to read off  and not a tool to help empower their message.

Your presentation slides are there to help bring to life the story you are telling. They are there to provide visuals and empower your speech.

So how do you go about avoiding a presentation “snoozefest” and instead ensure you have an engaging and interactive presentation?  By making sure that you use your slides to help YOU tell your story, instead of using them as note cards to read off of.

The key thing to remember is that your presentation is there to compliment your speech, not be its focus.

In this article, we will review several presentation tips and tricks on how to become a storytelling powerhouse by building a powerful and engaging PowerPoint presentation.

Start with writing your speech outline, not with putting together slides

Use more images and less text, use high-quality images, keep the focus on you and your presentation, not the powerpoint, your presentation should be legible from anywhere in the room, use a consistent presentation design, one topic per slide, avoid information overwhelm by using the “rule of three”.

• Display one bullet at a time

Avoid unnecessary animations

• Only add content that supports your main points

Do not use PowerPoint as a teleprompter

• Never Give Out Copies of the Presentation

Re-focus the attention on you by fading into blackness

Change the tone of your voice when presenting, host an expert discussion panel, ask questions, embed videos, use live polling to get instant feedback and engage the audience.

• He kept his slides uncluttered and always strived for simplicity
• He was known to use large font size, the bigger, the better.
• He found made the complex sound simple.

He was known to practice, practice, and keep on practicing.

Summary – how to make your presentation engaging & interactive, fundamental rules to build powerful & engaging presentation slides.

Before we go into tips and tricks on how to add flair to your presentations and create effective presentations, it’s essential to get the fundamentals of your presentation right.

Your PowerPoint presentation is there to compliment your message, and the story you are telling. Before you can even put together slides, you need to identify the goal of your speech, and the key takeaways you want your audience to remember.

YOU and your speech are the focus of this presentation, not the slides – use your PowerPoint to complement your story.

Keep in mind that your slides are there to add to your speech, not distract from it.  Using too much text in your slides can be distracting and confusing to your audience. Instead, use a relevant picture with minimal text, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”

This slide is not unusual, but is not a visual aid, it is more like an “eye chart”.

Aim for something simpler, easy to remember and concise, like the slides below.

Keep in mind your audience when designing your presentation, their background and aesthetics sense. You will want to avoid the default clip art and cheesy graphics on your slides.

While presenting make sure to control the presentation and the room by walking around, drawing attention to you and what you are saying.  You should occasionally stand still when referencing a slide, but never turn your back to your audience to read your slide.

You and your speech are the presentations; the slides are just there to aid you.

Most season presenters don’t use anything less than twenty-eight point font size, and even Steve Jobs was known to use nothing smaller than forty-point text fonts.

If you can’t comfortably fit all the text on your slide using 28 font size than you’re trying to say and cram too much into the slide, remember tip #1.4 – Use relevant images instead and accompany it with bullets.

Best Practice PowerPoint Presentation Tips

The job of your presentation is to help convey information as efficiently and clearly as possible. By keeping the theme and design consistent, you’re allowing the information and pictures to stand out.

However, by varying the design from slide to slide, you will be causing confusion and distraction from the focus, which is you and the information to be conveyed on the slide.

Technology can also help us in creating a consistent presentation design just by picking a topic and selecting a sample template style. This is possible thanks to the SlideModel’s AI slideshow maker .

Each slide should try to represent one topic or talking point. The goal is to keep the attention focused on your speech, and by using one slide per talking point, you make it easy for you to prepare, as well as easy for your audience to follow along with your speech.

Sometimes when creating our presentation, we can often get in our heads and try to over-explain. A simple way to avoid this is to follow the “ Rule of Three ,” a concept coined by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle.

The idea is to stick to only 3 main ideas that will help deliver your point.  Each of the ideas can be further broken into 3 parts to explain further. The best modern example of this “Rule of Three” can be derived from the great Apple presentations given by Steve Jobs – they were always structured around the “Rule of Three.”

Display one sentence at a time

If you are planning to include text in your slides, try to avoid bullet lists, and use one slide per sentence. Be short and concise. This best practice focuses on the idea that simple messages are easy to retain in memory. Also, each slide can follow your storytelling path, introducing the audience to each concept while you speak, instead of listing everything beforehand.

Presentation Blunders To Avoid

In reality, there is no need for animations or transitions in your slides.

It’s great to know how to turn your text into fires or how to create a transition with sparkle effects, but the reality is the focus should be on the message. Using basic or no transitions lets the content of your presentation stand out, rather than the graphics.

If you plan to use animations, make sure to use modern and professional animations that helps the audience follow the story you are telling, for example when explaining time series or changing events over time.

Only add engaging content that supports your main points

You might have a great chart, picture or even phrase you want to add, but when creating every slide, it’s crucial to ask yourself the following question.

“Does this slide help support my main point?”

If the answer is no, then remove it.  Remember, less is more.

A common crutch for rookie presenters is to use slides as their teleprompter.

First of all, you shouldn’t have that much text on your slides. If you have to read off something, prepare some index cards that fit in your hand but at all costs do not turn your back on your audience and read off of your PowerPoint.  The moment you do that, you make the presentation the focus, and lose the audience as the presenter.

Avoid Giving Out Copies of the Presentation

At least not before you deliver a killer presentation; providing copies of your presentation gives your audience a possible distraction where they can flip through the copy and ignore what you are saying.

It’s also easy for them to take your slides out of context without understanding the meaning behind each slide.  It’s OK to give a copy of the presentation, but generally it is better to give the copies AFTER you have delivered your speech. If you decide to share a copy of your presentation, the best way to do it is by  generating a QR code  for it and placing it at the end of your presentation. Those who want a copy can simply scan and download it onto their phones.

Tips To Making Your Presentation More Engaging

The point of your presentation is to help deliver a message.

When expanding on a particularly important topic that requires a lengthy explanation it’s best to fade the slide into black.  This removes any distraction from the screen and re-focuses it on you, the present speaker. Some presentation devices have a built-in black screen button, but if they don’t, you can always prepare for this by adding a black side to your presentation at the right moment.

“It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.”

Part of making your presentation engaging is to use all the tools at your disposal to get your point across. Changing the inflection and tone of your voice as you present helps make the content and the points more memorable and engaging.

One easy and powerful way to make your presentation interactive is experts to discuss a particular topic during your presentation. This helps create a more engaging presentation and gives you the ability to facilitate and lead a discussion around your topic.

It’s best to prepare some questions for your panel but to also field questions from the audience in a question and answer format.

How To Make Your Presentation More Interactive

What happens if I ask you to think about a pink elephant?  You probably briefly think about a pink elephant, right?

Asking questions when presenting helps engage the audience, and arouse interest and curiosity.  It also has the added benefit of making people pay closer attention, in case they get called on.

So don’t be afraid to ask questions, even if rhetorical; asking a question engages a different part of our brain. It causes us to reflect rather than merely take in the information one way. So ask many of them.

Asking questions can also be an excellent way to build suspense for the next slide.

(Steve Jobs was known to ask questions during his presentations, in this slide he built suspense by asking the audience “Is there space for a device between a cell phone and a laptop?” before revealing the iPad) Source: MacWorld SF 2018

Remember the point of your presentation is to get a message across and although you are the presenter, it is completely fine to use video in your PowerPoint to enhance your presentation.  A relevant video can give you some breathing time to prepare the next slides while equally informing the audience on a particular point.

CAUTION: Be sure to test the video beforehand, and that your audience can hear it in the room.

A trending engagement tool among presenters is to use a live polling tool to allow the audience to participate and collect immediate feedback.

Using a live polling tool is a fun and interactive way to engage your audience in real-time and allow them to participate in part of your presentation.

Google Slides has a built-in Q&A feature that allows presenters to make the slide deck more interactive by providing answers to the audience’s questions. By using the Q&A feature in Google Slides, presenters can start a live Q&A session and people can ask questions directly from their devices including mobile and smartphones.

Key Takeaways from one of the best presenters, Steve Jobs

He kept his slides uncluttered and always strove for simplicity.

In this slide, you can easily see he is talking about the battery life, and it uses a simple image and a few words. Learning from Jobs, you can also make a great presentation too. Focus on the core benefit of your product and incorporate great visuals.

Source: Macworld 2008

SlideModel.com can help to reproduce high-impact slides like these, keeping your audience engagement.

He was known to use large font sizes, the bigger, the better

A big font makes it hard to miss the message on the slide, and allows the audience to focus on the presenter while clearing the understanding what the point of the slide is.

He found made the complex sound simple

When explaining a list of features, he used a simple image and lines or simple tables to provide visual cues to his talking points.

(This particular slide is referencing the iMac features)

What made Steve Jobs the master of presentation, was the ritual of practicing with his team, and this is simple yet often overlooked by many presenters.  It’s easy to get caught in the trap of thinking you don’t need to practice because you know the material so well.

While all these tips will help you create a truly powerful presentation , it can only achieve if applied correctly.

It’s important to remember when trying to deliver an amazing experience, you should be thoroughly prepared. This way, you can elevate your content presentation, convey your message effectively and captivate your audience.

This includes having your research cited, your presentation rehearsed.  Don’t just rehearse your slides, also take time to practice your delivery, and your tone.  The more you rehearse, the more relaxed you will be when delivering. The more confident you will feel.

While we can’t help you with the practice of your next presentation, we can help you by making sure you look good, and that you have a great design and cohesiveness.

You focus on the message and content; we’ll focus on making you look good.

Have a tip you would like to include?  Be sure to mention it in the comments!

Like this article? Please share

Audience, Engaging, Feedback, Interactive, Poll, Rule of Three, Steve Jobs Filed under Presentation Ideas

Related Articles

Filed under Presentation Ideas • November 29th, 2023

The Power of Audience Engagement: Strategies and Examples

As presenters, captivating the interest of our viewers is the most important thing. Join us to learn all that’s required to boost audience engagement.

