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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:

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• 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.

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15 Interactive Presentation Ideas to Elevate Engagement

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!

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What makes a presentation interactive?

Main benefits of interactive presentation, 9 ways to make your presentation interactive, types of interactive presentations, take your presentations to the next level.

An impactful speech or lecture requires more than being an articulate speaker . If you want the information to stick, your audience should engage with you and the material you’re presenting.

And that audience is changing. Among people with teleworkable jobs, 76% worked remotely some, most, or all of the time . Presentations are tricky when you’re catering to a virtual audience and don’t have the benefit of a physical space. And they’re even trickier when the people you’re speaking to are a mix of in-office and remote workers.

Creating a good presentation that incorporates the needs of both in-person and online audiences can feel like a tall order. But there’s a way to transform your spectators from passive listeners to active participants, giving them a memorable experience no matter the platform. And that solution is interaction.

Learning how to make a presentation interactive can grab and keep your audience's attention so they remember your session and its key takeaways. Here’s how to use interactive elements like Q&As, live demonstrations, and fun quizzes to make your presentations more exciting.

An interactive presentation has elements that involve the audience. The presenter engages with the group in real-time, asking and answering questions or encouraging participants to voice their opinions. Interactive presentations can also include online polls, quizzes, and face-to-face activities between audience members.

You’ve probably experienced a standard presentation where the speaker stands at the front of a projected PowerPoint slideshow, talking at you. Your only chance to engage comes when they open the floor to audience questions, and that’s only if there’s enough time. 

The presenter will still get the point across, but this approach can get boring, and it might be hard to pay attention if you’re not engaged. Around 90% of people admit to daydreaming during meetings and presentations , which can impact comprehension. An interactive presenter transforms the audience from viewers into active contributors and collaborators, making it easier to pay attention and gain from the meeting. 

A captivating presentation does more than just get the audience involved. It improves comprehension, helps you connect, and personalizes the experience. Here are more benefits to including interactive elements in presentations: 

• Connection: Human connection benefits everyone involved . An interactive presentation offers more back-and-forth between yourself and your audience, creating a sense of familiarity and an outlet for connection.
• Comprehension: Studies show that during conversations, the speaker’s brain activity and the listener’s brain activity mimic each other, which improves understanding . Interactivity helps the audience better absorb the information you’re presenting. 
• Engagement: Employee engagement leads to a happier workforce and improved company culture . Making the audience part of every meeting can contribute to their experience at work overall, and it’ll hold their interest in the moment. 
• Cooperation: Soliciting contributions or setting up participation activities means you won’t be talking for the whole presentation, which can help you feel less tired. You’re letting the audience do some of the work for you.
• Personalization: When you draw on your audience’s input, you’re creating a customized experience that is more meaningful and memorable. And interactivity means you’ll never give the same presentation twice, so your material will stay fresh.

Choose one (or a few) interactive elements to add interest to your presentation and improve comprehension. Experiment with different options and find the activities that stick. If you aren’t sure how it went, ask for presentation feedback to learn what the group enjoyed most and what you could improve. 

Here are a few interactive methods to try:

1. Icebreaker questions

Using a fun icebreaker to kick off your presentation creates a connection between yourself and members of the audience. You can keep it simple by asking a straightforward question or separating participants into small groups for an activity like charades. Whatever method you choose, you’ll help everyone relax, set the tone, and encourage participation for what’s to come. 

2. Storytelling

Listening to a good story makes your brain more engaged and helps you relate to the storyteller . Introduce your talk with a personal anecdote and use it to create a framework for your presentation. Try using music clips, video clips, or sound effects to add an extra level of interest.

As your speech progresses, you can refer back to your narrative and connect your ideas, creating a clearer line of thought. Telling a good story can also create a rapport with your audience, helping them relate to you through empathy or shared experience.  

Using interactive polls for presentations demonstrates that you care about your audience’s opinion. You can use a poll to gauge interest in a specific topic, learn how the group is feeling in the moment, or segue into a new section of the presentation. A live poll will also provide immediate feedback, helping you gauge whether your content has the effect you want it to.

Adding an interactive quiz for a presentation can help you read the room and assess your audience’s comprehension. Giving a quick quiz at the end of every section also lets you know if you need to follow up and explain your point further or open the floor to questions. Apps like Kahoot work well because everyone can pull out their smartphones and join in. The friendly competition of a quiz can also be a good motivator.

5. Question and answer

If you hold a Q&A session at the end of your presentation, the group might be too tired or rushed to find it meaningful. Instead, invite participants to ask their questions at key points throughout your talk. The information will be fresher in their minds, and a moment of conversation breaks up the lecture.

6. Demonstrations

If your presentation is about a product or concept, try showing it instead of telling it. Talking about the new app you’re launching isn’t as exciting as showing how it works. Demonstrating a concept, product, or service offers hands-on interaction and can make a more significant impact than words alone could.

7. Movement

Spending the whole presentation at the front of the room might bore both you and your audience. And it can be hard to create a personal connection when there’s a separation between you.

When you’re speaking, close the gap by moving through the venue space, pacing around, or speaking directly to different sections of the audience. Proximity and body language can help reinforce the connection you’ve built throughout your presentation.

Using props might sound gimmicky, but they can be powerful tools to help audiences engage with your material. Allowing your audience to interact with an item related to your speech can help break the third wall and add an element of fun.

Find an object that represents what you’re talking about, either literally or symbolically. For example, in Jill Bolte Taylor’s TED talk about her stroke, she shows the audience a real human brain to explain what happened .

You may have many methods for gauging your presentation’s success. Did the audience laugh at the jokes? Did you receive thank-you emails after ? This kind of indirect feedback can be telling, but it doesn’t provide you with actionable data.

Instead, incorporating a post-event survey gives your audience one last chance to share their thoughts and opinions with you. It gives the group a moment for self-reflection on what they’ve learned, and the feedback can help you improve your presentation skills before your next talk.

To apply interactive techniques that work the way you want them to, you need to be clear on the type of presentation you’re giving. Presenting the past quarter’s sales numbers has vastly different requirements than a lecture inspiring high school students to start volunteering. Understanding your audience and having clear goals will inform the format of your presentation and what kind of interaction suits it best. You have some freedom to mix and match elements of one format into another as long as they're complimentary, like adding persuasive characteristics to an inspirational speech. Here are five types of interactive presentations, with examples.

1. Informative

The goal of an informative presentation is to educate your audience. The structure shares factual information in a direct, unadorned fashion. For this kind of presentation, quizzes and polls work best because they test the audience’s knowledge. You can also use props to help them better understand complex information.

EXAMPLE: You present a workshop about your company’s style guide to new members of the marketing team and use a quiz to gauge their understanding.

2. Persuasive

You use a persuasive format when making a sales pitch or convincing an audience to take specific actions. Props, movement, and Q&As all work well for this format because they keep your audience engaged and give them the chance to learn more about the topic.

EXAMPLE: You’re leading a public meeting to encourage citizens to begin recycling and composting, and you bring a full garbage bag to represent the amount of waste each person produces in a day.

3. Inspirational

If you’re familiar with TED talks, you’ve likely experienced an inspirational presentation format. These speeches use storytelling to boost morale or inspire audience members to change their behavior or perspective. Try moving around the space or asking the group an icebreaker question to get them involved with the story.

EXAMPLE: You give a speech about how you moved up the ladder at your company, and you move around the room to better connect with the audience and tell them they could do the same.

4. Outcome-related

This collaborative presentation structure generates the most interaction between yourself and the participants because its goal is to work together. Use it to brainstorm solutions to a problem or determine the process you need to reach a desired outcome. Polls, quizzes, and surveys all work well for outcome-related presentations. EXAMPLE: You hold a meeting to develop a social media strategy for a new client and give an anonymous survey where team members can submit ideas.

5. Instructive 

An instructive presentation takes a deep dive into a topic. By the end, audiences expect to better understand an idea, concept, or possibly a product. Using storytelling and props can help demonstrate difficult concepts and give an audience more ways to connect with the topic.

EXAMPLE: You give a lecture on the benefits of solar panels on domestic buildings, and you bring in a solar panel with a lightbulb to show how it works.

Speaking in front of a group can be a little intimidating. But learning how to make a presentation interactive can elevate the event and relieve some of the nervousness associated with public speaking .

Whether you’re reviewing the results of a marketing campaign or speaking about an issue near and dear to your heart, interactivity helps transform a one-sided lecture into a participatory event. Meaningful audience interactions help your audience remember what you’re talking about and connect with the story you’re telling.

So next time you develop a virtual team-building exercise or present last month’s sales report, you’ll have the interactive presentation ideas you need to create an engaging experience, no matter your audience.

Elizabeth Perry

Content Marketing Manager, ACC

Make the connection: 10 effective ways to connect with people

Discover how professional coaching can boost your career growth, improve your interpersonal communication skills with these 6 tips, writing an elevator pitch about yourself: a how-to plus tips, eq versus iq: which should you leverage when, how to be more persuasive: 6 tips for convincing others, 10 examples of principles that can guide your approach to work, the benefits of mentorship for your professional development, reading the room gives you an edge — no matter who you're talking to, similar articles, the 11 tips that will improve your public speaking skills, 30 presentation feedback examples, how to not be nervous for a presentation — 13 tips that work (really), your ultimate guide on how to be a good storyteller, how to give a good presentation that captivates any audience, how the minto pyramid principle can enhance your communication skills, 8 clever hooks for presentations (with tips), start, stop, continue: how to implement this retrospective model, 6 presentation skills and how to improve them, stay connected with betterup, get our newsletter, event invites, plus product insights and research..

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Engaging Your Audience Online: 15 Strategies for Virtual Presentations

How do you captivate a virtual audience and keep them engaged throughout your online presentation? One effective way is to incorporate interactive elements into your presentation. By adding interactivity, you can make your presentation more engaging and dynamic. As a keynote speaker, it is crucial to utilize these interactive elements to connect with your audience and create an immersive experience . In today’s digital age, where face-to-face interactions are limited, mastering the art of public speaking in virtual presentations is crucial for effective communication. Adding interactivity and interactive elements through social media can greatly enhance engagement and make your presentations more impactful. With the shift to online platforms, there are both challenges and opportunities for interactivity and competition. The inclusion of interactive elements in virtual events can enhance engagement and make the experience more dynamic.

Virtual presentations require a different approach compared to in-person presentations. Adding interactive elements can engage speakers and event attendees, making the experience more dynamic for people. The absence of physical presence in a virtual event platform makes it challenging to gauge audience reactions and maintain their attention. However, with the right speaker and a fun movement, these challenges can be overcome. However, by leveraging a virtual event platform and incorporating interactive tools, dynamic content, and great speakers, you can create a fun and immersive experience that keeps attendees hooked from start to finish.

We will also discuss strategies to overcome the unique challenges faced when engaging online audiences on our virtual event platform. Our speaker will provide great insights and tips for making the experience fun and engaging. So, if you’re ready to take your online presentations to the next level at a virtual event with a great speaker, read on!

Strategies for Creating Engaging Virtual Presentations

Understanding the needs and preferences of your online audience.

To create great virtual presentations, it is crucial for the speaker to understand the needs and preferences of their online audience at the event. Unlike in-person presentations, virtual presentations require a different approach to capture and maintain the attention of viewers. The speaker at a virtual event must employ great techniques to engage the audience. One way to gather insights into what your audience expects from a virtual event is by conducting research or surveys . This will help you understand the expectations of your audience for a great online presentation.

Once you have a better understanding of your audience’s needs and preferences, you can tailor your content accordingly for a great virtual event. Additionally, consider how the speaker can address these needs and preferences. For example, if your virtual event audience prefers concise and visually appealing slides , focus on creating impactful visuals with minimal text. On the other hand, if they prefer more detailed information about the virtual event, provide supplementary resources such as handouts or links to additional materials.

Incorporating Storytelling Techniques to Captivate Viewers

Storytelling is a powerful tool that can captivate viewers during virtual presentations, whether it’s a business event, conference, or online gathering. By incorporating storytelling techniques into your virtual event presentation, you can make it more relatable and memorable for your audience. Start by identifying key points or messages that you want to convey during your virtual event and find creative ways to present them through stories or anecdotes.

Consider using personal experiences or case studies that resonate with your audience’s interests or challenges during a virtual event. This helps establish an emotional connection with viewers during a virtual event and keeps them engaged throughout the presentation. Using storytelling techniques at an event allows you to break down complex concepts into simpler terms, making it easier for event attendees to understand and retain information.

Utilizing Multimedia Elements to Enhance Engagement

Incorporating multimedia elements is another effective strategy for enhancing engagement in virtual presentations during an event.

Utilizing Humor and Visual Reinforcement

In order to create engaging virtual presentations for an event, it’s essential to utilize humor and visual reinforcement. These elements can help to capture the attention of your audience at an event, make the presentation more enjoyable during the event, and reinforce key points effectively at the event.