Filed under Business • April 30th, 2020

A Manager’s Guide to Interpersonal Communication

People are promoted to management positions for a variety of reasons. For many, they rise to the top because of their knowledge, technical skills, and decision-making capabilities. As a manager, your effectiveness also strongly depends on your ability to communicate well with your team members and other stakeholders. Here is a quick guide on Interpersonal Communication for Managers.

Filed under Business • June 27th, 2019

Using 360 Degree Feedback in Your Organization

Many organizations use 360 degree feedback to provide assessment for employees via multiple sources to analyze the knowledge, skill and behavior of employees. It is also known as multi-rater feedback, multi-source feedback, 360 Degree Review and multi-source assessment, since it is used frequently for assessing the performance of an employee and to determine his/her future […]

2 Responses to “23 PowerPoint Presentation Tips for Creating Engaging and Interactive Presentations”

Very great advices!

Greetings ! A compact composed communication for the host to have an impact -VOICE

Thank You ?

Leave a Reply

• EXPLORE Random Article

How to Create Interactive Presentations to Impress Students

Last Updated: June 24, 2020 References

This article was co-authored by Megan Morgan, PhD . Megan Morgan is a Graduate Program Academic Advisor in the School of Public & International Affairs at the University of Georgia. She earned her PhD in English from the University of Georgia in 2015. This article has been viewed 55,372 times.

We've all had to conduct and sit through presentations that did not encourage the audience to participate and were not very memorable. Although it might take a little more time and effort, you can create interactive and engaging presentations that your students will remember and enjoy.

Starting Your Presentation

• Make sure you are clear about how and when you would like audience members to interact. For example, will you have a designated time for questions at the end of the presentation? Is it okay if people stop you in the middle of the presentation? Is there a specific group activity you have planned? If you provide this specific information at the beginning, your presentation will flow more smoothly and the audience will follow your instructions.

• Request that people introduce themselves to audience members seated nearby.
• Invite audience members to share why they are attending the presentation.
• Ask audience members to share specific questions they would like you to address during your presentation. They will feel more invested in the presentation and pay closer attention to see how you answer their questions. As the person giving the presentation, you'll also have a better idea of how to tailor it to the specific interests and needs of your audience.

• Select a question that is related to the topic of your presentation and that you think the audience will find interesting or engaging. Instead of asking a very specific question that the audience may have a hard time answering correctly, ask them a question that is more broad and allows them to draw on their opinions or experiences since people like to talk about themselves. For example, if your presentation is on mental illness, you could start out by asking your audience how they think our society and culture portrays people dealing with mental illnesses.
• When you ask the question, don't be afraid to be silent for a few minutes to give people time to think. Look at your audience in an encouraging manner while waiting for a response. You can also give them a few minutes to write down their response, and then invite audience members to share. Some individuals are more comfortable when they can write out their responses or thoughts.

• This tactic should yield a good response rate, and people will feel less intimidated.
• This poll will also offer you insight into what your audience is thinking. You can then emphasize certain aspects of your presentation to reinforce specific points.

• For example, if you are giving a presentation that deals with the history of immigration, ask students about potential solutions to modern-day questions about immigration. Then, revisit the problem or topic at the end of the presentation and discuss potential solutions.

Creating a Comfortable Environment for Student Interaction

• When students make a contribution to the presentation or attempt to answer a question, acknowledge their effort. Mention that they have raised an interesting point or asked a good question. If your audience feels that you have at least acknowledged their attempt, they will be more willing to put themselves out there again and participate.
• Even if you don't think a question or comment is an insightful one or particularly relevant, you can respond in a way that is tactful and diplomatic. For example, “This is a good starting point, but we also need to consider. . .” or “That's an interesting question, but beyond the scope of what we can talk about today.”

• Relax your posture and try to un-tense your muscles so you don't seem stiff or standoffish. This might deter students from participating.
• Use a conversational tone instead of an overly formal one. If students see you as someone who is accessible, friendly, and approachable, they will be more willing to participate and interact with the material. This doesn't mean you should use slang or inappropriate language, but you don't have to pretend you are a snobby aristocrat either.
• Move closer to the students instead of standing behind a podium, lectern, or computer. This will help you connect better with the audience and make them feel like they are a part of your presentation rather than just passively watching it.

• If you are reading your notes or powerpoint slides instead of looking at your audience, students will be distracted and less likely to engage with your presentation.

• You can emphasize the perspective or view you think is most accurate and explain why, but you will create a stronger and more interactive presentation if you can acknowledge other views exist.

Encouraging Audience Interaction During a Presentation

• Public-speaking experts recommend opening your story by appealing to what people know or think they know about a specific topic. This helps establish rapport with your audience. Then, prompt the audience to reconsider what they thought they knew by questioning the status quo. For example, what if what we thought about something was wrong, or what if there was something else going on? Keep exploring this dichotomy during your presentation, which builds suspense and keeps students on the edge of their seats waiting for resolution to the question.
• Make sure you have a powerful ending to your story that encourages or inspires your audience to continue thinking about the presentation and the questions you raised. Point out the benefits or possibilities of this new way of thinking, and suggest what still needs to be considered.

• Look for a video or clip that emphasizes a point you would like to make or that you feel gets the audience in the right mindset to discuss a topic. Videos can also be helpful if there's a feeling, emotion, or sentiment that's difficult to convey while standing in front of a group of students.
• Using a video during your presentation also gives you a few minutes to compose your thoughts, and takes away some of the pressure on you as the presenter.
• Before playing the video, ask students to keep a few questions in mind or pay attention to something specific such as the language, scenery, or other aspect of the video so they are prepared for the discussion you want to have afterward.

• Photographs.
• Pieces of art or artifacts.
• Advertisements.
• 3-D models or figures.
• If you decide to make use of props, be sure to talk about these and refer to them during your presentation. For example, simply displaying a photograph on a slide won't have the same impact as actually discussing the photograph. Try asking audience members questions about what they see and notice about the photograph.

• Ask an audience member to come up on stage or to the front of the classroom and have them join you in an activity or assist you with some aspect of your presentation. Make sure you thank them in front of the audience and express your appreciation for their help.
• It can be helpful to ask for a volunteer before the presentation starts so you aren't putting people on the spot. This way, you will also have time to explain what you want the volunteer to do and make sure they aren't surprised or uncomfortable. Selecting a volunteer before the presentation will save you time and make sure it flows smoothly.
• Think about whether there might be a guest speaker or someone who could address a specific topic better than you or in a more engaging manner. If you are preparing this presentation for a class, it's a good idea to check with your teacher first to make sure they are okay with you inviting a guest speaker or participant.

• When you ask students a question, for example, request they show their hands to answer yes or no. You could also ask your audience to respond to a question by sitting or standing.
• Design an activity that requires students to split into small groups or move around the room. This will help refocus their attention on the matter at hand and your presentation.

• Calling on students by name helps establish a rapport with your audience and may make them more comfortable sharing. If you don't know their names, you can start out by asking a student to identify themselves before answering the question. It can be effective to call on students who seem more extroverted at first, and then ask more reserved students later in your presentation.
• Remember, even if their response is not what you expected or is incorrect, make sure you acknowledge their contribution and do not demean the student.

• It can be helpful for the person giving the presentation to restate the question or comment when asking for audience input.
• Remember, the audience will follow your lead, so make sure you are polite and not dismissive of any questions or comments. You don't want students to be rude to one another.

• Ask the audience to break up into small groups and briefly discuss a specific concept, topic, or question related to the presentation. Then, come back together and invite the groups to share their thoughts with the rest of the students.
• If you are looking at an image, referring to a reading, or using a map, ask students what they see rather than telling them how to interpret the material. This will ensure there is more discussion and conversation.
• Ask students to prepare a few discussion questions prior to the presentation. This makes sure everyone has thought about the material and is ready to take part in the presentation.

Concluding Your Presentation

• For example, are there articles, books, or websites you would recommend on a specific topic? Are there other presentations or lectures you could encourage them to attend?

• If you run out of time, you can always ask students to write down their questions and hand them to you or email them.

• Students will probably be more comfortable and honest if this is anonymous.
• This exercise will give you invaluable information about what your audience understands or doesn't understand about the material you presented. Then, you can make changes to improve and refine your next presentation.
• If you will see the same group again in the near future, you can discuss these comments and questions next time.

• Distribute notecards or a survey that students can complete. You could also provide a link to an online survey.

• For example, thank the group for being a great audience and raising excellent questions.

Expert Q&A

• Use videos or other props to encourage student interaction and discussion. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0
• Give your audience the opportunity to move around so they are less distracted. You can ask them to raise their hands, stand up, or move around the room to work in groups. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0
• If you act rude or hostile toward your audience, they will not be eager to participate or go along with your interactive presentation. Thanks Helpful 4 Not Helpful 1

You Might Also Like

• ↑ http://www.forbes.com/sites/work-in-progress/2014/01/28/five-easy-tricks-to-make-your-presentation-interactive/
• ↑ http://blog.prezi.com/latest/2014/10/23/8-ways-to-make-your-presentation-more-interactive?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Social&utm_content=blog&utm_campaign=interactive
• ↑ https://hbr.org/2012/10/structure-your-presentation-li
• ↑ http://www.speakingaboutpresenting.com/delivery/presentation-handouts/
• ↑ http://www.inc.com/betty-liu/5-easy-ways-to-improve-your-stage-presence.html

About this article

Reader Success Stories

Jul 13, 2016

Did this article help you?

• About wikiHow
• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Do Not Sell or Share My Info
• Not Selling Info

How to make your presentation interactive?

As a teacher, how many times have you given a presentation but almost none of your students expressed their doubts, replied to your questions or even engaged with the discussion? Sadly, this is a reality for many classes in universities and colleges around the world. Now, with the urgent need for distance education during the COVID-19 pandemic, the loss of student participation and engagement in online classrooms has intensified even more . This is why at FeedbackFruits we believe that interactive and dynamic study materials are key to keep the students connected to the subject throughout the course whether it is online or offline.