Adding humor to create a relaxed and enjoyable atmosphere

One way to engage your audience during a virtual event is by adding humor. Injecting some lightheartedness into your event content can create a relaxed atmosphere and make the event experience more enjoyable for everyone involved. Incorporating jokes, funny anecdotes, or humorous stories related to your event topic can instantly grab the attention of your event audience and keep them engaged throughout the event.

However, when planning an event, it’s important to strike a balance between being humorous and maintaining professionalism. While humor can be an effective engagement tool, it should never overshadow the main message or distract from the purpose of your presentation. Ensure that any jokes or humorous elements you include are relevant to the topic at hand and align with the overall tone of your presentation.

Using visuals such as images, charts, and videos to reinforce key points

Visual aids play a crucial role in virtual presentations as they provide additional context for your audience. Incorporating images, charts, graphs, infographics, or videos can help reinforce key points and make complex information easier to understand. Visuals have a powerful impact on our brains as they enhance comprehension and retention of information.

For instance, if you’re presenting data or statistics, using charts or graphs can visually represent the information in a clear and concise manner.

The Power of Strategic Pauses

Employing strategic pauses for emphasis and reflection during presentations.

Engaging your audience online can be a challenge. However, one powerful technique that can captivate your audience and keep them actively involved is the use of strategic pauses . These deliberate breaks in your speech not only allow time for ass imilation and comprehension but also create anticipation and enhance the overall impact of your message.

Strategic pauses serve as natural resting points in your presentation, giving both you and your audience a moment to breathe. By strategically inserting these pauses at key moments, you can effectively emphasize important points and allow them to sink in. This helps prevent information overload and gives your audience time to process what they have just heard.

Allowing time for audience assimilation and comprehension

In the fast-paced world of virtual presentations, it’s easy for information to become overwhelming. By incorporating strategic pauses into your delivery, you give your audience the opportunity to absorb and understand what you’ve just presented. These brief moments of silence allow listeners to reflect on the information before moving on to the next point.

Think of strategic pauses as mini-breaks that provide mental space for your audience. Just like taking a breath between sentences or paragraphs when reading aloud, pausing during a presentation allows individuals to catch up mentally, ensuring they are following along with you.

Enhancing anticipation by strategically pausing before revealing important information

One effective way to engage your audience during virtual presentations is by building anticipation through well-timed pauses. Before unveiling crucial details or sharing significant insights, pause briefly beforehand.

Mastering Vocal Techniques for Engagement

Varying pitch, tone, and volume to maintain audience interest.

One of the key aspects of engaging your audience during virtual presentations is mastering vocal techniques . By varying your pitch, tone, and volume throughout your presentation, you can effectively capture and maintain the interest of your audience.

Think of it as the musicality of your voice. Just like a song with a monotonous melody can become dull, speaking in a monotone voice can quickly bore your listeners. Instead, aim to vary the pitch by emphasizing certain words or phrases with higher or lower tones. This creates a dynamic flow in your speech that keeps the audience engaged.

Similarly, adjusting the tone of your voice can have a significant impact on how your message is received. A warm and friendly tone can help create a connection with your audience and make them feel more comfortable. On the other hand, using a serious or authoritative tone can convey confidence and credibility. By consciously choosing different tones based on the content you’re delivering, you can add depth and richness to your presentation.

In addition to pitch and tone, controlling the volume of your voice is crucial for maintaining engagement during virtual presentations. Speaking too softly may cause participants to strain their ears to hear you clearly, leading to disengagement or frustration. On the other hand, speaking too loudly might come across as aggressive or overpowering.

To strike the right balance, consider adjusting your volume based on specific parts of your presentation. For example, when sharing an exciting anecdote or highlighting important information, increase your volume slightly to grab attention.

Interactive Presentation Ideas for Online Audiences

In today’s digital landscape, virtual presentations have become the norm. Engaging your audience online can be a challenge, but with the right interactive elements and presentation ideas, you can create an immersive experience that captivates your virtual audience. Let’s explore some effective strategies to make your online presentations more interactive and engaging.

Implementing live polls or surveys to encourage active participation.

One way to boost engagement during virtual presentations is by incorporating live polls or surveys . These interactive features allow you to gather real-time feedback from your audience and encourage active participation . By posing questions related to your presentation topic, you can gauge the opinions and thoughts of your attendees instantly. This not only keeps them engaged but also provides valuable insights that can enhance the overall experience.

• Encourages active participation
• Provides instant feedback
• Allows customization based on presentation topic
• Requires a reliable virtual event platform with polling capabilities
• May require additional time for preparation and analysis of poll results

Incorporating Q&A sessions or chat features for real-time interaction.

Another effective way to engage your online audience is by including dedicated Q&A sessions or chat features. These enable real-time interaction between the presenter and attendees, fostering a sense of connection and dialogue. Participants can ask questions, seek clarification, share their thoughts, or engage in discussions related to the presentation content. This interactivity not only enhances engagement but also creates a collaborative learning environment.

Enhancing Communication Beyond Verbal Language

Significance of non-verbal cues in virtual presentations.

In virtual presentations, effective communication goes beyond just verbal language. Non-verbal cues , such as body language , play a crucial role in engaging your audience and conveying your message effectively . While physical presence may be limited in an online setting, there are still ways to incorporate these non-verbal cues to enhance communication.

Body language is a powerful tool for expressing emotions, emphasizing key points, and establishing rapport with your audience. It helps create a connection and captivate the attention of your listeners. Even though you may not be physically present with them, your gestures and expressions can still leave an impact through video conferencing tools.

Incorporating Gestures, Facial Expressions, and Eye Contact

When delivering a virtual presentation, it’s important to make intentional use of gestures and facial expressions to convey meaning and engage your audience. Just like in face-to-face interactions, hand gestures can help emphasize certain points or add emphasis to your speech.

Facial expressions also play a significant role in conveying emotions and maintaining engagement. A smile can instantly make you appear more approachable and friendly. Similarly, raising an eyebrow or nodding can indicate agreement or understanding.

Maintaining eye contact is another crucial aspect of effective communication during virtual presentations. By looking directly into the camera lens instead of at yourself on the screen, you create the illusion of making eye contact with your audience. This helps establish a sense of connection and attentiveness.

Wrapping Up the Importance of Engaging Virtual Presentations

Reiterating the benefits of engaging virtual presentations.

Now that we’ve explored the ins and outs of engaging virtual presentations, let’s recap why they are so crucial for capturing and retaining your audience’s attention. By incorporating interactive elements, you can create an immersive experience that keeps participants actively involved throughout the event. This level of engagement leads to improved retention and understanding of the key points you want to convey.

Engaging virtual presentations offer several advantages over traditional in-person events. First and foremost, they provide a convenient way for attendees to join from anywhere in the world without the need for travel or accommodation expenses. This accessibility greatly expands your potential audience and allows you to reach individuals who may not have been able to attend otherwise.

Interactive features such as polls, quizzes, and Q&A sessions foster active participation from attendees. These elements encourage them to think critically about the content being presented and provide opportunities for immediate feedback. By involving your audience in this way, you create a sense of connection and collaboration that enhances their overall experience.

Another benefit of engaging virtual presentations is their ability to cater to different learning styles. People have diverse preferencesWhile others prefer auditory or kinesthetic methods. Through multimedia integration, including videos, images, and slideshows, you can accommodate various learning styles simultaneously. This multi-sensory approach helps ensure that your message resonates with a wider range of participants.

The Power of Humor and Visual Reinforcement in Virtual Presentations

In the world of virtual presentations, engaging your audience online can be a challenge. However, there are two powerful tools that can help you create a memorable and enjoyable experience for your online audience: humor and visual reinforcement. Let’s explore how these elements can make a significant impact on the effectiveness of your virtual presentations.

Humor: Creating a Fun and Light Experience

Injecting humor into your content is like adding a pinch of salt to enhance the flavor. It helps to keep your audience engaged, entertained, and connected with your message. A well-placed joke or witty remark can instantly break the ice and create a relaxed atmosphere.

• Using humorous anecdotes or personal stories related to your topic can captivate your audience’s attention.
• Incorporating funny visuals or memes that align with your presentation’s theme adds an element of surprise and amusement.
• Interactive activities such as quizzes or polls with humorous options can make the session more dynamic and enjoyable.

By infusing humor into your virtual presentation, you not only entertain your audience but also establish a rapport that makes them more receptive to the information you’re sharing.

Visual Reinforcement: Showing rather than Telling

In virtual presentations, where participants are often multitasking or easily distracted by their surroundings, visual aids play a crucial role in reinforcing key messages. By using compelling visuals strategically throughout your presentation, you can enhance understanding, retention, and engagement.

• Utilize eye-catching slides with minimal text that highlight key points or data.

Embracing the Pause: Enhancing Engagement through Strategic Pauses

In virtual presentations, maintaining audience engagement can be a challenge. However, one effective technique that can greatly enhance audience attention and comprehension is the strategic use of pauses . By incorporating well-timed pauses into your virtual presentations, you can create anticipation, emphasize important points, and keep your audience fully engaged throughout.

Elaborating on the effectiveness of strategic pauses in maintaining audience attention.

Strategic pauses serve as powerful tools to maintain audience attention during virtual presentations. When used effectively, they allow for moments of reflection and processing of information. These brief breaks in speech or action give the audience time to absorb what has been said and prepare for what is to come next.

By strategically pausing at key points in your presentation, you create a sense of suspense and curiosity among your listeners. This pause allows them to anticipate what will happen next, keeping them actively engaged in the content. It also helps to break up the monotony of continuous talking or presenting, providing a natural rhythm to your delivery.

Discussing how well-timed pauses can create anticipation and emphasize important points.

Well-timed pauses have the power to create anticipation among your audience. Just like a suspenseful moment in a movie or a punchline in a joke, these intentional breaks build tension and intrigue. By pausing before revealing crucial information or making an impactful statement, you heighten the impact of that moment.

Pauses also serve as signposts for important points within your presentation. They draw attention to key concepts or ideas by giving listeners time to absorb and process them fully.

Mastering Your Voice: Leveraging Vocal Techniques for Audience Engagement

In virtual presentations, capturing and retaining audience interest is crucial. While visual aids and content are important, the role of vocal techniques should not be underestimated. Your voice has the power to engage, captivate, and connect with your audience on a deeper level. By leveraging specific vocal techniques such as modulation , pacing , and emphasis, you can enhance your virtual presentations and leave a lasting impact.

Explaining the Role of Vocal Techniques in Capturing and Retaining Audience Interest

Your voice is a powerful tool that can convey emotions, emphasize key points, and create a sense of connection with your audience. When delivering virtual presentations, it’s essential to understand how vocal techniques play a vital role in capturing and retaining audience interest.

Modulation refers to varying the pitch, tone, and volume of your voice throughout your presentation. By using different levels of modulation strategically, you can add depth and expressiveness to your delivery. This helps to keep your audience engaged by creating a dynamic listening experience.

Pacing involves controlling the speed at which you speak during your presentation. Adjusting your pace can help maintain interest by adding rhythm and preventing monotony. It allows you to emphasize important points or slow down for clarity when discussing complex ideas.

Emphasis is another crucial aspect of vocal technique that helps highlight key information or ideas. By placing emphasis on certain words or phrases through changes in volume or tone, you draw attention to critical elements in your presentation. This ensures that important concepts are not overlooked by your audience.

Boosting Audience Engagement: Best Practices for Captivating Online Audiences

In today’s digital age, virtual presentations have become the norm for engaging with audiences . However, capturing and maintaining the attention of online participants can be quite challenging. To ensure that your virtual presentations are effective and impactful, it is crucial to employ best practices that enhance audience engagement.

Using Relatable Examples

One of the most effective ways to engage an online audience is by using relatable examples . People connect more easily with content when they can see how it applies to their own lives or experiences. By incorporating relevant anecdotes or case studies into your presentation, you can make your message more relatable and resonate with your audience on a personal level .

For instance, if you are delivering a sales pitch for a new product, sharing success stories from satisfied customers can help potential buyers envision themselves benefiting from the product’s features. These relatable examples create a sense of trust and credibility while also sparking interest among your online audience.

The Power of Storytelling

Storytelling has been an age-old method of captivating listeners, and it holds true even in virtual presentations. Sharing compelling stories can evoke emotions and make your content memorable. When crafting your presentation, consider incorporating narratives that illustrate key points or convey important messages.

By weaving storytelling into your virtual presentation, you can transform dry information into a captivating experience for your audience.

Ten Interactive Presentation Ideas to Keep Your Audience Engaged

In today’s digital landscape, virtual presentations have become the norm for connecting with audiences. However, keeping your audience engaged in an online setting can be quite challenging. To overcome this hurdle, here are ten creative ideas to make your virtual presentations more interactive and captivating.

Quizzes: Test Their Knowledge

One effective way to engage your audience is by incorporating quizzes into your presentation. Create interactive quizzes related to your topic and ask participants to answer questions throughout the session. This not only encourages active participation but also helps you gauge their understanding of the subject matter .