In this article, we will give you some tips on how to get the most out of the Interactive Presentation tool and boost your students’ performance by creating exciting and stimulating presentations.

1 - Present live and know who is with you

Interactive Presentation allows you to share synchronous presentations with all your students online as if you are all in a regular classroom. You can keep track of attendance by seeing which students are present and which are not. Moreover, if you want to give voice to your slides and explain them further, you can synchronously accompany them with other communication platforms used within your institution, such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams. This will allow you to start dialogues with your students and give them the chance to express their doubts and start debates as they would do in class. ‍

2 - Never lose control of your slides

As a teacher you are in full control of the presentation flow. Thus, you are in charge of moving forward with the slides when you decide. This will keep the students ‘hooked on’ the presentation, as they will have to pay attention to not miss anything or skip the questions! You can also enable different viewing options before and after the presentation. For instance, students who aren’t in the live presentation cannot have access to the material afterwards. ‍

3 - Use multiple-choice questions to test their understanding

You can ask several multiple-choice questions about the topics that are being presented. Again, students will have to be active and pay attention if they want to respond successfully and obtain better learning outcomes. Seeing the students’ results in real-time will help you as a teacher to assess their understanding on certain topics and know which concepts need further explanation. Moreover, you can also transform your presentations into quizzes and grade students on their performance when answering the questions.  ‍

4 - Rely on open questions for discussions, opinion and feedback

Open questions can bring a lot of value to your classes when used meaningfully. As a teacher, you can use them to allow students to give their opinion on specific or controversial topics. Accordingly, you can foster reflection and discussion by allowing students to see replies given by their peers. This public condition will enhance the dedication and effort that students put in their answers. Additionally, to make the most out of your presentation, you can ask for feedback on your course material from your students with a final open question. This way you will be able to get insight on what students think, like, and want to see more of, so you will have the opportunity to adapt and align your materials with their interests and needs for future classes

"The technology is really simple. I used presentations to make my classes interactive, meaningful and fun. Lots of fun actually!" Dr. R. Venketesha Prasad, teacher at TU Delft

5 - Break the participation barrier 

Interactive Presentation is a great resource to give voice to those students who are usually in the back of the room or too shy to participate in physical classes. So instead of highlighting the same students who always participate in class, this tool gives an opportunity for the rest to step forward and equally share their opinion. Many of our partners mentioned that FeedbackFruits tools help them to break some of the communication and participation barriers they can feel with more introverted students. ‍

6 - Post-presentation settling assignment

After your presentation, follow up with the students with an interactive activity to make sure the concepts explained are assimilated properly. For instance, a Discussion or an Interactive Video . Setting an engaging assignment after concluding the presentation and before the next one, will allow students to work on the concepts at their own pace and strengthen the learning process. ‍

In conclusion, keep students engaged and alert during the presentation by asking them to respond to informative and higher-order questions. Follow up the presentation with another engaging and participative activity to allow concepts to sink in. Pay attention to your students’ behaviour and responses to progressively improve every session and keep them even more attracted throughout the course. Interactive presentations have strong potential and a lot to offer, but making them meaningful is in your hands! ‍

We hope this blog post has inspired you on how to make your presentations more dynamic and engaging to increase student involvement. Please do not hesitate to contact our support team for more information.

More from FeedbackFruits tips series

5 ways to stimulate collaboration with FeedbackFruits Team Based Learning

5 ways optimize the team-based learning process with the support of technology

Develop critical thinking with Discussion on Work | FeedbackFruits tips

Check out 4 ways to design asynchronous discussions that stimulate critical thinking skills

Stimulate continuous engagement with Interactive Document | FeedbackFruits tips

Discover how to maintain continuous student engagement at every stage of your course using Interactive Document

Most popular blog posts

Promote active learning in different instructional modes

Explore how to best implement active learning strategies with deep understanding of different modalities

Meet the new FeedbackFruits partners | Summer 2023 Highlights

FeedbackFruits announces partnerships with many institutions worldwide over the past 4 months

Competency-based education (CBE) in higher education: A landscape overview

An overview of the state of competency-based education (CBE) in higher education around the world

The teaching insights newsletter

We gather the most valuable resources and learnings on pedagogy and email them to you. Once a month. Unsubscribe whenever you want.

Filling out this form means you agree to our Privacy Policy.

• Add an image
• Draft and add content
• Rewrite text
• Chat with Copilot
• Create a summary
• Copilot in Word on mobile devices
• Create a new presentation
• Add a slide or image
• Summarize your presentation
• Organize your presentation
• Use your organization's branding
• Copilot in PowerPoint for mobile devices
• Draft an Outlook email message
• Summarize an email thread
• Suggested drafts in Outlook
• Email coaching
• Get started with Copilot in Excel
• Identify insights
• Highlight, sort, and filter your data
• Generate formula columns
• Summarize your OneNote notes
• Create a to-do list and tasks
• Create project plans in OneNote

Create a new presentation with Copilot in PowerPoint

Note:  This feature is available to customers with a Copilot for Microsoft 365 license or Copilot Pro license.

Create a new presentation in PowerPoint.

Select Send  and Copilot will draft a presentation for you!

Edit the presentation to suit your needs, ask Copilot to add a slide , or start over with a new presentation and refine your prompt to include more specifics. For example, "Create a presentation about hybrid meeting best practices that includes examples for team building.”

Create a presentation with a template

Note:  This feature is only available to customers with a Copilot for Microsoft 365 (work) license. It is not currently available to customers with a Copilot Pro (home) license.

Copilot can use your existing themes and templates to create a presentation. Learn more about making your presentations look great with Copilot in PowerPoint .

Enter your prompt or select Create presentation from file to create a first draft of your presentation using your theme or template.

Edit the presentation to suit your needs, ask Copilot to add a slide , organize your presentation, or add images.

Create a presentation from a file with Copilot

Note:  This feature is available to customers with a Copilot for Microsoft 365 license for full options, or a Copilot Pro license for limited options.

With Copilot in PowerPoint, you can create a presentation from an existing Word document—or a PDF if you have a Copilot for Microsoft 365 (work) license. Point Copilot in PowerPoint to your document, and it will generate slides, apply layouts, create speaker notes, and choose a theme for you.

Select the document you want from the picker that appears. If you don't see the document you want, start typing any part of the filename to search for it. You can use a Word document—or, if you have a Copilot for Microsoft 365 (work) license, you can use a PDF, and encrypted documents are available as well.

Note:  If the file picker doesn't appear, type a front slash (/) to cause it to pop up.

Select Send  and Copilot will draft a presentation for you!

Best practices when creating a presentation from a Word document

Leverage word styles to help copilot understand the structure of your document.

By using Styles in Word to organize your document, Copilot will better understand your document structure and how to break it up into slides of a presentation. Structure your content under Titles and Headers when appropriate and Copilot will do its best to generate a presentation for you.

Include images that are relevant to your presentation

When creating a presentation, Copilot will try to incorporate the images in your Word document. If you have images that you would like to be brought over to your presentation, be sure to include them in your Word document.

Start with your organization’s template

If your organization uses a standard template, start with this file before creating a presentation with Copilot. Starting with a template will let Copilot know that you would like to retain the presentation’s theme and design. Copilot will use existing layouts to build a presentation for you. Learn more about making your presentations look great with Copilot in PowerPoint .

Tip:  Copilot works best with Word documents that are less than 24 MB.

Welcome to Copilot in PowerPoint

Frequently Asked Questions about Copilot in PowerPoint

Where can I get Microsoft Copilot?

Copilot Lab - Start your Copilot journey

Need more help?

Want more options.

Explore subscription benefits, browse training courses, learn how to secure your device, and more.

Microsoft 365 subscription benefits

Microsoft 365 training

Microsoft security

Accessibility center

Communities help you ask and answer questions, give feedback, and hear from experts with rich knowledge.

Ask the Microsoft Community

Microsoft Tech Community

Windows Insiders

Microsoft 365 Insiders

Find solutions to common problems or get help from a support agent.

Online support

Was this information helpful?

Thank you for your feedback.

Cloud Storage

Custom Business Email

Video and voice conferencing

Shared Calendars

Word Processing

Spreadsheets

Presentation Builder

Survey builder

Google Workspace

An integrated suit of secure, cloud-native collaboration and productivity apps powered by Google AI.

Tell impactful stories, with Google Slides

Create, present, and collaborate on online presentations in real-time and from any device.

• For my personal use
• For work or my business

Jeffery Clark

T h i s   c h a r t   h e l p s   b r i d g i n g   t h e   s t o r y !

E s t i m a t e d   b u d g e t

Make beautiful presentations, together

Stay in sync in your slides, with easy sharing and real-time editing. Use comments and assign action items to build your ideas together.

Present slideshows with confidence

With easy-to-use presenter view, speaker notes, and live captions, Slides makes presenting your ideas a breeze. You can even present to Google Meet video calls directly from Slides.

Seamlessly connect to your other Google apps

Slides is thoughtfully connected to other Google apps you love, saving you time. Embed charts from Google Sheets or reply to comments directly from Gmail. You can even search the web and Google Drive for relevant content and images directly from Slides.

Extend collaboration and intelligence to PowerPoint files

Easily edit Microsoft PowerPoint presentations online without converting them, and layer on Slides’ enhanced collaborative and assistive features like comments, action items, and Smart Compose.

Work on fresh content

With Slides, everyone’s working on the latest version of a presentation. And with edits automatically saved in version history, it’s easy to track or undo changes.

Make slides faster, with built-in intelligence

Assistive features like Smart Compose and autocorrect help you build slides faster with fewer errors.

Stay productive, even offline

You can access, create, and edit Slides even without an internet connection, helping you stay productive from anywhere.

Security, compliance, and privacy

Secure by default

We use industry-leading security measures to keep your data safe, including advanced malware protections. Slides is also cloud-native, eliminating the need for local files and minimizing risk to your devices.