Polls: Gather Opinions

Another engaging technique is using polls to gather opinions from your audience. Pose thought-provoking questions and allow participants to vote on their preferred answers. This not only provides valuable insights but also creates a sense of involvement among attendees.

Brainstorming Sessions: Encourage Collaboration

To foster collaboration and generate innovative ideas, include brainstorming sessions in your virtual presentation. Divide participants into breakout rooms or use collaborative tools that allow them to contribute their thoughts and suggestions in real-time.

Virtual Whiteboarding: Visualize Ideas

Visualizing ideas can significantly enhance engagement during virtual presentations. Utilize virtual whiteboarding tools that enable participants to sketch diagrams, mind maps, or flowcharts related to the topic at hand. This interactive approach stimulates creativity and facilitates better understanding.

Gamification: Make Learning Fun

Integrating elements of gamification into your presentation can transform it into an enjoyable learning experience.

Creating Word Pictures: Enhancing Communication Beyond Verbal Language

In virtual presentations, the power of visual communication goes beyond just images and videos. It extends to the use of descriptive language that paints vivid word pictures in the minds of your audience. By incorporating techniques such as metaphors , analogies , and vivid imagery, you can engage online audiences effectively and make your message more memorable.

Importance of Visual Communication through Descriptive Language

When delivering a virtual presentation, relying solely on verbal language may not be enough to captivate your audience. People have different learning styles, and some individuals are more visually oriented than others. By using descriptive language that appeals to their senses, you can create a richer experience for your viewers.

Crafting effective word pictures allows you to tap into the power of storytelling. Instead of simply relaying information, you can paint a mental image that resonates with your audience on a deeper level. This helps them connect emotionally with your message and enhances their overall engagement.

Techniques for Engaging Online Audiences

To engage online audiences effectively, it’s essential to incorporate techniques that go beyond plain speech. Here are some strategies for creating impactful word pictures in virtual presentations:

• Metaphors: Utilize metaphors by comparing two unrelated concepts to create a powerful visual representation. For example, if you’re discussing teamwork, you could say “Teamwork is like a well-oiled machine where every person plays a vital role.”
• Analogies: Draw parallels between different scenarios or situations to help your audience understand complex ideas better.

Planning Virtual Activities: Strategies for Interactive and Engaging Presentations

In today’s digital age, virtual presentations have become the norm. However, engaging your audience online can be quite challenging. To make your virtual presentations more interactive and captivating, it is crucial to plan ahead and incorporate effective strategies. This section will outline some key planning strategies for incorporating interactive activities into your virtual presentations.

Outlining Effective Planning Strategies

There are a few important considerations to keep in mind.

• Time Management : Begin by allocating specific time slots for interactive activities throughout your presentation. By carefully managing the timing of these activities, you can maintain a steady flow and prevent any lulls in engagement.
• Technology Requirements : Consider the technological tools and platforms that will be required for each activity. Ensure that participants have access to the necessary resources and provide clear instructions on how to use them effectively.
• Participant Engagement : Keep in mind the level of engagement you want to achieve with each activity. Consider whether participants will need to actively participate or simply observe. Design activities that encourage active involvement, such as polls, quizzes, or breakout room discussions.

Discussing Considerations

To ensure a successful virtual presentation with interactive activities, it is essential to discuss certain considerations beforehand.

• Presentation Topic : Tailor your choice of interactive activities based on the topic of your presentation. For instance, if you are discussing a complex project management concept, consider incorporating a collaborative whiteboard session where participants can brainstorm ideas together.
• Audience Analysis

User-Selected Presentation Paths: Engaging Strategies for Virtual Presentations

In the world of virtual presentations, engagement is key. With participants spread across different locations and distractions just a click away, it can be challenging to keep them focused and involved. That’s where user-selected presentation paths come into play. By exploring this concept, we can discover strategies that will help us create more engaging virtual presentations.

Exploring Hyperlinked Content

One option for implementing user-selected presentation paths is through hyperlinked content. This allows participants to navigate through the presentation at their own pace, clicking on links that interest them the most. By providing hyperlinks within your slides or presentation materials, you give participants the freedom to choose which topics they want to explore further.

• Tailored experience: Participants can delve deeper into areas that interest them the most.
• Increased involvement: By giving participants control over their learning journey, they become active participants rather than passive listeners.
• Potential distraction: While hyperlinked content offers flexibility, there is a risk that participants may get sidetracked by unrelated information.
• Time management: Depending on how many links are provided, participants might spend too much time exploring one topic and not have enough time for other important content.

Interactive Menus for Navigation

Another strategy to enhance engagement in virtual presentations is by incorporating interactive menus. These menus act as a roadmap for participants, allowing them to choose which sections or topics they want to focus on during the presentation. By presenting an overview of the content and providing clickable options, you empower participants to take charge of their learning experience.

Keeping an Online Audience Engaged: Preparing and Previewing Materials

To ensure a successful virtual presentation, thorough preparation and previewing of materials are crucial. By organizing content effectively, using clear headings, and providing visual cues, you can keep your online audience engaged throughout the presentation.

Importance of Thorough Preparation

Preparation is key. Taking the time to thoroughly prepare your materials allows you to deliver a polished and professional presentation that captures your audience’s attention. It also helps you feel more confident and prepared, reducing any potential stress or anxiety.

Preparing for a virtual presentation involves several steps. First, gather all the necessary media and content you plan to use during the presentation. This includes slideshows, videos, images, or any other visual aids that will enhance your message. Ensure that these materials are easily accessible and organized in a way that makes them easy to navigate during the presentation.

Organizing Content Effectively

One of the challenges of virtual presentations is keeping your audience engaged when they cannot physically be in the same room as you. To overcome this challenge, it’s essential to organize your content effectively.

Start by using clear headings for each section of your presentation. This helps guide your audience through the material and allows them to quickly understand what each section will cover. Consider using bullet points or numbered lists within each section to break up information into digestible chunks.

Another effective way to organize content is by providing visual cues throughout your presentation. Use relevant images or icons to highlight key points or emphasize important information on slides.

Eye Contact and Camera Placement: Establishing Connection in Virtual Presentations

Maintaining eye contact is crucial for engaging your audience during virtual presentations. Despite the physical distance, there are techniques you can employ to create a sense of connection with your online viewers. Optimizing camera angles and positioning can significantly enhance the impact of your presentation.

Significance of Maintaining Eye Contact

Eye contact plays a vital role in communication, both in-person and online. It helps establish trust, convey sincerity, and foster engagement. In virtual presentations, maintaining eye contact through camera placement is essential for creating a personal connection with your audience.

When you maintain eye contact during a virtual presentation, it shows that you are focused on your viewers and value their presence. It helps build rapport and keeps them actively engaged throughout the session. By looking directly into the camera lens, you give the impression that you are speaking directly to each individual viewer.

Techniques for Creating Connection Online

Creating a sense of connection with an online audience requires conscious effort. Here are some practical techniques to help you establish that connection:

• Look directly into the camera: When presenting virtually, make sure to look directly into the camera rather than at your own image on the screen. This gives the illusion of making direct eye contact with your audience.
• Position yourself at eye level: Adjust your camera setup so that it aligns with your eye level or slightly above it. This ensures that you appear more approachable and engaged with your viewers.
• Minimize distractions:

Engaging with Polling and Gamification: Interactive Techniques for Audience Involvement

In virtual presentations, it’s crucial to find ways to keep your audience engaged and involved. One effective method is through the use of polling and gamification techniques. By incorporating these interactive elements, you can create a more dynamic and participatory experience for your participants.

Exploring increased interactivity with polling

One way to enhance audience participation is by utilizing polls during your virtual presentation. Polling allows you to gather real-time feedback from your audience, making them an active part of the discussion. It not only encourages engagement but also provides valuable insights into the thoughts and opinions of your participants.

Benefits of polling:

• Increased interactivity : Polls allow participants to actively participate in the presentation by expressing their opinions or preferences.
• Data collection: The data collected from polls can provide valuable insights that can be used for future presentations or decision-making processes.
• Instant feedback : Real-time polling gives presenters immediate feedback on how well their message is being received, allowing them to adjust their approach if needed.
• Fostering healthy competition: Incorporating competitive elements in polls, such as leaderboard rankings, can encourage friendly competition among participants.

Discussing gamification for audience involvement

Gamification involves incorporating game-like elements into non-game contexts to increase engagement and motivation. By introducing gamified features in virtual presentations, you can make the experience more enjoyable and interactive for your audience.

Benefits of gamification:

• Enhanced engagement: Gamified elements such as quizzes, challenges, or rewards motivate participants to actively engage with the content.

Creating a Distraction-Free Background: Optimizing Visual Focus in Online Presentations

Creating engaging virtual presentations is crucial for capturing the attention and interest of your online audience. By implementing strategies such as optimizing visual focus , utilizing humor and visual reinforcement, mastering vocal techniques, and incorporating interactive presentation ideas, you can enhance audience engagement and make your virtual presentations more impactful. Enhancing communication beyond verbal language and embracing strategic pauses can further captivate your audience’s attention. Remember to plan virtual activities, establish eye contact through camera placement, and engage with polling and gamification to keep your online audience involved. With these techniques in mind, you’ll be well-equipped to deliver compelling virtual presentations that leave a lasting impression.

Call-to-action: Start applying these strategies in your next virtual presentation to create an engaging experience for your audience. Experiment with different techniques, embrace creativity, and continuously seek feedback to improve the impact of your online presentations.

Can I use humor in my virtual presentations?

Absolutely! Humor is a powerful tool for engaging an online audience. Incorporating light-hearted jokes or funny anecdotes can help create a relaxed atmosphere and make your presentation more enjoyable. Just ensure that the humor is appropriate for your specific audience.

How can I optimize visual focus in my virtual presentations?

To optimize visual focus in virtual presentations, it’s important to create a distraction-free background. Choose a clean and clutter-free environment with minimal distractions behind you. Consider using a neutral-colored backdrop or even a virtual background feature if available.

What are some interactive presentation ideas for online audiences?

There are numerous interactive presentation ideas you can explore for online audiences. Some examples include conducting live polls or surveys during the presentation, incorporating breakout rooms for group discussions or activities, utilizing interactive slides with clickable elements or quizzes, and encouraging real-time chat participation.

How do strategic pauses enhance engagement in virtual presentations?

Strategic pauses provide moments of reflection for the audience while allowing them to process information effectively. They also build anticipation and create a sense of suspense, keeping the audience engaged and eager to hear what comes next. Incorporating pauses at key moments in your presentation can significantly enhance audience engagement.

How can I enhance communication beyond verbal language in virtual presentations?

To enhance communication beyond verbal language in virtual presentations, consider using visual aids such as slides, infographics, or videos to convey information. Utilize gestures and facial expressions to add emphasis and emotion to your delivery. Make use of props or demonstrations whenever applicable to reinforce your message visually

How to Give an Interactive PowerPoint Presentation in 2023

Presenting online is tough, yes. You can’t really connect with your audience. You often don’t even know whether those mute faces listen to you at all.

That’s why it’s important to go the extra mile and make your presentation interactive. 

But that’s easier said than done, right?

Being for 7 years in the game of interactive presenting, I’d like to share some of my tips on how to activate your audience , create meaningful interaction, and facilitate it during your talk.

Get inspired by these (or some of these) tips for delivering a  truly interactive PowerPoint presentation.

• Play music or do some chit-chat while waiting
• Welcome people and properly introduce the topic
• Explain how people can interact with you
• Involve the audience from the very start
• Re-engage your audience every 5-7 minutes
• Use polls to trigger a discussion
• Take advantage of Zoom’s interactive features
• Simplify your slides: One idea/visual per slide
• Play around with virtual backgrounds
• Use breakout sessions for peer-to-peer learning
• Turn tedious numbers into a quiz
• Invite a sidekick
• Run mid-way Q&A sessions
• Give your audience something tangible to leave with
• Run a short feedback survey at the end

1. Play music or do some chit-chat while waiting

Often it takes a couple of minutes before everybody jumps on a call. While you’re waiting for the rest of the crew to join, you can play some music in the background to set the mood and talk to the people who have already tuned in. “Has anyone discovered a good recipe lately?” or, “Did you do anything cool this weekend?”

You can share music during your Zoom call easily by clicking the ‘ Share computer sound ‘ checkbox.

As people are joining, you can also prompt them to turn on their cameras and unmute themselves for the time being, so that you can all see and talk to each other.

💡 Use icebreaker polls to strike up conversations while you’re waiting for others.

2. Welcome people and properly introduce the topic

Once everybody’s aboard, welcome your participants warmly, thank them for joining you, and tell everyone what you will be talking about today. You can even add an agenda slide to your presentation so you map out the whole session to your audience in advance. In the virtual environment, it’s even more important to navigate people through the talk.

3. Explain how people can interact with you

Always check that everyone understands the technical side of things – otherwise, people may not know how to interact with you. Tell them what tools you’re going to use during the presentation and explain how they can use them.