Encryption in transit and at rest

All files uploaded to Google Drive or created in Slides are encrypted in transit and at rest.

Compliance to support regulatory requirements

Our products, including Slides, regularly undergo independent verification of their security, privacy, and compliance controls .

Private by design

Slides adheres to the same robust privacy commitments and data protections as the rest of Google Cloud’s enterprise services .

You control your data.

We never use your slides content for ad purposes., we never sell your personal information to third parties., find the plan that’s right for you, google slides is a part of google workspace.

Every plan includes

Collaborate from anywhere, on any device

Access, create, and edit your presentations wherever you are — from any mobile device, tablet, or computer — even when offline.

Get a head start with templates

Choose from a variety of presentations, reports, and other professionally-designed templates to kick things off quickly..

Photo Album

Book Report

Visit the Slides Template Gallery for more.

Ready to get started?

We use essential cookies to make Venngage work. By clicking “Accept All Cookies”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts.

Manage Cookies

Cookies and similar technologies collect certain information about how you’re using our website. Some of them are essential, and without them you wouldn’t be able to use Venngage. But others are optional, and you get to choose whether we use them or not.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

These cookies are always on, as they’re essential for making Venngage work, and making it safe. Without these cookies, services you’ve asked for can’t be provided.

Show cookie providers

• Google Login

Functionality Cookies

These cookies help us provide enhanced functionality and personalisation, and remember your settings. They may be set by us or by third party providers.

Performance Cookies

These cookies help us analyze how many people are using Venngage, where they come from and how they're using it. If you opt out of these cookies, we can’t get feedback to make Venngage better for you and all our users.

• Google Analytics

Targeting Cookies

These cookies are set by our advertising partners to track your activity and show you relevant Venngage ads on other sites as you browse the internet.

• Google Tag Manager
• Infographics
• Daily Infographics
• Popular Templates
• Accessibility
• Graphic Design
• Graphs and Charts
• Data Visualization
• Human Resources
• Beginner Guides

Blog Marketing 15 Interactive Presentation Ideas to Elevate Engagement

15 Interactive Presentation Ideas to Elevate Engagement

Written by: Krystle Wong Aug 04, 2023

As attention spans continue to shrink, the challenge of engaging audiences in a short timeframe has never been more significant. Let’s face it — grabbing and keeping your audience’s attention can be quite the challenge, especially when time is ticking away. But fear not, I’ve got the perfect solution: interactive presentations!

Believe it or not, creating an interactive presentation is easier than you might think. In this guide, I’ll show you how to effortlessly turn ordinary slides into captivating experiences with 15 interactive presentation ideas that will leave your audience begging for more. From quirky polls and fun games to storytelling adventures and multimedia magic, these ideas will take your presentation game to the next level.

Venngage is a game-changer when it comes to empowering interactive presentations. With just a few clicks, users can customize their favorite presentation templates , add multimedia content and create immersive experiences that leave a lasting impact. Whether you’re a seasoned presenter or a newcomer, get started with Venngage to elevate your presentation game to new heights of engagement and creativity.

Click to jump ahead:

What is an interactive presentation?

15 ways to make a presentation interactive, 7 best interactive presentation software, what are some common mistakes to avoid when creating interactive presentations, interactive presentation faqs, how to create an interactive presentation with venngage.

An interactive presentation is a dynamic and engaging communication format that involves active participation and collaboration between the presenter and the audience. Unlike traditional presentations where information is delivered in a one-way manner, interactive presentations invite the audience to interact, respond and contribute throughout the session.

Think of it as a two-way street where you and your audience have a friendly chat. It’s like playing a fun game where you ask questions, get live feedback and encourage people to share their thoughts. 

To make a good presentation , you can utilize various tools and techniques such as clickable buttons, polls, quizzes, discussions and multimedia elements to transform your slides into an interactive presentation. Whether you’re presenting in-person or giving a virtual presentation — when people are actively participating, they’re more likely to remember the stuff you’re talking about.

Interactive presentations leave a lasting impression on the audience. By encouraging active participation and feedback, interactive presentations facilitate better understanding and knowledge retention. Here are 15 innovative 5-minute interactive presentation ideas to captivate your audience from start to finish:

1. Ice-breaker questions

Start your presentation with intriguing and thought-provoking questions or a fun icebreaker game. These questions should be designed to pique the audience’s curiosity and encourage them to think about the topic you’ll be covering. By doing so, you create an immediate connection with your audience and set the stage for a more engaged and attentive audience.

For example, if you’re giving a business presentation about management and leadership training, you could ask audience questions such as “What’s the best business advice you’ve ever received, and how has it impacted your career?”

2. Live polling

Incorporate live polls during your presentation using audience response systems or polling apps . This allows you to collect real-time feedback, opinions and insights from active participants. Live polling encourages active participation and involvement, making your presentation feel like a collaborative and interactive experience.

3. Q&A sessions

Encourage the audience to ask questions throughout your presentation, especially for pitch deck presentations . Address these questions in real-time, which fosters a more interactive and dynamic atmosphere. This approach shows that you value the audience’s input and promotes a two-way communication flow.

4. Clickable buttons

Add clickable buttons to your slides, allowing the audience to navigate to specific sections or external resources at their own pace. For example, you could include links to your social media accounts or extra reading materials in your education presentation to give further information about the topic and get your students engaged.

By providing this autonomy, you empower the audience to explore areas of particular interest, creating a more personalized and engaging experience through your interactive slideshow.

5. Storytelling

Incorporate anecdotes or personal stories related to your topic. Storytelling is a powerful way to emotionally connect with your audience, making your presentation more relatable and memorable. A little storytelling along with a set of creative slides draws the audience in and keeps them engaged as they follow the narrative.

6. Interactive charts and graphs

Use interactive charts and graphs that respond to user input to make your presentation interactive. For instance, allow the audience to click on data points to view more detailed information or to change the displayed data series. Creating charts with interactive visuals help the audience interact with the data, fostering better understanding and engagement.

7. Animated infographics

Add animations to your infographics, making them visually dynamic and progressive. Animated infographics reveal information gradually, keeping the audience curious and attentive. This transforms complex data into an easily digestible and engaging format.

Venngage’s extensive library of infographic templates is a powerful tool to visualize data and elevate the interactivity of your presentations. Personalizing the visuals ensures a cohesive and professional look throughout your interactive presentation. The templates are highly customizable, allowing you to adjust colors, fonts, and styles to match your presentation’s theme and branding. 

8. Gamification

Introduce an interactive quiz, puzzles, or challenges related to your presentation content. Gamification adds an element of fun and competition, motivating the audience to participate actively and boosting their learning experience. Here are some gaming presentation templates you could use. 

9. Virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR)

If applicable, leverage VR or AR technologies to provide immersive experiences. These interactive presentation tools transport the audience into a virtual or augmented environment, making your presentation more captivating and memorable.

10. Collaborative whiteboarding

Get your audience involved in your presentation by utilizing digital whiteboards or collaborative tools to brainstorm ideas collectively. This fosters teamwork and creativity, enabling the audience to actively contribute and feel a sense of involvement in the presentation.

11. Hyperlinked text

Keep the information in your slides minimal with a simple presentation and incorporate hyperlinks to direct viewers to relevant websites or blogs , resources, or additional information. This encourages self-exploration and gives the audience the opportunity to delve deeper into topics of interest.

12. Role-playing

Engage the audience in role-playing scenarios to explore different perspectives. Role-playing promotes active learning and helps the audience relate the content to real-life situations, enhancing their understanding and retention.

13. Embedded videos

Include video clips in your slides to provide visual explanations, demonstrations, or interviews. Videos add a dynamic element to your presentation, enriching the content and keeping the audience engaged.

14. Audience-generated content

Encourage the audience to contribute ideas, stories or examples related to your professional presentation . Audience-generated content fosters a sense of ownership and involvement, making the presentation more interactive and personalized.

15. Slide transitions

Use slide transitions to create smooth animations between slides. Well-planned transitions maintain the audience’s interest and keep the presentation slides flowing seamlessly.

Interactive elements aside, enhance your presentation with these guides on how to summarize information for a captivating presentation and how to make a persuasive presentation to captivate your audience. 

If you’re looking to create engaging and interactive presentation slides that captivate your audience, these presentation software options are sure to elevate your game:

Prezi is renowned for its dynamic and non-linear presentation style, enabling users to craft visually stunning and interactive presentations. With an array of templates and animation effects, Prezi enhances audience engagement, making your presentations more captivating and memorable.

2. Mentimeter

Mentimeter serves as an audience response system, empowering real-time interaction during presentations. Users can create interactive polls, quizzes, word clouds and more, allowing the audience to respond using their smartphones or other devices. This fosters active participation and provides valuable feedback instantly.

3. Google Slides

Google Slides is a free cloud-based presentation software that not only offers collaboration features but also enables real-time interactions. It includes add-ons and third-party integrations to further enhance interactivity, making it an excellent choice for collaborative and engaging presentations.

4. Microsoft PowerPoint

PowerPoint, a classic presentation software, has evolved to incorporate more interactive features like live captions, real-time collaboration and interactive elements such as quizzes and forms. With its familiar interface and versatile functionalities, PowerPoint remains a reliable choice for interactive presentations.

5. Prezentor

Prezentor caters to sales-oriented presentations focusing on interactive storytelling and data-driven content. It offers analytics to track audience engagement and behavior during presentations, allowing you to fine-tune your approach and keep your audience hooked.

6. Opinion Stage

Opinion Stage is a visual and interactive data collection tool designed to engage and excite audiences whether sitting in a lecture hall, participating in a live Zoom, or watching an on-demand webinar. The Opinion Stage tools are simple and intuitive, making it easy to create attention-grabbing quizzes, surveys, and polls in minutes. A great way to spice up any presentation, encourage audience participation, and collect authentic feedback.

7 . Venngage

Venngage stands out as a versatile design tool that facilitates the creation of interactive infographics, data visualizations and presentations with ease. Offering various interactive elements and animations, Venngage empowers you to craft visually appealing and engaging presentations effortlessly.