It’s all about setting the right expectations: Do you want your participants to share comments via Zoom or Webex chat? Sure, tell them that. Explain how Webex or Zoom reactions work in case not everyone is familiar with them. If you expect verbal input from your participants, ask them to use the ‘Raise hand’ feature, so you can call on them if they want to contribute.

Are you going to use live polls throughout your presentation? Explain how people can vote in a poll or contribute with their ideas.

4. Involve the audience from the very start

Now that you’ve made it clear to your audience that you want and expect them to actively participate in the upcoming session, it’s time to give it a trial run.

Start a conversation with them right off the bat. For instance, I was recently a guest at an online fireside chat series called ‘Living Online’, run by our former Head of Education and a great moderator, Zuzana.

Before she dived into the topic, she collected insights from the audience. She ran a series of polls, asking people, “How much has the online world changed your life?” or, “What helps you find a balance between the real and the online world?”

This way, she made the talk more about the audience, as opposed to just streaming information one way (while making sure people are familiar with the tech).

5. Re-engage your audience every 5-7 minutes

Keep the momentum and motivate your audience to “talk” to you throughout your presentation. Even if it is just in a non-verbal way.

We recommend using live polls or other forms of interaction every 5-7 minutes to pull people back in and involve them in a conversation.

Prepare several poll questions for your audience beforehand, and spread them out throughout your talk.

Is there a content-heavy part of your presentation that might be tough for your audience to process? At the end of it, use a rating poll to ask your audience how well they understood.

Are you about to propose an argument? Before you do, ask your audience what their viewpoint on the topic is first. (You can use live polls here too.)

Take inspiration from our Head of Internal Comms, Silvia, who – before giving a word to our CEO Peter who’d walk us through September highlights – began by using a word cloud to source highlights from the team.

6. Use polls to trigger a discussion

Live polls are invaluable for collecting real-time input from your audience. You can use that input effectively for starting a discussion.

For example, during our latest strategy meeting with our Brand team, I really needed to know whether the strategy points I presented to my team made sense, and I wanted to build up a discussion around them.

After each of the three presented areas, I ran a rating poll: “On a scale of 1-6, how important is this area in order to achieve our goals?”

When votes came in, I commented on the results and whenever there were votes lower than 6, I asked: “Okay, who put 5/4? Can you please share your thoughts with us?”

This really changed the game for me, because I collected some invaluable insights from my colleagues that would otherwise have remained uncovered. Very often, people don’t share until you nudge them a little.

Read also: 7 Interactive Poll Ideas for Your PowerPoint Presentation

7. Take advantage of interactive features

Encourage your participants to ‘Raise hand’, use emoji reactions, or chat. Your meeting participants are probably not going to use them heavily unless you encourage them to do so.

I often use emoji reactions for fast feedback: I ask people to press thumbs up as an indication that they understand or agree, or to express that they like something with a clapping emoji or the heart symbol.

8. Simplify your slides: One idea/visual per slide

Make sure your slides are visually appealing. When listening to someone speak online, the last thing you want is to read huge bodies of text on slides. So don’t copy-paste the whole script of your speech. Use just one idea, one sentence, one topic, or one number per slide.

Where appropriate, support what you’re saying with an image, a graph, a gif, or even a meme. Do you want to show a video during your presentation? Make sure it’s really short because a video, no matter how entertaining, is yet another piece of content your audience consumes passively.

9. Play around with virtual backgrounds

Using a virtual background when presenting online can save the day if you need to quickly hide a messy kitchen or any trespassing relatives.

But, there’s more to it. You can tie it to the topic of your presentation and thus strengthen the message you’re trying to convey. For example, ever since our CEO Peter used climbing El Capitan as a metaphor for our company strategy, he uses an El Cap photo as his virtual background as a reminder for all of us that we still have a mountain to climb.

Need another great use of a virtual background? Pick a funny picture and use it as an icebreaker. For example, in several meetings, I put up a picture of a naked man chasing a wild boar, and believe me, there’s no better icebreaker !

People usually laugh and ask me why I picked this very image – it’s priceless to start a meeting with a smile on people’s faces!

Read also: 18 Best Virtual Icebreakers For Your Zoom Meetings

10. Use breakout sessions for peer-to-peer learning

This tactic is magic, especially with longer presentation types such as during all-company meetings, workshops, or training.

Propose a discussion topic or a challenge. Give your audience 1-2 minutes to think about it, before splitting them into smaller groups so that they can share their thoughts together and brainstorm solutions.

This is a great interactive exercise that helps you break the monotonous flow of one-way content broadcast and allow for some peer-to-peer learning.

You can also collect the learnings of your audience to include them in the presentation. For example, you can run an open text poll where you collect everybody’s key learnings and then display them on the screen. Let’s say you have asked your audience to discuss your company priorities. Try a word cloud such as: “Submit which priorities you discussed in your group.”

11. Turn tedious numbers into a quiz

Presenting company updates or business results can get quite tedious and your audience may easily start zoning out.

Turn it around and present your numbers in a form of a quiz .

For instance, before you reveal the number, say something like: “Before we look at the numbers, why don’t you guys have a guess at how well we did?” Then run a poll with multiple options and wait for your participants to cast their votes.

You can use this technique on multiple occasions. Our CEO, Peter, usually does this at our end-of-year all-hands meetings when he presents our business results such as revenue, sales, or a number of Slido events.

12. Invite a sidekick

Virtual presenters are superheroes that need to juggle multiple tools. And every Batman needs Robin. Consider inviting another speaker to deliver the presentation with you.

It will freshen up your talk and break the stereotype of only one speaker talking. On top of that, she/he can also help you with technicalities such as keeping an eye on the chat or troubleshooting any technical issues.

You can take turns in presenting the content or even give your presentation in the form of a conversation between the two of you. This way, it’ll be even easier for you to involve your audience in the talk, as they’ll be joining what already feels like an ongoing discussion.

Having a sidekick is invaluable if you’re running a Q&A round at the end of your presentation – they can help you manage questions from the audience.

13. Run mid-way Q&A sessions

Always make sure to leave space for Q&A – answering questions from the audience is one of the most important engagement points. Your participants will have a chance to dive deeper into the topic of your talk, and eventually, learn much more from your presentation.

Don’t wait until the end, but review the questions as they come in and take the most relevant ones continuously throughout your presentation (e.g. after each content block). If there are any outstanding questions, address them in the Q&A round at the end.

For example, during our recent product event , our Project Managers, Juraj Pal, Martin Srna, and Mario Ceselka, ran several Q&A rounds after each product announcement that they made. (Almost 350 questions came in! This is why it’s priceless to have a sidekick.)

They also encouraged people to use upvotes, so the most popular questions can jump to the top and be answered with priority.

14. Give your audience something tangible to leave with

As you move towards the end of your talk, it’s good practice to reiterate the main message of your presentation to give your participants one concrete takeaway to remember.

You can make the ending interactive as well: Ask your audience to think about what they’ve just heard, then run a poll asking your audience: “What are you taking away from this presentation?” or, “What one thing resonated with you the most during this presentation?”

15. Run a short feedback survey at the end

Don’t forget to ask your audience for feedback. We’re always ready to rate our Uber drives or meal deliveries in order to help improve the experience. Why should presentations be any different?

Feedback is the best way for you to learn and find out what you can do better next time. Combine classic star rating with an open text poll so your participants can write more elaborate comments as well.

Two to three questions will suffice – you don’t want to wear your audience down with too long a survey (plus, you’ll boost the response rate!). Here’s an example that you can use:

• How would you rate today’s presentation? (Rating)
• What did you like most about this presentation? (Open text)
• Is there anything that could be improved? (Open text)

Over to you

Actively involving your audience in your content is key if you want to make your online presentation more interactive and engaging.

Using polls, quizzes, and collecting questions from your audience is one of the easiest ways to create more interaction during your talk.

With Slido for PowerPoint , you can add polls to your presentation and present seamlessly – all from one place. Watch this video to see how Slido for PowerPoint works. Click below to try it.

Add live polls directly to your PowerPoint presentation.

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How To Make Presentations Interactive: Our Top 10 Tips

Table of contents.

Feeling like your presentations have reached a plateau? Are you looking to incorporate something which brings a spark back into your presentation and ignites the excitement in your audience?

If so, you probably need to make your presentations more interactive. In a recent study on evaluating the effect of interactive digital presentations on students’ performance during technology class , interactive presentations not only made learning more enjoyable but it actually helped students.

With interactive presentations having proven positive results, why wouldn’t you make your next presentation interactive?

Adding interactivity in your slide design will create a more engaging experience for the audience allowing you to share important points easier. Interactivity will help make a longer presentation more enjoyable and will create social interaction amongst a larger audience.

In today’s article, we will share with you different ideas on how to make a presentation interactive that will take into account audience input and get your audience involved.

What Is An Interactive Presentation?

An interactive presentation is the accumulation and usage of various engagement methods combined into a format used to share with an audience in an effort to persuade, act or make the audience feel a certain way.

An interactive presentation takes the idea of a presentation one step further by incorporating elements to get them engaged both mentally and physically. Understanding the basics of presentation psychology , the more senses of your audience that you can target, the more memorable your presentation will be.

This is exactly what an interactive presentation manages to do. By having your presentation be interactive, you are able to target more senses of your audience and as a result make your presentation and the contents of your presentation more memorable.

What Makes A Presentation Interactive?

Now that we know what an interactive presentation is, we need to know what makes a presentation interactive.

To make your presentation interactive, you need to foster an interactive environment. This means an environment in which your audience is engaged. This can be achieved through interactive elements such as videos, games or questions. Essentially anything you add to your presentation which engages the audience more than just having them sit and listen will transform your presentation into an interactive one.

Why Your Presentation Should Be Interactive

Interactive presentations connect with your audience members more:

Whether it’s a fun icebreaker game or a personal anecdote, interactive presentations make it easier for your audience to connect with you.

If you are trying to influence or persuade your audience, you need to find a way to connect with them. Without the personal connection and your presentation won’t serve your end goal.

Interactive presentations help your audience members remember more:

Similar to visual aids or presentation aids , adding different elements to your presentation encourages people to constantly be engaged with your presentation. The more your audience is actively engaged with your presentation, the more likely they will remember the main points of your presentation. The following tips specifically refers to traditional, in-person presentations, however it is still possible to engage with your audience in a virtual event engagement as well if you are looking for some advice.

10 Ways To Make Your Presentation Interactive

Now that we understand the basics of why your presentation slides should be interactive presentation slides, we’ll go over 10 key points we implement in our own presentation designs and share with you interactive presentation ideas.

1 – Add A Video

One of the first ways you can make your presentation interactive is a method you are probably familiar with and have already incorporated into your own past presentations.

Adding a video is an easy yet impactful way to make your presentation interactive. Videos are interactive and impactful because they take the audience’s attention from the current present somewhere else. It is like a time-traveling machine. Also, it doesn’t take much presentation design skill to insert video elements throughout your presentation.

Videos are also great to use because there is often a lot more time and production value that goes into creating them. You can feature guests who are not currently there in-person and you can even have them address the audience. Think of Cameo for example where celebrities can record short video clips of themselves reading a message of your choosing. If you had a Cameo created for your audience, you can have it embedded in the presentation.

2 – Incorporate A Quiz

If the desired end result of your presentation is to have your audience remember as much of what you presented as possible, then one of the best ways to do so is by incorporating a quiz. We as a society and people tend to best remember things when we know we are required to. We are required to remember things when we know we will be asked to recall them.

So, at the beginning of your presentation you should inform your audience there will be a quiz at the end. Alternatively, you can sprinkle small quizzes throughout your presentation. This will encourage your audience to mentally take notes in order to be able to recall them later on.

But, be careful in using this tactic.

It works great if you have a cooperative audience but it will backfire if you don’t.

Imagine you told your audience to take a quiz and they all answered incorrectly, even when you warned them ahead of time that there would be a quiz. If even then your audience fails to recall key information, it will reflect badly on you because you either did not have an engaging enough presentation or you delivered the information poorly.

3 – Use A Poll

Similar to a quiz, live polls allow you to get your audience’s feedback in real-time.

Depending on the polling software you use, you can create instant data visualization elements like creating charts of how your audience has responded. This works great if you’re asking a question and want to see the audience’s answer.

If you are starting out fresh and don’t have the means to incorporate polling software in your presentation then don’t worry – the old-fashioned method of simply asking your audience to raise their hands is sufficient. Although it is limited to binary questions which can be answered with a yes or a no, it is still effective as an interactive element.

4 – Turn To Social Media & Use A Hashtag

Your presentation won’t always be limited to the live audience you have physically in front of you. At times, you might have a virtual presentation where your audience is tuning in from across the world. In instances like this, turning to social media is a great tool to keep your presentation interactive.

Turning to social media to engage your audience is great as it incorporates several of the tactics on this list into one. Social media can be used like a real-time forum or discussion group where your audience can be active participants in the discussion by asking questions, discussing amongst one another or even contributing to the ideas you are presenting.

If executed properly, you may even use social media and a branded hashtag as a public relations tactic. This will allow you to reach new audiences which is critical if you’re trying to sell things or establish yourself as a thought-leader in a specific industry.

5 – Use Your Entire Venue Space

Body language is a critical presentation skill you need to master in order to create great presentations. One way to almost guarantee you will have a boring presentation and one the audience will surely forget is by staying in one spot the entire presentation.

Instead, you want to maximize the space you are given and walk around.

Walking around will allow you to get up close and personal with your audience entering their space. If you keep the room divided between “the stage” and “the audience”, then you will have a disconnect. Once you enter the audience’s space, you are creating a new area of interaction.

6 – Use Props

Think back to when you were a kid and you were sitting at school assemblies or listening to presentations. I don’t know about you, but personally, the ones that come to mind easily are the ones that had props!

What might be seen as a gimmick, props are great tools to use especially when you are making a presentation interactive.

Props are tools that you as the presenter can use which can tie the audience in. Think of props as a link. If your presentation is using props that your audience can also use, it breaks down the third-wall of presenting by connecting your audience to you. There doesn’t feel like there are these two, completely separate sections between the audience and the presenter. Everything feels unified.

7 – Do A Demonstration

Depending on the presentation you are engaging in, for example a sales presentation, a demonstration is a great way to get the audience involved.

A demonstration allows you to highlight the real-world benefits of a product or a service. Rather than simply explaining what you or your product can do, show it – especially if it gives you an opportunity to engage your audience.

People don’t want to know they are being sold on something. Oftentimes, they want to be entertained. Try and make your demonstration as entertaining as possible while highlighting the benefits of your product or service.

8 – Let Your Presentation Be Directed By The Audience

A unique way your presentation can be interactive is by having your audience decide how the whole presentation will progress. This is a fun way to get the audience engaged because even you as the presenter will be kept on your toes not knowing 100% how the presentation will unfold.

It will encourage people to get emotionally invested in the presentation and give them a sense of risk or reward. It will also give the audience a sense of autonomy. Unlike other presenters who have a pre-cut presentation like a Ted Talk, having the progression of your slide deck be decided in real-time by the audience in an undeniable strategy on how to make your presentation more interactive.

9 – Add Effects Like Music & Transitions

Presentation effects are a great way to keep your audience’s senses engaged. From visual effects to sound effects, all these small and unique elements can help keep your audience engaged.

You can use music clips, audio files, user-generated content and more to have your audience engaged. These elements work extremely well during live events as it turns the presentation into more of a spectacle rather than a “boring” presentation.

10 – Incorporate Your Audience In Your Presentation

What might seem like the most obvious option to make a presentation interactive is one which is not executed often enough. To make your presentation more interactive, you need to incorporate your audience.

Whether you use audience questions, sharing video clips like user-generated content or even having a guest speaker, incorporating your audience is the literal definition of having an interactive presentation.

Our Final Thoughts On How To Make Presentations Interactive

If you are looking for a way to grab your audience’s attention in a digital age where our attention spans are decreasing at alarming rates, making an interactive presentation is your best option.

What might seem daunting can actually be done quite easily if you are open to engaging help of expert presentation designers and consultants . Make a presentation interactive with the help of Presentation Geeks. From adding background music, videos or even self-guided presentations, the experts at Presentation Geeks can do it all.

We hope you found this article helpful. If you’re looking for more great resources on crafting presentations or looking for presentation design support, contact our team at Presentation Geeks to learn more.

Author:  Content Team

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Interactive Presentation 101: Tips, Templates & Tools

Learn how to create an interactive presentation online. See examples of ready-to-use interactive presentation slides that are optimized for engagement.

Dominika Krukowska

7 minute read

Short answer

How can I make a presentation interactive?

• Add a video on the cover slide
• Use narrated scrollytelling design
• Add multimedia (videos, animations, and text-to-speech readers)
• Visualize your data using live graphs and charts
• Group your content in tabs
• Add input options such as embedded apps, surveys, or calculators
• Hide additional data under “read more”
• Incorporate a chatbot
• End with an interactive next step

Interactivity is a core experience, not just cosmetics

These days, everyone's trying to add a touch of flair to their decks. A fancy transition here, a clickable element there. But let's be honest: it won’t transform the core experience.

It's like putting racing stripes on a family car; sure, it looks faster, but under the hood, it's the same old engine.

If you're settling for these surface-level enhancements, you're missing out on the chance to truly engage your audience.

Instead of leaving them with a memorable experience, you're giving them just another presentation they'll forget by the next coffee break.

By using tools that provide interactivity as the core experience rather than cosmetics, you can transform your presentations from passive viewings into immersive experiences.

It's about creating a two-way conversation, where your audience doesn't just watch but participates.

If you want to elevate your content from being just another slide deck to something that resonates and inspires action you’ll wanna stick around.

This post will give you world-leading interactive presentation examples to learn from and templates you can use immediately.

Let’s go!

Why static presentations are bad for business

Let's face it: static presentations are like that dreaded homework from school. Remember the feeling of slogging through pages of text, eyes glazing over, wishing to be done with it and go do something actually interesting?

That's what your audience feels when they read your static slide deck.

Static presentations just dump information. They're a one-way street, and they expect the audience to passively absorb everything. It's a pain, and honestly, no one's a fan.

Now, imagine a presentation that's interactive. It's like stepping into a playground of information.

Your audience isn't just sitting there; they're involved. They can choose their path, delve deeper into what intrigues them, and skip what doesn't. It's a two-way journey, tailored to each viewer's pace and interest.

Here’s what the difference between static and interactive looks like:

Why more interactivity will NOT get you more engagement

When it comes to presentations, there's a clear divide: they're either interactive or they're not. It's like coffee; it's either decaf or it's not. There's no semi-caffeinated middle ground.

As long as you remain within the bounds of the legacy PowerPoint slide format, no amount of interactivity you add to it will make your presentation worth engaging with.

Now, you might be thinking, "But what about those Canva-like solutions? They add some flair, right?" Yes, they can jazz up your slides with a bit of motion and some shiny effects.

But let's be real: a sprinkle of glitter doesn't turn a rock into a diamond. Beneath the surface bling, the core experience remains static, limited, and boring. A bit of animation doesn’t change that.

These tools might give the illusion of interactivity, but it's just that—an illusion. True interactivity means giving your audience the reins and letting them navigate, explore, and engage with your content on their terms.

Anything less is just a dressed-up version of the same old static PowerPoint.

9 tips for making a truly powerful interactive presentation

Creating a presentation that stands out in today's digital overload is no small feat. But with the right tools and approach, you can turn passive viewers into active participants.

Here's how to make a truly powerful interactive presentation:

1) Add a video on the cover slide

Think of a time-lapse of a bustling city or a heartwarming clip from a community event. Such visual hooks not only captivate but also set the context for your narrative.

Here's an example of a deck with a video on the cover slide:

2) Use narrated design

A narrated design means structuring your slides to unfold like a story, guiding the viewer from one point to the next seamlessly. Letting your audience explore at their own pace increases engagement.

Here's a great example of narrated design:

3) Add multimedia elements

Go beyond text. Integrate images, sound bites, and short clips to highlight points, break up the flow, and cater to different learning preferences.

Here's an example of a multimedia deck:

4) Visualize your data using live graphs and charts

Numbers tell a tale, but in chunks, they're snooze-worthy. Use live graphs and charts to represent data in a digestible, visually appealing manner.

Here ' s an example of a presentation with dataviz elements:

5) Group your content in tabs

Think of this as chapters in a book. Tabs help segment and organize your content, allowing viewers to jump to sections that interest them most.

Here's an example of a tabs slide:

6) Add input options such as embedded apps, surveys, or calculators

Embedded apps can provide tailored experiences, surveys gather immediate audience feedback, and calculators allow for real-time data manipulation.

By including them, you invite your audience to actively engage, making the content more memorable and the experience more dynamic.

7) Hide additional data under “read more”

Offer a teaser, then dive deep. This approach ensures you cater to both the skim-readers and the deep-divers in your audience.

8) Incorporate a chatbot

It's like having a 24/7 assistant. Chatbots can provide instant answers, clarify doubts and keep viewers on track.

Here's an example of a deck with a chatbot:

9) End with an interactive next step

Ditch the generic "Thank You" slide. Instead, wrap up with a call to action, a thought-provoking question, or a personalized video message. It's about leaving a lasting impression and sparking action.

Here's an example of a presentation with a smart CTA:

How to create an interactive presentation with AI

As screens around us buzz with endless streams of content, the main challenge is creating presentations that rise above the noise.

Thankfully, with the help of AI, you can create an impactful interactive presentation in 6 easy steps.

1) Define your presentation’s purpose with AI

Start by letting the AI know the goal of your presentation. Whether you're pitching a solution to prospects, explaining a concept during a workshop, or showcasing quarterly results to stakeholders, AI can generate content that's both relevant and engaging.

2) Introduce your context

Provide the AI with a brief overview of who you are, your company's mission, the product or service you're highlighting, and the industry landscape. This helps the AI tailor the presentation to your unique narrative.

3) Choose a design template

No need to build from the ground up. Platforms like Storydoc offer a variety of design templates optimized for real-world performance. Pick one that resonates with your brand's voice and aesthetic.

4) Customize and add interactivity

This is where the magic happens. Integrate your content, adjust the design, and watch as the template adapts to fit your narrative. Spice things up with clickable tabs, real-time data charts, or other interactive elements.

And if you're feeling a bit unsure about your multimedia choices, you can also let the AI suggest some for you.

5) Add dynamic personalization

Modern tools allow for dynamic content adjustments. You can connect to your CRM, fetch relevant data, and use it to create presentations that feel tailor-made for each viewer in a matter of seconds.

This trick will make your audience feel more connected to your content and boost overall engagement.

6) Review, refine, and stay in control

Before hitting send, give your presentation a once-over. Make sure it flows seamlessly and your message shines through.

And here's the best part: since platforms like Storydoc are online-based, you can make on-the-fly adjustments even after sharing your presentation. No more “Did I just share the old draft?” panic.

7) Advanced: Use analytics to make continuous improvements

Every presentation you create with Storydoc comes with access to a robust analytics suite. This gives you a bird's-eye view of how your content performs, from viewer engagement metrics to slide-by-slide analysis.

Use this data to refine, tweak, and perfect your presentations over time.

Here's a short video explaining how our AI presentation maker works:

Best interactive presentation examples to inspire your own

Dive into our gallery and let these interactive presentation examples spark your inspiration and guide your next presentation journey.

Remember those captivating story books from childhood? The ones where you could choose your own adventure, turning to different pages based on your choices, and every read felt fresh and new?

That's the magic interactive presentation templates bring to the table.

While traditional presentations often feel like a boring lecture, we flip the script. These templates don't just present; they engage. Every element, every interaction, is optimized to ensure your audience isn't just watching—they're participating.

And it's not just about aesthetics. These templates have been in the trenches, battle-tested in real-world scenarios, and have come out as champions, driving results and making lasting impressions.

Best tools for making interactive presentations

While tools like Canva might add a touch of sparkle, they often fall short of creating a truly interactive experience.

So, if you're looking to elevate your presentations from static to dynamic, here's a list of the best tools that genuinely make a difference:

Storydoc is leading the charge in creating AI-powered interactive business presentations for sales, marketing, and reporting. It transforms traditional business decks into dynamic, immersive stories. With AI-driven design, content suggestions, and built-in deck analytics, it brings a storytelling experience into business communications.

Genially offers educational presentations used to enrich learning materials inside and outside the classroom. From dynamic infographics to gamification and thousands of classroom-ready templates, it comes with a range of tools to make your content interactive and engaging.

Foleon is an intuitive all-in-one platform that focuses on creating mini-sites that provide immersive content experiences that work across devices, packed with rich media and interactive elements.

Hi, I'm Dominika, Content Specialist at Storydoc. As a creative professional with experience in fashion, I'm here to show you how to amplify your brand message through the power of storytelling and eye-catching visuals.

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How to create an interactive presentation and keep viewers engaged.

For most people, the word “presentation” is synonymous with boredom. Pair it with “business” or “educational” and you make it even worse. Before they even sit down to watch, your audience has flashbacks to that endless chemistry PowerPoint in the 10th grade. Yikes.

But here’s the thing: online presentations don’t have to be mind-numbing. Like most trends that started in 1990, they just need a makeover.

According to the experts , the best way to make your presentation more interesting, engaging, and effective is to make it interactive . It’s not even that hard to do. With the right tools, you can make your presentation interactive in just a few minutes.

What is an interactive presentation?

Unlike a static presentation, an interactive presentation includes opportunities for your audience to get involved in real-time. This can mean including video clips for discussion, live polls or quizzes, in-person activities, or incorporating stories to create a more engaging experience.

In a standard presentation, audience members watch something. In an interactive presentation, they do something. And when we learn by doing , we retain material significantly better .