With these interactive presentation software options at your disposal, you can unleash your creativity and deliver presentations that leave a lasting impact on your audience. So, go ahead and make your presentations interactive, captivating and memorable!

For more presentation software options, check out this blog on the 12 best presentation software for 2023.

Creating interactive presentations can be a game-changer for engaging your audience and enhancing your presentation skills, but steering clear of common pitfalls is essential. Here are some key mistakes to avoid when crafting your interactive presentations:

1. Overloading with interactivity

While interactivity is fantastic, bombarding your audience with too many interactive elements can backfire. Strive for a balanced approach that enhances engagement without overwhelming your listeners.

2. Ignoring audience relevance

Failing to tailor interactive elements to your audience’s interests and preferences can lead to disconnection. Make sure your interactions resonate with your specific audience for a more meaningful experience.

3. Not testing interactive elements

Skipping thorough testing of interactive features before showtime can spell disaster. Avoid technical glitches by diligently testing all interactive components in advance.

4. Poor timing and pace

Timing is everything, especially with interactive activities. Ensure seamless integration by planning your key points and the timing of your interactive elements carefully.

5. Lack of clear purpose

Every interactive element should serve a purpose and contribute to your presentation’s objectives. Don’t add interactions just for the sake of it — ensure they add value and align with your message.

6. Failing to engage beyond interactivity

While interactive elements are powerful tools, remember that content is king. Combine your interactive features with compelling storytelling and valuable insights to create an immersive and impactful presentation.

Incorporating animated slides into your interactive presentations enhances the overall appeal and interaction, turning an ordinary presentation into an engaging experience. Try it out with one of our animated presentation templates to get started. 

How do you start an interactive presentation?

Begin by grabbing the audience’s attention with an intriguing question or a surprising fact, setting the tone for a dynamic and engaging session.

Which type of presentation is the most interactive?

Workshops and seminars are often the most interactive types of presentations as they encourage active participation, discussions and hands-on activities.

How can interactive presentations enhance audience engagement?

Interactive presentations foster a two-way communication flow, involving the audience through polls, quizzes, discussions and multimedia elements, leading to increased interest, attentiveness and better retention of information.

What are some common interactive elements to include in a presentation?

Common interactive elements include clickable buttons, hyperlinked text, polls, quizzes, interactive charts, multimedia content and audience participation activities.

Can interactive presentations be used for educational purposes?

Absolutely! Interactive presentations are highly effective for educational purposes as they promote active learning, encourage critical thinking, and provide real-time feedback and knowledge exchange opportunities.

Need inspiration on how to give an engaging presentation ? Here are 120+ presentation ideas you could use. 

Venngage makes it easy for anyone to infuse interactivity into their presentations. From clickable buttons and hyperlinked text to interactive infographics and dynamic charts, Venngage offers a diverse range of interactive elements to captivate and engage the audience. Here’s how you can make your presentation more fun and interesting with Venngage:

• Sign up or log in to Venngage to access the platform.
• Choose a presentation template or start with a blank canvas to begin designing your interactive presentation.
• Add and edit slides in the Venngage editor to structure your presentation content effectively.
• Customize the design by selecting themes, fonts, colors and backgrounds to match your style and branding.
• Use interactive elements like buttons, links, pop-ups and hover effects to engage the audience during the presentation.
• Enhance engagement by incorporating interactive media such as videos and audio clips.
• Preview and test your entire presentation to ensure everything works smoothly before presenting it to your audience.
• Save your interactive presentation on Venngage and share it online or download it in various formats for presenting purposes.

Well, I hope these 15 5-minute interactive presentation examples can help unlock a new level of audience engagement for your next presentation. From fun quizzes and interactive storytelling to multimedia magic and gamified challenges, the possibilities are endless. So, don’t be afraid to experiment, tailor the ideas to suit your audience members and let your creativity shine.  

That said, remember to strike a balance and keep the interactivity purposeful and relevant. Some common mistakes to avoid when creating interactive slides include overloading the presentation with too many interactive elements and failing to align the interactive elements with the overall presentation goals and content. 

Got it? Great. Now let’s turn that boring presentation around!

Discover popular designs

Infographic maker

Brochure maker

White paper online

Newsletter creator

Flyer maker

Timeline maker

Letterhead maker

Mind map maker

Ebook maker

Microsoft 365 Life Hacks > Presentations > How to create an inspirational PowerPoint presentation

How to create an inspirational PowerPoint presentation

Creating an inspirational PowerPoint presentation involves more than just putting together slides; it’s about crafting a moving story that resonates with your audience and leaves a lasting impact. See how you can elevate your material to truly call your audience to agree with you or ask for action.

What is an inspirational presentation?

Easy and effective PowerPoint tools make it simple to assemble a compelling slideshow. You can choose from creative templates , make animated shorts , or implement video clips via Clipchamp .

However, PowerPoint works the best when you imbue it with a narrative that has the power to captivate. Whether you’re trying to motivate and uplift your audience, offer encouraging advice, or ask them to act or change their perspective, an inspirational presentation carries the same motivational speaking skills as a sales pitch.

Therefore, the key to a successful inspirational presentation is to deliver a clear, impactful message that is both engaging and memorable. Structure your presentation as a narrative, with a clear beginning, middle, and end. To elevate the storytelling qualities of your presentation, introduce a conflict or challenge and describe the journey of overcoming it. While not every topic that you choose to inspire others will involve a conflict, an inspirational presentation will nonetheless conclude with a resolution that leaves your audience inspired.

Tell your story with captivating presentations

Powerpoint empowers you to develop well-designed content across all your devices

How to inspire others with your presentational skills

Any good presentation begins with a strong outline . The outline of your presentation should adhere to your goals:

• To persuade people to share your point of view.
• To present something new or give a new perspective on something old.
• To inspire, motivate, and call for action or change.

Keep these goals in mind when you begin outlining. Start your outline with a strong theme that aligns with the message you want to convey. This should be relevant to your audience and your objectives and serve as the backbone of your presentation in guiding the narrative and supporting your message.

Use motivational quotes and visuals

Sprinkle your presentation with quotes from leaders and famous thinkers that align you’re your theme. Pair these quotes with compelling visuals to enhance their impact. Keep in mind that in a presentation that uses visual aids, these quotes are the “icing on the cake” of the message you’re trying to convey; they can serve as powerful reminders of the key points you want your audience to remember.

Share success stories

Incorporating success stories that are related to your topic can convey a sense of success to your audience. Stories of achievable potential can provide examples on how the concepts or strategies you’re sharing can help benefit your audience. This can make otherwise abstract ideas more tangible—and therefore achievable.

Engage your audience

Audience interaction—in the form of quizzes, can make your presentation more memorable. Include questions to ponder, prompt discussions, or incorporate quick activities that reinforce the message. This engagement makes the experience more dynamic and personal for the audience, increasing the impact of your presentation.

Brush up on presentation skills

The key to an inspirational presentation is to balance the use of visual aids and public speaking skills. This can be easier said than done, of course—which is why it’s vital to learn how to practice your presentations , incorporate humor and wit into your speech, or overcome the fear of public speaking that plagues an estimated 73% of the population.

Creating an inspirational presentation requires thoughtful preparation, a balance of visual aids and speaking, as well as a creative approach. By following these guidelines, you can develop a presentation that not only informs but also inspires and motivates your audience.

Get started with Microsoft 365

It’s the Office you know, plus the tools to help you work better together, so you can get more done—anytime, anywhere.

Topics in this article

More articles like this one.

How to create an educational presentation

Use PowerPoint to create dynamic and engaging presentations that foster effective learning.

Five tips for choosing the right PowerPoint template

Choose an appropriate PowerPoint template to elevate your presentation’s storytelling. Consider time length, audience and other presentation elements when selecting a template.

How you can use AI to help you make the perfect presentation handouts

Learn how AI can help you organize and create handouts for your next presentation.

How to use AI to help improve your presentations

Your PowerPoint presentations are about to get a boost when you use AI to improve a PowerPoint presentation.

Everything you need to achieve more in less time

Get powerful productivity and security apps with Microsoft 365

Explore Other Categories

Like what you're reading?

How to create and deliver a winning team presentation

Get your team on prezi – watch this on demand video.

Anete Ezera May 31, 2024

Team presentations are about creating a dynamic experience for your audience whilst working together to share valuable information.

You might need to do a team presentation in various situations. For example, in a school project, a team presentation lets each member highlight their contributions. In the workplace, team presentations are great for updating projects, pitching ideas to clients, or sharing research findings with stakeholders. 

Using a platform like Prezi can really boost your team’s presentation. Let’s look at what makes team presentations effective and how you can create a successful one.

Team presentations explained

So what exactly is a team presentation? Simply put, in a team presentation you’re working with others to share information or ideas. Each person brings their strengths and viewpoints, making the presentation more engaging.

Typically, the team divides the content so everyone has a part to focus on. This involves planning, creating visual aids like slides, and practicing together. The goal is to ensure everything flows smoothly and the message is clear. By combining everyone’s efforts, you end up with a presentation that effectively shares your team’s insights and knowledge.

How to create a great team presentation: a step-by-step guide

When done right, team presentations can be a really rewarding experience for everyone involved. To make sure the creation process runs smoothly, follow this step-by-step guide.

1. Gather your team

To start, you need to get everybody together. Use this opportunity to discuss the purpose of the presentation and what you want to say. This way, everyone understands the goal and can be on the same page with the project.

2. Divide the responsibilities

During the discussion, pinpoint what each team member is good at and assign roles based on their strengths. For example, one person might be great at research, another at designing slides, and someone else might excel at public speaking. By dividing tasks this way, you ensure a high-quality presentation as everyone gets to contribute the best way they can.

3. Plan the content

When planning your content, outline the key points you want to cover. Break down the presentation into sections and decide who will handle each part. Make sure the content flows logically from one section to the next. This planning phase is crucial for a cohesive presentation.