There are tonnes of benefits to making your presentation interactive.

• Boost engagement: interactive elements make your presentation more engaging. When your audience knows they’re going to be a part of the experience, they’re more likely to stay present and focused throughout.
• Connect with your audience: the lecture format is one-sided. The presenter becomes the talking head, and everyone else is free to doze off. Making your presentation interactive transforms the lecture into a conversation, allowing you to connect with the other people in the room.
• Share the workload: interactive presentations make presenting easier. When you toss questions or activities to the crowd, you share the burden of transmitting the information. More work from the audience can mean less work for you.
• Personalised delivery: because they’re informed by participants, each interactive presentation is unique. That means you can tailor your presentation to the people you’re speaking to, personalising the experience to make it that much more meaningful.

The main types of interactive presentation

Before we get into how to build the perfect interactive presentation, you've first got to decide what type of presentation you want to run.

Is it formal? Entertaining? A live webinar or a delayed video uploaded to YouTube?Are you speaking to investors for your non-profit , prospective clients, or just trying to convince your partner to let you splash out some cash on a new TV?

The type of presentation you're running influences everything from your tone to the kind of online tools you might use to build it.

Your interactive elements should be relevant to the type of presentation you’re giving. You might include a Kahoot poll if you teach third-grade history, but you’ll need something a little more professional for a sales pitch.

8 ways to make your presentation interactive with Paperform

Paperform is a form builder first and foremost, but you can also use our tools as an interactive presentation software. Just treat each page of your form as a slide to create a custom presentation your audience will love.

It’s not a replacement for Powerpoint or Prezi, but it’s a great way to bridge some gaps and add interactive elements to your presentation. One of our own, Josh, uses Paperform to help his son Jesse create presentations for school.

Most recently, Jesse and his dad made an incredible presentation on the Amazon, complete with wild jungle GIFs, interactive animal quiz questions, and plenty of surprising jungle facts. We made this quick replica to show you how to use Paperform as an interactive presentation software.

When you host your slides on Paperform, you get access to all the sweet features that make our digital suite of tools so unique, like conditional logic , advanced calculations , heaps of design options, and built-in robust data analytics.

Making an effective presentation shouldn’t be a chore. Let’s walk through eight interactive presentation ideas you can try out today, and how you can implement them with Paperform.

1. Make use of visual elements

There’s nothing worse for your presentation design than endless blocks of text. Nobody wants to be lulled to sleep with a bedtime story about this quarter's financial goals.

As a general rule of thumb, if you’re going to say it, you don’t need to write it. The text should be used to remind you of your key points and topics, not to explain them in detail. That’s what you’re there to do. Try to use graphs, charts, or visualisations of data whenever possible.

Paperform it: If you’ve collected your data via a Paperform poll or survey , we’ll make the visuals for you. Just head to our built-in analytics dashboard and download custom graphs created from your form results.

And if you create your interactive presentation slides with Paperform, you can also make use of our native integration with Unsplash and Giphy. Just think: all the royalty-free images and GIFs you might want, all without leaving the editor. You can even edit the images with our built-in editor.

Our integration with Adobe creative cloud allows you to import your branding and colour palette automatically, so creating personalised presentations is easy. And once you make one you like, you can share it as a template with the rest of your team so everyone can start from the same square one.

If you’re not using Paperform to host your presentation, you can always find your visuals separately and incorporate them into your slides on Prezi or Powerpoint. Wherever you host your slideshow, aim to have at least one visual for every two slides.

2. Start with icebreakers to set the tone

Icebreakers aren’t just for summer camp and blind dates. You can use them to build rapport, set the tone for what's to follow, and show that you have created a safe space that encourages audience participation. They can even be—dare we say?—fun.

When picking your icebreakers, try to be creative and topical. It’s a great opportunity to introduce audience interaction and gain some information that might be relevant to your presentation.

Let’s say you’re giving a presentation to your colleagues about the success of a recent advertising campaign. You could ask everyone what their favourite commercial is and why. Down the line, you can return to these answers for a brainstorming session about your next ad campaign.

If you're working with a small group (say 5-10 people) you can chat with your audience directly. If you’re working with a larger audience, you can ask folks to chat in pairs or send small groups off in virtual breakout rooms.

Paperform it: With Paperform, you can send out your icebreaker as a quick, interactive poll. Include it within the presentation itself, or make a separate one and add the link to your slideshow software of choice.

However you choose to share it, your respondents can answer your Paperform in a few clicks, and you can view the results in real-time. It’s a constructive way to connect efficiently with your audience when presenting remotely.

3. Find your narrative

A story can be a great hook. Draw people in with an engaging personal anecdote, and return to it throughout the presentation. It’ll keep them engaged from the beginning, and recenter them along the way if they drift off.

Take our ad campaign presentation. You might start off with a short story about how much you loved Frosted Flakes commercials as a kid, and how you went as Tony the Tiger for Halloween one year. You can return to elements of this story throughout (maybe even a photo of the infamous costume).

Why use stories in a business presentation? For the same reason we tell fables to children. Stories to help us learn. When there’s a narrative behind your presentation, your audience will be inherently more connected to it, and more likely to remember what you say.

Paperform it: Incorporating a story can be done in just about any presentation software. But if you want to get really creative with it, you could use Paperform to build your narrative into an escape room .

Just pick your story, create a few puzzles that relate to it, and use our advanced conditional logic to create a lock and key or branching-style escape room. You can present the escape room alongside your presentation, or hide the clues within the presentation itself to keep your participants hanging on every slide.

4. Let your audience decide the presentation order

Most presenters use a slide deck to support their presentations. Whether you use Powerpoint, Prezi, Google Slides, or heaps of cardstock like Andrew Lincoln in Love Actually , slide decks are a great way to keep yourself on track.

There are three main ways to progress through a slide deck.

• Standard navigation: this is the presentation you’re probably familiar with. A presenter clicks through their slides in real time, but the order is predetermined.
• A video presentation: a linear presentation where slides automatically play one after the other. This is great for presentations that will be inserted into a website or landing page , and not necessarily accompanied by a live person.
• Flexible navigation: this kind of presentation is influenced by the audience and the presenter. The presenter clicks through slides but can skip around freely and use interactive elements like buttons, clickable images, and direct download links .

Paperform it: Paperform can help with all three. For standard navigation, simply add each “slide” as a new page in your Paperform, and progress through the pages as needed. Your respondents can do this, too.

Just send the link and allow latecomers or no-shows to progress through the presentation on their own time.

You can do the same thing with video presentations. Just add your recordings on individual pages, and include a short quiz after each video. With a little conditional logic, you can block viewers from progressing until they answer the comprehension questions correctly.

And then there’s the funky one: flexible navigation. It’s a great way to keep viewers engaged and on their toes. By using conditional logic, you can allow your audience members to alter the course of the presentation in real-time based on their feedback.

Take the ad campaign presentation, for example. You could ask folks what they would rather go over first: Instagram or YouTube stats. If they go with Instagram, you would click that option and your presentation would navigate you to the appropriate page.

Your audience doesn't need to (and probably shouldn't) decide the order of your entire presentation. But adding just one or two opportunities for viewer choice can make a huge difference in engagement levels.

5. Add polls and quizzes for gathering feedback

Polling audience members shows them that their opinion matters. It's also a fantastic way to get a sense of how the presentation is going, and whether attendees are understanding the topic.

Consider adding a true or false question with a surprising answer, or a quick pop quiz at the end of each section. If you’re presenting in person, you can answer the questions yourself based on feedback from the audience, like voting by applause or raised hands.

If your presentation is virtual, you can have respondents answer the poll on their own devices, either in the presentation itself or via a separate link.

Paperform it: Paperform makes creating polls and quizzes easy. We have over 25 field types to choose from, so you can gather the right type of data every time. You can send out a lightning-fast yes or no poll, or ask your officemates to rank all the Harry Potter movies. We’ve got ranking and rating fields for that express purpose.

All Paperforms are mobile-optimised, so you can be sure your presentation polls and quizzes will look great on any device. And if you’re making a longer quiz but don’t want to overwhelm respondents , you can toggle on guided mode to display one question at a time.

Form a better life now.

6. share a hashtag to promote social interaction.

We live in the era of the second-screen experience. The chances are that while you're speaking, folks are simultaneously tweeting, emailing, or operating their entire small business on their phones.

Sure, that means your audience might be distracted. But fighting the current by asking them to turn their phones off is a losing battle. If you can’t beat them, join them.

Try making a branded hashtag to encourage participants to engage with your presentation on social media. It's a combination of word-of-mouth marketing, event promotion and social interaction all rolled into one.

When done well, social hashtags can:

• Encourage people to promote your event on social media
• Give attendees a way to share further discussions online
• Allow you to look at tagged responses to analyse customer opinions
• Draw attention to your presentation
• Keep attendees engaged with the material

Paperform it: Paperform integrates with all your favourite social media platforms including Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. With this connection in place, you can automatically post a tweet when someone submits your form.

You could use this integration to give folks a shout-out when they complete your digital presentation at home. Just include a short Paperform at the end of your presentation, ask for their handle and permission to shout them out online, and have a congratulatory post shared on your platform automatically.

It’s a great way to celebrate your audience members and boost awareness about your online presentation or webinar at the same time.

7. Include multiple Q&A opportunities

Sometimes, the best ideas are the simplest ones. If you want to know how your audience is going, just ask them. Q&A sessions give you the chance to do just that.

The trouble with traditional Q&A sessions is that they come too late into the presentation, and are too short to be meaningful. How often have you sat through an hour-long presentation, only to be asked if you have any questions at the very end?

One-time, end-of-presentation Q&As are not ideal. It’s easy for participants to forget their questions, and it puts pressure on them to make their time count.

There’s a better way: incorporate several, shorter Q&A sessions throughout your presentation. At the end of each section, take some time to answer audience questions and listen to audience input.

When your participants know they’ll be able to ask questions regularly, they’re more likely to stay present with each section. It also takes some of the pressure off and gives more shy participants several chances to consider raising a hand.

Paperform it: If you host your presentation on Paperform, you can create a customised Q&A slide that you can use at the end of each section of your presentation.

Worried about time? Embed the video of a favourite song, and allow participants to ask questions while it plays. You get yourself a built-in timer, and you break up your presentation with some music clips. Win-win.

8. Improve based on participant feedback

You might have your own markers of a successful presentation—whether people laughed, followed you on Twitter, or sent you an email saying how much they loved it. That's all well and good, but it doesn’t give you a lot of tangible data . The best way to measure the success of your presentation is with a post-event survey .

Leave your audience with one final moment of interaction by sending out a feedback form after your presentation. They get to share their thoughts, and you gain actionable insights on how you can improve for your next presentation.

Paperform it: Paperform has over 45 feedback form templates for you to choose from, each made by one of our in-house experts. Of course, you can make your own from scratch, or pick one of our other 650+ ready-made templates just because you like the style.

Whether you’re looking for a quick CSAT rating or lengthy open-text responses, Paperform can help you do it. Our no-code platform is designed to be easy to use, without skimping on all the advanced features you want.

Level up your presentation today

With the help of a PowerPoint maker , you can connect with your audience through interactive experiences, original content, and thoughtful slide design, you can put an end to boring presentations. Whether you’re working on your next pitch for the sales team or creating an interactive webinar for your website, Paperform can help you do it.

Our software is designed to be versatile, intuitive, and genuinely helpful. It’s a powerful tool that allows you to automate more of the mundane through our 3,000 direct and Zapier integrations, as well as our built-in shortcuts like automatic emails.

Want to give it a go for yourself? Try Paperform today with our 14-day free trial , and discover what you can create.

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What’s it for?

Make interactive presentations

Create show-stopping presentations and clickable slide decks with Genially’s free online presentation builder. Leave boring behind and tell a story that’s interactive, animated, and beautifully engaging.

INTERACTIVE CONTENT

A presentation that works like a website

Engage your audience with interactive slides that they can click on and explore. Add music, video, hotspots, popup windows, quiz games and interactive data visualizations in a couple of clicks. No coding required!

NO-CODE ANIMATION

Make your slides pop with animation

Bring a touch of movie magic to the screen with incredible visual effects and animated page transitions. Add click-trigger and timed animations to make any topic easy to understand and captivating to watch.

INTEGRATIONS

Live from the world wide web

Embed online content directly in your slides for a media-rich interactive experience. From YouTube and Spotify to Google Maps and Sheets, Genially works seamlessly with over 100 popular apps and websites.

TEMPLATES & TOOLKIT

Genius design tools

With Genially, anyone can create a polished and professional presentation. Choose from over 2000 pre-built templates, or create your own design using the drag-and-drop resources, color palettes, icons, maps and vector graphics.

ONLINE PLATFORM

Safe and sound in the cloud

Because Genially is online, you can relax knowing that your slides are always up-to-date. There’s no risk of forgetting to save changes or accessing the wrong file. Log in from anywhere, collaborate with your team, and make edits in real time.