4. Develop visual aids

Great visuals can make your presentation stand out. That’s where Prezi steps in to help you create engaging visuals that complement your content. Also, make sure to keep the design consistent and not too cluttered. Remember, visual aids should enhance your message, not distract from it.

5. Rehearse together

Practice makes perfect! Schedule a few rehearsals where everyone presents their part. Pay attention to the transitions between speakers to ensure they’re smooth. Rehearsing together helps you catch any issues and make sure everyone is comfortable with their role.

6. Get feedback

To improve your delivery, practice in front of a trusted audience of friends or colleagues, and get their honest opinions. They can give you feedback on any tweaks you can make to improve your presentation. Following this, you can then make any necessary adjustments based on their feedback.

7. Prepare for Q&A

Be ready to answer questions from your audience. To prepare, discuss potential questions with your team and decide who will answer which types of questions. This preparation helps ensure you can handle the Q&A session confidently.

8. Present with confidence

On the day of the presentation, stay calm and confident. Trust in the preparation you’ve done. Remember to engage with your audience, make eye contact, and speak clearly. Most importantly, support each other as a team, and have fun with it.

To learn more about delivering a successful presentation with two or more people, explore our article on co-presenting tips and techniques .

9. Reflect and learn

After the presentation, gather your team to reflect on what went well and what could be improved for next time. Learning from each experience helps you continually improve your presentation skills.

By following these steps, you can be sure that every aspect of creating a team presentation is covered, allowing maximum success. 

What are the advantages of team presentations?

Collaborating as a team for presentations has many advantages, including: 

The opportunity to work together as a team provides a sense of unity. Whether it’s in the workplace or an educational setting, relying on each other and sharing insights can really improve morale in any team. Also, being in a group provides motivation and excitement that you may not necessarily experience in solo presentations. 

Understanding of each other

In education and business settings, working on a team presentation means interacting with other members. Hearing other’s opinions and suggestions can help in getting to know your team better, which can help in other aspects of work or school. 

Promotes teamwork 

The ability to work together effectively for a team presentation can improve other team interactions further down the line. It’s a great opportunity to get everyone involved, especially those who might usually shy away from group discussions. This creates a more forthcoming team for the future. 

Less opportunity for errors

Having more than one person contributing to a presentation means that there’s less chance of making mistakes. There’s going to be more than one person looking over progress, which means that any initial errors will likely be spotted by someone in the team. Even when working on your own sections, the chance to rehearse together means that you can all pick up on potential mistakes before the big day. 

Diverse perspectives

Having a whole team involved means that several different viewpoints are brought together. Having each team member contribute their unique insights can lead to a richer and broader presentation overall. This ensures your presentation has a bigger impact on your audience. 

Shared workload

With a team presentation, the workload is distributed among the group, making it more manageable. This should reduce the pressure off any one individual and allows for more thorough preparation before you take to the stage. 

Improved audience engagement

Having multiple speakers can help to keep your audience interested. Each presenter will have different voices and styles of presenting, which can help maintain the audience’s attention throughout the whole presentation. 

Demonstrates team strength 

For business professionals in particular, creating and presenting a successful team presentation shows the power of your company. It portrays to your audience how reliable you are as a team and how you can work together to deliver great results. This is going to help you with future prospects and gaining the trust of clients, investors, and partners. 

Top tips for creating and presenting your team presentation

Here are some top tips to help you nail a team presentation, with some advice on what to do and what to avoid.

Do: plan early

Start planning your presentation as soon as possible. Early planning gives you ample time to organize content, assign roles, and create visuals. Don’t wait until the last minute – good preparation is key to a smooth presentation.

Don’t: overload slides

Avoid cramming too much information onto your slides. Instead, keep them clean and simple with key points and visuals. Your audience should be listening to you, not reading dense text on the screen.

Do: practice together

Rehearse your presentation as a team several times. This helps ensure smooth transitions between speakers and a cohesive delivery. In addition, practicing together builds confidence and helps you refine your timing.

Don’t: ignore feedback

Constructive criticism can help you improve your presentation. However, don’t take feedback personally – use it to make your presentation stronger.

Do: engage your audience

Keep your audience engaged by incorporating questions or a brief activity into your presentation. This interaction helps maintain their interest and makes your presentation stand out.

Don’t: monopolize the presentation

Ensuring everyone on the team has a chance to speak values each member’s contribution and keeps the presentation dynamic and interesting.

Do: use effective visuals

Visuals are great for engaging your audience and capturing their attention! That’s why make sure to incorporate charts, images, and videos to illustrate your points. Compelling visuals can make complex information easier to understand – just make sure they’re relevant and support your message.

Don’t: forget to smile

A friendly demeanor can make a big difference. Smiling helps you appear confident and approachable, and it can put both you and your audience at ease. Remember, you’ve prepared well, so enjoy the experience!

Do: use Prezi

If you want to stand out, use Prezi for your presentation! Its dynamic, non-linear format can make your content more engaging and visually appealing. Prezi allows you to create a more interactive and memorable presentation experience and makes the presentation creation process even easier with AI-powered functionalities .

Don’t: rush through transitions

Transitions between speakers are crucial. Don’t hurry through them; take your time to smoothly hand over to the next person. This maintains the flow of the presentation and keeps the audience engaged.

Creating a team presentation is a fantastic opportunity to showcase your collective talents and knowledge. By following these tips, you’ll be well on your way to delivering a presentation that’s both impressive and enjoyable.

Why Prezi is perfect for team presentations: the power of Prezi AI

Prezi is the go-to platform for team presentations, thanks to its incredible AI features. Prezi AI makes creating a polished, professional presentation a breeze, allowing you to focus on your content while it handles the design.

With Prezi AI, you can simply provide a prompt about your subject, and it will suggest the best layout, color scheme, and design elements. This means you don’t have to be a design expert to create a visually stunning presentation. Prezi AI can even put your entire presentation together for you, ensuring that it looks cohesive and engaging.

One of the standout features is the Prezi AI text tool. It can suggest edits to improve your content, recommend the best way to display your text—whether it be in lists, bullet points, or paragraphs—and even adjust the length of your text to fit perfectly on your slides. This not only saves time but also means you don’t need to constantly double-check your work. You can present with assurance, knowing your presentation is professionally polished.

Presenting with Prezi is incredibly easy, making it ideal for both virtual and in-person settings. For virtual presentations, Prezi Video allows you to display your slides live next to you, creating a more engaging experience for your audience. Prezi’s collaborative features are perfect for team presentations, enabling the entire team to present together virtually. Each member can take turns presenting their sections seamlessly, making it feel as if you’re all in the same room, even if you’re miles apart.

Prezi AI takes the stress out of creating and presenting, making it the best tool for team presentations. With its intelligent design suggestions, text editing capabilities, and seamless virtual presentation features, Prezi ensures your team can deliver an impressive and professional presentation every time.

Here’s a summary of the key things Prezi AI can do

Build your presentation: Prezi AI can literally put together your team presentation for you. It will come up with the best theme and layout and put the whole presentation into action. 

Suggest improvements: Prezi AI can offer suggestions to make sure your presentation looks visually appealing and engaging. By proposing matching color palettes, images, and layouts, Prezi AI helps you create a polished presentation that leaves a lasting impression.

Text editing: To make your message clear and concise, use the Prezi AI text editing tool. It can generate text based on prompts you provide as well as offer edit suggestions on existing text. This way, you know your text is correct and makes sense. 

Team presentation ideas from Prezi

Here are some Prezi presentation examples that would work well as team presentations: 

TED talks: From Inspiration to innovation

The Prezi presentation by Neil Hughes is a great example of a team presentation because it’s divided into sections, giving each participant a chance to share their insights. Incorporating videos for each section, where specific team members speak, effectively ensures that everyone has their say. This approach helps convey the message clearly and makes sure all voices are heard.

Adopting a gratitude frame of mind

The layout chosen for this presentation is ideal for a team effort. With four main points, each delved into further, it allows each team member to take responsibility for one point. This ensures a fair division of speaking time and workload among all team members.

UX design tips for product managers

Similar to the previous example, this serves as great inspiration for team presentations due to its division into five main points, each explored in detail. Assigning one team member to focus on each area allows them to dedicate their full effort to their section, resulting in a high-quality presentation overall. Additionally, this showcases how Prezi’s open canvas can create an immersive experience by zooming in and out of points, making your message much clearer.

Hopefully, these examples have given you more of an insight of what your team presentation could look like. Allocating one team member to each key point is a great idea to split the workload and ensure everyone gets their chance to speak and show off their expertise. 

However, not all team presentations require every team member to be involved in the presenting stage. Sometimes, tasks may be split in a way where some participants focus on the creation process, while others focus on the presenting aspect. It purely depends on where the talents of your team members lie. 

Wow your audience with a team presentation created with Prezi

Team presentations provide many positives that may not be attained with solo presentations. The opportunity to have different ideas and points of view can really broaden the perspective of your audience. They can deliver a sense of team unity and strength, which is particularly important in business. When it comes to educational settings, team presentations are a great opportunity to practice working in a group and identify each student’s strengths and weaknesses. 

Creating a team presentation should be more about the content you’re sharing and less about spending hours on design. This is why utilizing Prezi AI to create your finished product is a great choice, as you can focus more closely on working as a team. 

By using Prezi for your next team presentation, you can take your audience on an immersive journey through your words, ensuring your audience is hooked from start to finish.  

Give your team the tools they need to engage

Like what you’re reading join the mailing list..

• Prezi for Teams
• Top Presentations

How to Make an Interactive PowerPoint Presentation: An Expert Guide (Free Downloadable Playbook)

Zhun Yee Chew

Are your PowerPoint presentations lacking impact and failing to engage your audience? You’re not alone. I experienced that before. I used to spend hours carefully crafting the perfect PowerPoint presentations only to be met with disinterested faces.

In a world where attention spans are getting shorter, traditional PowerPoint presentations often struggle to hold the interest of the audience. So here’s the hard truth: unless you adapt and embrace interactivity in your PowerPoint presentations, your valuable hard work and content run the risk of getting lost in presentations.

Fret not, as in this comprehensive guide, we will share with you expert tips on how to make an interactive PowerPoint presentation through interactive animations, transitions, hyperlinks, quizzes, games, and many more.

And perhaps the sweetest part of the deal is that you will also have access to a downloadable playbook of 60+ pages with a wealth of tutorials, templates, cheat sheets, resources and tools to elevate your PowerPoint skills from average to extraordinary through interactive PowerPoint presentations.

Are you prepared to impress those who once found your presentation dull? If your answer is a resounding ‘yes,’ then let’s begin.

What is an Interactive Presentation?

What is an interactive powerpoint presentation.

Interactive PowerPoint presentations are simply PowerPoint presentations that are made interactive to convey information in a more dynamic and engaging manner.

Creating an interactive PowerPoint presentation involves deciding if you want to make your slide content interactive or if you want your audience to interact with your slides. 

Interactive PowerPoint presentations can generally be divided into two main dimensions: interaction with slide content through interactive elements and fostering interaction with the audience.

Interaction with Slide Content:

In the first dimension, PowerPoint presentations are made interactive through enhancing the slides content with interactive elements, usually native to PowerPoint. 

We will cover interactive elements including:

• Transitions
• Interactive data visualization
• Annotations. 

They function to enhance slide interactivity through adding movement to static objects, enabling non-linear slides navigation, as well as adding a dynamic touch to data and information presentation. 

Audience Interaction:

In the second dimension, PowerPoint presentations are made interactive through interaction between the presenter and the audience, usually with the help of PowerPoint add-in tools. We will cover: 

• Assessments
• Brainstorming
• Collaborative multimedia uploading

Once you have decided which strategy you would like to use, you can then follow  these step-by-step guide  and the following expert tips to turn your PowerPoint slides into an interactive experience!

Benefits of an Interactive Presentation

The fact that you are still reading this suggests that you don’t need further convincing on the benefits of interactive PowerPoint presentations. 

However, if you do, here are some quick statistics:

68% of individuals hold the belief that interactive presentations have a greater potential for being remembered. Webinar Care

This means that a simple action of making your PowerPoint slides interactive has a profound impact on how your presentation is received by the audience. From our years of experience creating interactive PowerPoint presentations, they generally: 

• Increases  engagement , motivation and knowledge  retention . 
• Result in better  impression  and more impactful messaging being conveyed.
• Allow presenters to better tailor their content or offerings to the audience or clients because they can gather  real-time feedback .
• Open up room for  creative   storytelling  and showcases.

Interactive Puzzle PowerPoint Templates

Master the tricks to turn your PowerPoint into an interactive experience today!

Expert Tips on How to Make an Interactive PowerPoint Presentation – Before Presenting

1. add animations, but use them judiciously.

The first and most straightforward way of making your PowerPoint presentations interactive is through adding animations to your slides. However, so many people use PowerPoint animations the wrong way. PowerPoint animations are more than just making bullet points or images appear or fly in during your presentation.

Remember, using animations excessively in your PowerPoint presentation will only reduce the appeal and professionalism of your slides. The key is to use them judiciously and purposefully. Before you hit the “Animations” tab, ask yourself, “Does this animation enhance the message I want to convey to my audience?”  

2. Add 3D PowerPoint Animations Using PowerPoint Native 3D Stock Elements

Did you know that PowerPoint has free animated 3D elements you can use? We recommend you to try them up to instantly upgrade your presentation from ordinary to extraordinary. 

❓ How?  Simply go to Insert > 3D models > stock 3D models > animated models. And you will find a wide range of free 3D models ranging from food and animals to plants and characters, and many more. You can also select different animation scenes by heading to the Animations tab.

3. Add Animations With Triggers for Visual Excitement

You can take your PowerPoint animations up a notch by incorporating combining animations with triggers to create interactive pop-ups with extra information . These on-click pop-ups are valuable when presenting a map or when you want to explore specific aspects of an object or topic in more detail. You can also use these pop-ups as markers to alert the audience to exciting elements within different parts of the slide, as such: 

❓How? To create on-click pop-ups in your PowerPoint slides, first add shapes that will become clickable buttons, one to “open” the pop-up and the other to “close” the pop-up. Then, add text boxes with extra information you want to show, as well as entrance and exit animations. Combine the animations with “triggers” to activate the animations when the open or close buttons are clicked on. 

For a more detailed tutorial on this pop-up animation, download our Interactive PowerPoint Playbook  below. 👇

4. add non-linear slide transition.

A quick way to add interactivity to your PowerPoint slides is by using PowerPoint transitions. The first we want to discuss is PowerPoint Zoom. PowerPoint Zoom enables you to zoom in and out of and navigate to specific sections or slides on click, anytime during your presentation.

To  access the PowerPoint Zoom feature : click on Insert in the  PowerPoint ribbon  >  Zoom  > then choose  Slide ,  Section , or  Summary   Zoom . Each of these PowerPoint Zoom option serves slightly different functions:

• Slide Zoom: zooms into specific slides
• Section zoom: zooms into specific sections
• Summary Zoom: creates a summary slide for the different slides or sections in your PowerPoint presentation for easy navigation.

❓ How? To  set up PowerPoint slide zoom , select the starting slide where you wish to implement the Zoom effect. Next, click  Insert  >  Zoom  >  Slide Zoom . Here, you can pick the specific slide or slides you want to zoom in on. Click the Insert button, and thumbnails of the chosen slides will be added to your current slide.

Alternatively, for a more manual setup process, you can also set up a navigation menu at the beginning of your presentation that allows the audience to jump to different sections or slides using hyperlinks.  Read more in the Hyperlinks section below. 

5. Add PowerPoint Morph

Like PowerPoint Zoom, PowerPoint Morph empowers presenters to create dynamic transitions that elevate the visual storytelling in their presentations. But PowerPoint Morph brings storytelling to a whole new level and adds a layer of intrigue to your slides by simulating object transitions or evolution across slides. It functions similarly to animations but offers a smoother and more organic visual experience, without the need for complex setup steps. 

Personally, we think the outcomes generated by PowerPoint Morph are more professional and polished-looking as compared to traditional animations. And if you are looking for a more advanced-looking presentation, try this 3D morph animation In PowerPoint .

We’d also like to share with you the numerous applications of PowerPoint Morph contributed by our colleagues and PowerPoint professionals at ClassPoint:

• Moving background
• Rotating wheel
• Rotating cogs
• Photo gallery
• Slide Zoom with Morph
• Creative reveal
• Parallax effect
• Continuous slide transition
• Phone frame
• Movie frame

Gain access to free templates for all these PowerPoint Morph applications and effects by downloading our Interactive PowerPoint Playbook. 👇

6. add hyperlinks – they can link to so many more places than just websites.

Much like PowerPoint Zoom, hyperlinks enable presenters to create interactive menus and navigation structures, allowing audiences to jump to specific slides or sections effortlessly. However, while PowerPoint Zoom primarily focuses on creating a visual and interactive overview of content within a single presentation, hyperlinks extend this capability to connect with external resources, web content, or even additional PowerPoint files. 

There are a few ways you could add hyperlinks to your PowerPoint presentation to transform  it into an interactive experience effortlessly: 

4 Ways You Can Add Hyperlinks to PowerPoint: 

• Slide Transition : You can navigate to specific slides in a non-linear manner by simply inserting a hyperlink into your current slide. Head over to Insert > Link > This Document and select the slide you want to link to. You can apply hyperlinks to text, shapes, or pictures. 

• Interactive Navigation Menu : Adding an interactive navigation menu at the beginning of your presentation allows clear navigation between different slides and sections in your presentation. Head over to Insert > Link > This Document and select the slides you want to link to.

• Action Buttons : With hyperlinks, you can also create Action Buttons in your PowerPoint presentations to make your PowerPoint slides behave like interactive web pages, allowing users to navigate, explore, and engage with the content in a dynamic and user-friendly manner. Head over to Insert > Action Buttons and choose from the selection.

• Embedded Content : You can also hyperlink your PowerPoint slides to embedded content like PDFs, spreadsheets, and even web pages. Simply click Insert > Object and select the file you would like to embed in your PowerPoint slides. This way, you can remove the hassle of toggling between various files or windows during your presentation.

Expert Tips on How to Make an Interactive PowerPoint Presentation – When Presenting

1. turn your powerpoint slides into interactive quizzes.

The traditional way to add interactive quizzes to PowerPoint is through an unfavorable process of combining complex animations with triggers and hyperlinks. Let’s be honest, it takes an eternity! Even though PowerPoint offers an extensive range of presentation tools, it does not have audience interactivity built at its core. 

The good news is, audience interactivity can actually be effortlessly achieved with the various PowerPoint add-ins as listed below: 

We will get to polls and games in a bit. For now, let’s show you how you can turn your PowerPoint slides into an interactive quiz in a just a few clicks with PowerPoint add-ins like  ClassPoint , which offers a wide range of interactive quizzes from  Short Answer  and  Word Cloud , to Multiple Choice questions.

How to Create An Interactive Quiz in PowerPoint In A Few Clicks

Once you have downloaded ClassPoint, you will have a suite of additional interactive quiz features added to your PowerPoint ribbon. 

To turn  your PowerPoint slide  content into interactive  quizzes, simply  click on any of the interactive quiz features and add them to your slide. Enter PowerPoint Slideshow mode and you can start the quiz immediately. 

2. Run Gradable Assessments inside PowerPoint

With the versatile PowerPoint add-in,  ClassPoint , you can also create assessments and collect real-time responses right inside PowerPoint. This is wonderful news for teachers! All you have to do is set up  interactive Multiple Choice questions  and enable  Quiz Mode . 