All-in-one interactive presentation maker

Real-time collaboration.

Co-edit slide decks with others in real time and organize all of your team projects in shared spaces.

Multi format

Present live, share the link, or download as an interactive PDF, MP4 video, JPG, HTML, or SCORM package.

Engagement Analytics

See how many people have viewed and clicked on your slides and keep tabs on learner progress with User Tracking.

Import from PPTX

Give your old decks a new lease of life by importing PowerPoint slides and transforming them with a little Genially magic.

Keep content on-brand with your logo, fonts, colors, brand assets, and team templates at your fingertips.

Quiz & Survey Builder

Use the Interactive Questions feature to add a fun quiz to your slides or gather feedback from your audience.

Beautiful templates

Make your next deck in a flash with Genially’s ready-to-use slides.

OKR Presentation

School Notebook Presentation

Animated Sketch Presentation

Minimal presentation

Land Of Magic Presentation

Onboarding presentation

Visual Presentation

Animated chalkboard presentation

Online Education Guide

Terrazzo presentation

Startup pitch

Historical presentation

THEMES FOR EVERYONE

Interactive presentation ideas

From classroom materials to business pitches, make an impact every day with Genially.

Education presentations

Pitch decks

Business presentations

Thesis defense

Share anywhere

Present live

From the front of the room or behind a screen, you’ll wow your audience with Genially. Heading off grid? Download in HTML to present dynamic slides without WiFi.

Share the link

Every Genially slide deck has its own unique url, just like a website! Share the link so that others can explore at their own pace, or download an MP4 video slideshow or PDF.

Post online

Embed the slides on your website or post them on social media. Upload to Microsoft Teams, Google Classroom, Moodle or any other platform.

The benefits of interactive slides

🗣️ Active participation An interactive slide deck gives your audience cool things to click on and discover, boosting learning and engagement.

👂 Multi-sensory experience Audio, video, animations, and mouse interactions make your content immersive, entertaining and accessible.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 People-friendly format Pop-ups and embeds condense more material into fewer slides so you can break information down into digestible chunks.


🎮 Gamification Games, quizzes and puzzles make information more memorable and enable you to gather feedback and check understanding.

How to make an interactive presentation

With Genially’s easy-to-use presentation platform, anyone can make incredible visual content in moments.

Choose a template or a blank canvas

Get stunning results in less time with a ready-made template. Feeling creative? Design your own slides from scratch.

Customize the design

Add animations and interactions

Resources to become a pro presentation creator

How to create an interactive presentation: Get started in Genially.

How to present data without sending your audience to sleep.

No-code animation: Bring your slides to life with cinematic visual effects.

The art of digital storytelling: Engage and thrill on screen.

Genially in a nutshell

How do I make a presentation interactive and how does Genially work? Find the answers to all of your slide-related questions here!

What’s an interactive presentation?

Interactive slides contain clickable hotspots, links, buttons, and animations that are activated at the touch of a button. Instead of reading or watching passively, your audience can actively interact with the content.  

Genially’s interaction presentation software allows you to combine text, photos, video clips, audio and other content in one deck. It’s a great way to condense more information into fewer slides. 

If you’re a teacher, you can share multiple materials in one single learning resource. Students can create their own projects using digital media and online maps. For business or training, try embedding spreadsheet data, PDFs, and online content directly in your slides. 

An interactive slide deck is more user-friendly than a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation or Google Slides document. That’s because you can break information down into chunks with pop-ups, labels, voiceovers and annotated infographics.  

The other benefit of interactive content is increased engagement. It’s easier to keep your audience’s attention when they’re actively participating. Try Genially’s presentation software and free slideshow maker to see how it’s better than other presentation websites. You won’t go back to standard presentation apps!

How do you make a clickable slide?

The best way to make slides clickable is to use Genially’s free interactive presentation program. Design your slide then apply an interaction. In a couple of clicks, you can add popup windows, hyperlinks, close-up images, games, animations, multimedia and other content. 

Choose from the library of hotspot buttons and icons to show people what to click on. Go to Presenter View to get a preview and see how your content will appear to your audience.

How do I create presentations that look professional?

You’ve got a deadline looming and you’re staring at the screen with a blank presentation. We’ve all been there! Starting a presentation design from scratch is tricky, especially if you’re short on time. 

Genially’s free online presentation maker has over 2000 ready-to-use templates for professional slide presentations, photos slideshows, and more. Each slide design has been created by our team of top graphic designers. No need to worry about fonts, centering images, or designing a matching color scheme. It’s all done for you. 

Start by browsing our layouts and themes for education, business and then customize with your own text and images.

How do I share or download my slides?

Because Genially is a cloud based presentation software, you can simply share the link to your slides. Like other online presentation tools, there are no files to download or store on your computer. Everything is saved online.  

When you publish your slide deck, it gets its own unique url, just like a website. Share the link with others to let them explore the content in their own time. If you’re presenting live, just click the Present button. 

You can also embed your presentation on your website, company wiki, or social media. Genially is compatible with WordPress, Moodle, Google Classroom, and other platforms. If you use an LMS, you can also download your interactive design slides in SCORM format.

For slideshow videos and slideshows with music, share online or download as an MP4 video. Check out our free slideshow templates for ideas.

Can I make a free presentation in Genially?

You bet! Genially is an easy-to-use slide maker, with a free version and paid plans. The free plan allows you to create unlimited slides with interactions and animations. Subscribe to one of our paid plans for more advanced features.

Discover a world of interactive content

Join the 25 million people designing incredible interactive experiences with Genially.

5 Free Interactive Presentation Tools You Can Try Online

Looking for engaging presentation tools without breaking the bank? Here are some of the top interactive programs you can try for free today.

Giving a presentation that’s engaging can be difficult, especially if the material happens to be particularly dry. One of the best ways to keep audiences engaged is by making your presentation interactive.

Luckily, there are plenty of online tools that aim to make creating interactive presentations as easy as possible. Here are five of the best for your consideration.

1. Mentimeter

First up on this list comes Mentimeter. Mentimeter is an online presentation service that allows anyone to quickly and easily create engaging presentations to share with others.

Getting started with Mentimeter is easy. All you have to do is sign up for a free account, and you’ll be good to go. Mentimeter starts off by asking you a couple of questions concerning how you aim to use the service, but this is only to help you as you go.

There are a variety of different templates available with Mentimeter, and based on how you plan to use it, the service will recommend different ones for you. You’re free to browse through the whole selection at any time, however. These are perfect for quickly putting together a presentation for just about any need.

With your Mentimeter presentation made, you’ll be presented with a code across the top of your slides. By visiting the Mentimeter website and inputting the code, you’ll be able to interact with the slides using any smart device.

If you’re looking for a great presentation service that also features some light interactive elements, then Prezi is a good middle-ground option. Prezi is an online presentation creation service that makes creating and generating presentations and slideshows easier than ever.

To get started, there are a wide array of different templates for you to choose from in a range of styles. From there, Prezi features plenty of options to create and adjust your template to fit your presentation needs. There are options here to easily change the style, text, and images being used in just a few short clicks.

When it comes to interactive elements, Prezi has some of the more limited options on this list, though there’s still plenty here to like. Prezi features a collaborative presentation mode. This allows you to share a link with others so that they are able to edit or present with you.

Where this shines, however, is that it also allows you to invite people to comment on your slides. This gives you the option to receive feedback and present in ways that you normally wouldn’t otherwise be able to. Perfect for team efforts.

3. Google Slides

Next up, we have Google Slides. Google Slides is a great piece of software that is entirely free to use and available entirely within your browser. It’s likely that you’ve heard of or used Google Slides in the past, but if you haven’t, don’t fret.

Google Slides is an online presentation service that works entirely from the cloud. This makes it one of the best free PowerPoint alternatives currently out there. This means that you can easily use Google Slides to present just about anything.

Creating slides is easy and effective, and there are plenty of ways to spruce up your slides with themes, templates, and more. Beyond that, however, there are a huge number of ways how to make your presentations more interactive with Google Slides . Largely, this comes down to its Presenter view.

The process can be a little complicated, but effectively, Google Slides comes with its own suite of audience tools that you can use to ask questions directly to your audience. This is a great way to interact with the people that you’re presenting to, be it in a meeting, a classroom, or for a large-scale presentation.

If you’re looking for a powerful presentation tool that has plenty of tools to sink your teeth into, then Visme is a great option for just that. When it comes to time-saving presentation tools that you need to know about , Visme is one of the best.

Visme is an online presentation tool that aims to make creating and sharing ideas easier than ever before. To get started, all you need to do is sign up and choose a template from Visme’s many options.

There are tons to look at here, with a wide variety of different styles and aesthetics to choose from to match whatever environment you’re in. Once you’ve chosen a template, the actual presentation editor is great, too.

There are options here to easily manage graphics, icons, photos, charts, and more. What’s really great, however, is that there are plenty of video tutorials along the way to help you pick up just about any part of Visme’s tool suite and use it easily.

When it comes to audience interaction, Visme has plenty to use there, as well. There are options for form and survey integration right into your slides, and you can even use JotForm and Mailchimp integrations to push this even further.

5. Genially

Finally, we have Genially. Genially is one of the most comprehensive interactive presentation creation services currently available, with a huge host of different features to choose from.

When you first start off with Genially, you’ll want to choose from one of its templates to get started. There are over 10,000 options here to choose from, so you’re bound to find something that suits the style and format that you’re looking for.

When it comes to interactive elements, you can choose from buttons, buttons with text, interactive questions, markers, and more. These elements allow you to inject an interactive element into your presentations that will help to keep your audiences engaged, no matter what your material is.

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9 Ways to Create an Interactive Presentation

• January 25, 2023

Table of Contents

Are you tired of delivering the same old boring presentation? It’s time to ditch the traditional approach and step up your game with interactive presentation ideas that will completely mesmerize your audience. Creating an interactive presentation can be challenging, but with the right tools and techniques, it’s easier than you think. From icebreakers to data visualization, we’ve got you covered with nine ways to make your presentation interactive. Don’t settle for a dull and unengaging presentation, let us show you how to make a presentation interactive and blow your audience’s mind.

1. Start With an Icebreaker

Starting your presentation with an icebreaker is a great way to set the tone for the rest of your presentation and get your participants’ attention right off the bat. Although this may seem tedious, coming up with an icebreaker can be as simple as asking a question related to your topic, playing a quick game, or giving your audience a task to complete. The goal is to make both you and your audience feel more comfortable and relaxed. As a result, your attendees will be more receptive for the rest of your presentation. 

Ice breaker ideas to use in your presentation:

• Invite your audience members to introduce themselves and to share an interesting personal fact.
• Ask them to complete a quick survey or quiz related to your topic. 
• Give your audience a task to complete. For example, create a word puzzle that is related to your presentation and have them work together to solve it. 

There are endless possibilities to what you can do! If you want to keep your attendees on their toes, you need to think outside of the box. 

2. Use Videos in Your Presentation

Videos are a powerful tool for keeping your audience captivated and will add visual interest to your presentation. We all know that a picture is worth a thousand words, but a video is worth a million. The power of video is undeniable. It can help you convey information in a way that words alone simply cannot. You can show examples, demonstrate a process, or tell a story that will captivate your viewers in a way that will leave a strong impression on them. And the best part? It’s easy to do. With emaze, you can easily embed videos into your presentation and make it more dynamic and engaging. So why settle for a boring presentation when you can have one that truly comes to life? Add videos to your next presentation and notice the difference they make!

3. Have a Q&A Session

The best way to create an interactive presentation that your audience thoroughly understands is to have a Q&A session. Encourage your participants to ask questions and provide clear and concise answers that will not only keep them engaged, but will also give them the opportunity to dive deeper into the topic of your presentation. To make your presentation even more interesting, try to incorporate a Q&A session throughout your presentation and not just at the end. This way, you can address questions as they come up, make sure that your audience is paying attention , and guarantee that the information you’re presenting is being understood. Opening up the floor to your participants will only help them retain the information that you want them to. 

4. Gather Feedback on Your Presentation

Use the end of your presentation as an opportunity to gather feedback from the attendees. We’re always ready to rate our Uber and food delivery drivers, so why should presentations be any different? Gathering feedback is the best way for you to find out how you can improve your presentation for next time, steering clear of creating a boring presentation.

With emaze, you can gather valuable feedback from your audience and use it to make your presentation even more engaging. Our platform offers a large selection of interactive surveys and training templates that you can customize to match your brand and style. 

You can ask questions such as: 

• How would you rate today’s presentation on a scale of 1-10?
• What could be improved for next time?
• What was your favorite part of the presentation?

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to gather feedback and improve your presentation. Click here to begin creating surveys and other training materials with our editor.