ClassPoint’s Quiz Mode introduces an  automatic grading  feature to your Multiple Choice questions within PowerPoint presentations created with ClassPoint. This feature not only automates the grading process but also includes automatic star ratings, the option to select difficulty levels, and provides a quiz summary along with an exportable quiz report, making it the perfect tool for classroom formative assessments in PowerPoint!

3. Incorporate Annotations During Slideshow

Another unique way to interact with your PowerPoint slides is through the use of annotations. With annotations, you as the presenter can interact with your slides to draw your audience’s attention to specific details, highlight key points, and tell a more coherent story. 

There are 3 ways you could use annotations in PowerPoint: 

• PowerPoint Draw Tab:  To utilize the PowerPoint Draw Tab, click on the “Draw” tab in your PowerPoint ribbon and begin annotating anywhere on your slides using built-in features like the pen, highlighter, and Ink to Shape. However, please note that PowerPoint Draw only allows annotation in Edit mode.

• PowerPoint Pen Tools:  Another option for native PowerPoint annotation tools that permit annotation during slideshow mode can be found by clicking the pencil icon located in the bottom right-hand corner of your screen during a presentation. You can use the pen, highlighter, or laser tools to annotate any part of your slides during the presentation.

• ClassPoint  Toolbar:  The ClassPoint toolbar serves as an enhanced, free alternative to PowerPoint’s existing pen tools. It offers a broader range of additional annotation features, including text boxes, shapes, spotlight effects, fully customizable pens and highlighters, and more. This enables you to transform your PowerPoint slides into a creative canvas that will captivate your audience throughout your presentation.

4. Run Ice Breakers and Brainstorming Sessions in PowerPoint

The uses of interactive PowerPoint add-ins like  ClassPoint  are not only limited to teaching and learning. Give your PowerPoint meetings and presentations a strong start with a collaborative and dynamic brainstorming experience.

You can enhance your PowerPoint presentations and turn them into an interactive brainstorming experience by incorporating  Word Cloud  in PowerPoint, inviting participants to instantly contribute ideas, keywords, or concepts. This allows everyone to dynamically visualize emerging trends and interesting ideas.

❓ How? To start a brainstorming session in PowerPoint, click on the “Word Cloud”  button in your PowerPoint ribbon once you have downloaded ClassPoint to add the “Word Cloud” feature in your PowerPoint slides. Then enter PowerPoint slideshow mode to start brainstorming! 

5. Add Draggable Slide Objects (And Why It’s Better than Animations!)

Similar to animations, draggable objects allow you to interact with your slide objects freely during slideshow mode, except than you can do so with full control of where you want the slide elements to go!

This dynamic presentation feature adds an element of visual interest that captures your audience’s attention and can be a valuable tool for explaining complex ideas. Moreover, it has the potential to serve various purposes, such as revealing hidden information or acting as a movable marker to indicate your position on the slide content. You can also use it for group drag-and-drop activities, such as matching, categorizing, sorting, and more. You can either perform these actions yourself to provide a visual explanation or engage your audience by letting them instruct the movement of images and text on the slide.

❓ How? Draggable objects is a unique tool that is possible inside PowerPoint with the use of the add-in ClassPoint. Download ClassPoint, free PowerPoint add-in, the select any shape, image, illustration, or text on your slide to become draggable by clicking on “Draggable Objects” in your PowerPoint ribbon, and toggling “Drag enabled” on the side panel.

In slideshow mode, click on the draggable objects hand from the ClassPoint toolbar at the bottom of your screen to start dragging your slide objects around!

6. Create Playable Games In PowerPoint (Without Animations or Hyperlinks)

Much like interactive quizzes, PowerPoint games add a layer of interactivity and fun to PowerPoint presentations. However, what sets PowerPoint games apart is their ability to introduce competition through gamification. 

Here are  3 ways  you can instantly gamify your PowerPoint slides with  gamification elements :

• Set Up a Point and Reward System : Define how your participants can earn stars and points, and  award stars  to them when they have accomplished a goal during your presentation. 
• Add  Levels and Badges  to PowerPoint : Every game benefits from having levels and badges, and your PowerPoint game is no exception. You can create a simple game within PowerPoint by incorporating  questions  into your slides and defining the points and scores needed to progress to higher levels. When it comes to badges, you have the creative freedom to tailor them to your audience. For example, in an educational setting, badges can be skill-focused, while in a social gathering, they can take the form of fantasy characters that participants aspire to collect
• Add a  Leaderboard  to PowerPoint : Leaderboards are essential to keep track of scores or points during a PowerPoint game. You can of course create a manual leaderboard using PowerPoint’s tables and hyperlinks, but an easier and more straightforward way of implementing a leaderboard in your PowerPoint is using add-ins like  ClassPoint  and  Vevox .

With these fundamentals of gamification in place, you are now ready to create fun and exhilarating games in PowerPoint. 

Here is a full walk-through on  how you can create a PowerPoint game  in a few simple steps. 

If you are an educator, this  free trivia PowerPoint template and these 5 interactive PowerPoint game templates tailored for the classroom will be useful for you.

Expert Tips on How to Make an Interactive PowerPoint Presentation – After Presenting

1. run real-time polls in powerpoint.

Think of a memorable presentation you have attended? Did it use live polls? We bet it did! Live polling are especially helpful after a PowerPoint presentation to gather feedback for future improvement.

Traditional poll tools require presenters to switch between tabs during presentation. Thanks to PowerPoint add-ins such as  ClassPoint ,  Mentimeter  and  Poll Everywhere , this is no longer the case. And by eliminating the need to switch between different applications or tabs, the presentation experience becomes more fluid and engaging.

2. From Static to Interactive Data Visualisation

Incorporating interactivity through data visualization after a presentation concludes is a potent strategy for enhancing audience engagement and comprehension. Once the primary content delivery is complete, you can transition into a dynamic display of data or feedback you have gathered from your audience using interactive charts, graphs, or infographics.

This approach empowers your audience to explore the information at their own pace, dig deeper into specific data points, and ensure a two-way communication between the presenter and the audience. Whether it’s zooming in on specific trends, toggling between different data sets, or going through feedback, interactive data visualization encourages active participation and a deeper connection with the presented information. 

We recommend the following 2 ways to display data into your presentation:

• Insert tables, charts and graphs, and add a touch of interactivity through animations.

Below is a list of 10 PowerPoint animations most suitable for different kinds of graphs and charts: 

• Embed a website with data you want to go over. I’m not talking about a link that leaves PowerPoint for your default browser, but an actual embedded browser that loads your websites without leaving PowerPoint! Plus you can insert the page as a picture into your slide and start annotating on it!

Now that you have a collection of strategies and tips at your disposal, you are better prepared to leave your old and dusty PowerPoint toolkit behind and embrace these refreshing ideas. Whether your ultimate aim is to create a captivating classroom experience, deliver a memorable business pitch, or simply wow your friends and peers during  PowerPoint nights , don’t forget to: 

• Add animations, but use them sparingly.
• Make use of non-linear transitions and storytelling. 
• Turn simple transitions into stunning visual experience with PowerPoint Morph.
• Make creative use of polls, quizzes and games. 
• Make your presentation human with Bitmoji.
• Build anticipation with interactive presentation tools like annotations and drag and drop.
• Try out these 160 fun PowerPoint ideas for your next presentation!

To read more about Interactive PowerPoint Presentations, you can download our Interactive PowerPoint Playbook, which includes comprehensive guides, tutorials on various interactive PowerPoint presentation methods, cheat sheets, and a wide range of resources for mastering the art of creating interactive PowerPoint presentations.

About Zhun Yee Chew

Try classpoint for free.

All-in-one teaching and student engagement in PowerPoint.

Supercharge your PowerPoint. Start today.

500,000+ people like you use ClassPoint to boost student engagement in PowerPoint presentations.

Create designs that inspire

Trending searches, productivity, social media, generate stunning ai-powered visuals.

A girl rides a skateboard while walking her dog. The girl is wearing a purple sweatshirt, baggy jeans and boots. She has expressive, round brown eyes and a look of determination. The background is an out of focus park and the girl is in a 3d illustrated animation style.

A watercolor hummingbird, centered, in red and yellow with a soft cream, watercolor background.

A banana with sunglasses surfing a blue wave.

Front-facing view of a mountain with floral decorative elements, papercraft quilling style, in pastel pink, blue and purple colors.

An abstract background of melting liquid with a metallic sheen, dark purple and gold colors with reflective studio light.

Illustration of a man playing a decorated steel pan drum.

A macro, detailed portrait of the face of a Dalmatian dog staring straight ahead with bright blue eyes on a solid pastel blue, out of focus background. The portrait is realistic with studio lighting.

A yellow sun with orange rays rises over white and purple clouds in a pop art style. There should be a halftone effect and screen printing aesthetic. The orange rays radiate outward and fill the background.

A group of assorted donuts in a pink bakery box.

A portrait of a man in a digital collage style. The man is wearing thick red glasses with circular patterns in blue and orange on the inside of the frames. The man is in a red polka dot shirt with a background of thick, brightly colored lines in pink, blue, and red. Collaged into the background is a ferris wheel and a circus tent.

A profile view of a caterpillar crawling on a moss-covered rock with the lush, green forest in the background, macro view, detail, close-up.

Cartoon style woman with a blue hat, fishing on a river near a forest.

A colorful street scene in the style of Mexican mural art. The street has adobe-colored shops on both sides with striped awnings. There is a fountain in the center and trees and mountains in the distance.

A single pink ranunculus in the style of a vintage botanical drawing.

A unicorn stands on a wooden pier looking out over clouds below, with a starry night sky above.

Create and edit in an instant with Microsoft Designer

Image generator

Generate any image you can imagine with just a text description.

Background remover

Remove the background from your image in one click.

Sticker creator

Describe the sticker you want, and our AI will generate it for you.

Browse thousands of customizable templates

Fresh picks.

Celebrate an occasion

Food and drink

How it works

1. Start with the perfect template

2. Customize it with help from AI

See the templates for:

3. Share your creation with the world