5. Use Props

Props may seem like an old-fashioned technique, but when it comes to how to make a presentation interactive, they can be a powerful tool to keep your participants engaged. Props can be used to showcase examples, demonstrate a process, or tell a story in a way that words cannot. They can also be used to create interactive elements, such as hands-on activities or demonstrations. Imagine being able to physically show your audience a product or process, or even giving them the opportunity to experience it for themselves through hands-on activities. This will not only help them understand your message better but also make your presentation more dynamic and impactful. Use props to make your point and take your presentation to new heights in terms of interactivity.

6. Add an Audio Narrative or Music to Your Presentation Slides

Bring your presentation to life with an audio narrative or music! A well-crafted audio narrative can tell a compelling story, while carefully selected music can set the perfect mood for your presentation. These elements will transport your viewers into an immersive experience, making your presentation truly unforgettable.

Use an audio narrative to:

• Spin a captivating tale
• Share customer testimonials

Use music to:

• Get your audience pumped with upbeat tracks
• Create a relaxed atmosphere with soothing music

Don’t just rely on your slides, use audio and music to take your presentation to the next level and leave a lasting impression on your audience.

7. Play Around With Animations, Effects, and Styles

Using animations, effects, and styles may sound outdated, but they can be the key to making your presentation engaging. Emaze offers a wide range of animations, effects, and styles that you can use to add some flair to your presentation. And for designers, we even provide an infrastructure for writing CSS code to create custom effects!

Here are some ways you can use animations, effects, and styles in your presentations:

• Animations: Bring static images, text, and objects to life.
• Effects: Add entrance and exit effects to objects, such as Bounce In or Slide Out and watch the magic unfold. 
• Styles: Give your presentation a unique look by adding Shadows or Filters to images, text, and objects. 

Playing around with animations, effects, and styles will not only make creating your presentation more enjoyable, but will also leave a lasting impression on your audience.

8. Tell Your Audience a Story

One of the most effective interactive presentation ideas is to tell a story! Storytelling is a powerful tool to engage your audience and make your message more personal. By weaving a captivating tale, you can convey important information, make a point, and create a deeper emotional connection with your attendees. Storytelling will make it easier for your audience to understand and remember your message.

Here are some examples of stories you can tell:

• Share a personal story related to your topic, such as how your company helped a customer solve a problem.
• Use a fictional story to illustrate the consequences of a particular course of action.
• Use a case study to show how your solution helped a business overcome a challenge.

Don’t just rely on facts and figures, use storytelling to bring your message to life!

9. Use Data Visualization in Your Presentation

Bring Your Presentation to Life

Are you ready to say goodbye to the dreaded “boring presentation” and hello to an interactive and mesmerizing experience? By incorporating techniques such as icebreakers, video clips, surveys, props, audio narratives, and data visualization, you can create a presentation that will engage your audience members and make your message more memorable. The key is to think creatively and use interactive presentation ideas that will make your presentation stand out from the rest. Emaze is the perfect platform to bring your ideas to life and create a visually stunning and interactive presentation that will leave your audience begging for more. Instead of settling for a boring presentation, set the bar higher. Create your unique interactive presentation today by clicking  here !

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7 Ways to Make Your Presentation More Interactive

December 19, 2023

Ever found yourself in a presentation, where the audience seemed more interested in the tiles at the ceiling than the speaker?

I’ve been there too, way too many times. But don’t worry, in this article, I’ll show you a way out of the ‘boring presentation’ trap!

In this article, you’ll discover 7 easy-to-implement ways to make your presentations more interactive. These interactive presentation ideas will infuse excitement into your speech and will make it an event to remember!

Interactive Presentation Ideas #1: Imaginary world

Overview : Invite your audience to imagine a certain situation. This is often used to imagine a problem that you want to address or solution you want to propose.

Goal : Make people care about what you’re saying.

Example : “Imagine you step into an elevator, press a button, and the doors close. Suddenly, the voice on the intercom announces, ‘We’re going up, or maybe down. I’m not entirely sure, but let’s see what happens.’ Would you stay in that elevator? Probably not. Now think about how some leaders guide their teams the same way. As a leader, it’s crucial to lead with clarity and confidence. Know your direction and take your team along for the ride.”

• Use action verbs to bring your audience into the moment (e.g. you open the door, see your manager, close the book, etc.).
• Include visual details to bring your audience into the scene.

Interactive Presentation Ideas #2: Student Teacher

Overview : Ask people to explain what they’ve just learned to their neighbor.

Goal : Make sure people understand and remember.

Example : “Turn to your neighbor and explain how [technique/ concept/ steps] works. You have three minutes to do that.”

• Include a timer on the screen to let your audience know how much time is left.
• This technique is best used when you have very important and / or complex content.
• You can also give extra guidance by telling the audience who should start (e.g. “The one with the darker hair, goes first.”).

Interactive Presentation Ideas #3: Question

Overview : Ask your audience a question to hear about their experiences, problems or solutions.

Goal : To engage with them and learn from their experience.

• “What do you talk about in the first few minutes of a meeting?”
• “What’s the best experience you’ve ever had as a customer?”
• “Is it okay to show feelings at work?”
• Ask questions everyone can answer.
• To make it more dynamic you can pick random people in the crowd to answer your question.
• To make it even more dynamic you can throw an item such as a tennis ball or a teddy to whomever you’d like to answer the question. Just avoid any potentially dangerous objects. I tried this first with golf balls. Let’s say it didn’t go too well.

Interactive Presentation Ideas #4: Poll

Overview : Ask your audience a few questions about their background, preferences or experience.

Goal : Get to know your audience better.

Example : “Quick show of hands… Who’s been with our company for less than a year? 1 to 3 years? “More than 3 years?”

• Make it clear when to raise and lower hands.
• Craft clear and concise poll questions. Ensure that questions are well-structured and avoid ambiguity.
• Tailor your content after the poll to your audience, using the responses of the pull as input.

Interactive Presentation Ideas #5: Quiz

Overview : Invite your audience to participate in a short quiz.

Goal : Test your audiences’ understanding and reinforce learnings you want them to take away.

Example : “Question 1: Which approach is most effective in addressing negative online reviews? A) Ignore them B) Thank customers for their feedback C) Delete the reviews to eliminate negative feedback D) Ask customers to remove their reviews through incentives

Question 2: What does the “moments of truth” concept mean in customer service? A) It refers to service hiccups B) It refers to the critical touchpoints where customers form opinions about a business C) It’s a marketing strategy to attract new customers D) It means creating memorable customer experiences at all times”

• People are more committed if they have something to win. So, tell them upfront if there are any prices the winner gets. That doesn’t have to be an expensive price. Candy, a book or even an official title (e.g. “The King of the Jungle”), helps to participants to care even more.
• You can use a digital quiz platform such as Kahoot and Mentimeter to set-up very interactive quizzes. They make it very to design a quiz, include very engaging music, and automatically calculate the winner of each round.
• Randomize both the order of questions and answer choices to reduce the likelihood of answer patterns.

Interactive Presentation Ideas #6: Storytime swap

Overview : Encourage participants to share personal anecdotes or experiences related to your presentation topic, fostering a sense of connection.

Goal : Create a relatable and engaging atmosphere, and highlight real-world applications of your content.

Example : “Let’s take a moment to connect on a personal level. Turn to your neighbor and share a brief story or experience related to our topic. Whether it’s a success, a challenge, or a humorous incident, these stories will enrich our understanding and make the content more tangible.”

• Keep the storytelling brief to allow multiple participants to share.
• Connect shared stories back to key points in your presentation.
• Express appreciation for participants’ willingness to share.

Are you looking for more storytelling activities to include in your next presentation? Here are 7 Storytelling Activities to Deliver an Unforgettable Team Event . 

Interactive Presentation Ideas #7: Word Association Storm

Overview : Begin with a single word related to your presentation and have the audience contribute associated words or ideas in rapid succession.

Goal : Spark creativity, generate a collaborative brainstorm, and set an energetic tone.

Example : “Let’s kick off this brainstorm with a single word: ‘innovation.’ Shout out any words or ideas that come to mind. We’re creating a storm of associations that will set the stage for our exploration of innovative concepts today!”

• Keep the pace lively to maintain energy.
• Capture the associations visually on a whiteboard or screen.
• Relate the generated ideas back to your presentation themes.

And there you have it – 7 keys to unlocking the door to engaging, interactive presentations. We’ve shown you the way to banish boredom, spark curiosity, and turn your talks into memorable experiences. Now, armed with these tricks, it’s your turn to take the stage and captivate your audience. The world of presentations will never be the same again – so go ahead, make your mark, and let your next presentation be a shining example of interactive brilliance!

P.S. Another powerful way to make your presentations more engaging is to include more stories in your presentation. To make sure story lands really well, you can check out this next article on to discover the  3 Storytelling Techniques To Deliver Unforgettable Stories .

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14 Fun & Interactive Presentation Games for Teams and Students

So you've got an audience to energize, students to engage, or a team that needs a little extra fun — playing an interactive presentation game is an easy way to do just that.

We've done the research and found the best of these games for you: we looked specifically for games that are simple to set up, fun to play, and flexible enough to be used with a variety of presentations and audiences. Most of these activities work virtually with Zoom/PowerPoint and can also be used in person.

Which of these 14 presentation games do you like best? Take a look and let us know your favorites:

1. Live Trivia Competition

A great way to ramp up the excitement and engagement is to enable a little bit of friendly competition. Trivia is an easy way to do this—plus, it can be whole-group inclusive and large-audience friendly (if you use the right tools).

Here's a great trivia game you can run with your team, students, or any large audience. It's already created for you with questions and scoring built in to make it even easier:

Here's how to play:

• Make a free account here: https://slideswith.com/  
• Click the slide deck and copy it. 
• Launch the trivia game by clicking "Start Event."
• Invite your group to join in and submit answers using their mobile devices (show the winners automatically).
• Interact and play during your presentation!

This trivia game has questions on many topics to keep your audience's attention and appeal to everyone. It only takes 10-15 minutes to play, so it's a great game for long discussions! Also, this interactive activity is free for up to ten participants and is totally customizable.

2. Sing and Swing 

To really liven up your group, encourage your listeners to play Sing and Swing. This activity is best for long presentations because it boosts energy, creates a fun, light-hearted environment, and makes people laugh a lot. 

Here's how to play: 

• Before your presentation, pick a well-known song and rewrite the chorus (replace parts of it with words and phrases from your presentation) 
• When you're ready to play, show the song on your screen. 
• Invite your audience to sing it with you!

If you have a fun group or a class of energetic students, consider adding choreography to engage your audience even more. 

3. 20 Questions

If you want a presentation game that requires your listeners to talk more than you, 20 Questions is the one to play! A classic and simple activity, this game immediately boosts engagement and gets people laughing. 

Here's how to play: Have someone put an appropriate image or word on the screen behind you (this can be an audience member you trust or a colleague or co-presenter). To make things more fun, put on a blindfold so that everyone knows you can't cheat. From there, ask 20 "yes or no" questions to guess what's displayed on the screen. Your group should respond "yes" or "no" to guide you to the correct answer. 

4. Scavenger Hunt Challenge

To get your audience out of their seats, a scavenger hunt challenge is one of the best interactive games for presentations. It'll immediately energize your audience , team, or students while giving them a fun way to learn.  

There are tons of in-person and virtual scavenger hunt ideas you can use to dive deeper into your topic or help everyone learn about one another. But if you want a ready-to-play game that you can instantly launch without having any tech skills, here's a fun one to play: 

• Use an email address and password to create a free account here: https://slideswith.com/ (a free account guarantees up to ten people can play at no charge). 
• Click the game and press "Copy and use this slide deck." 
• In the top right corner, click "Start Event."
• Ask listeners to join the game by using their mobile devices to scan the QR code. Players should continue using their mobile devices to submit answers to questions.
• Have everyone start hunting for items! 

This activity is a particularly fun game because it's a photo-hunt, show-and-tell challenge! That means your audience will not only get out of their seats to find items, but they'll also get to take pictures and share and discuss photos of what they find. This conversational element will help engage your group! 

5. Group Word Clouds

Whether you're speaking to team members, students, or conference-goers, this activity lets you ask questions and get your listeners' thoughts on specific topics. 

This game is the perfect way to start your presentation, especially if you're discussing something with a wide range of opinions or are unsure how much your listeners know about a certain subject. Group Word Clouds is also beneficial if you want to do a quick meeting pulse or know how your listeners feel going into your presentation—understanding their energy levels and mood can help you adjust (if necessary) to get maximum engagement and excitement.

To enjoy this activity, keep things simple by using a tool that already offers a ready-to-play Group Word Clouds game. Here's a popular one you can launch immediately: 

• Create a free account by entering an email and password here: https://slideswith.com/  
• Click the game and then copy it (the button to do so is right underneath the slide deck).
• Press "Start Event" in the top right corner. 
• Tell participants to play by scanning the QR code. 
• Create word clouds and have fun!

This interactive game only takes 5-10 minutes to play, so it's a fast, fun way to engage your audience and feel out the room. Players can use their mobile devices to answer questions. This activity is also free for up to 10 people and is easy to personalize.

6. The Get to Know You Game

This activity is one of the best presentation games if you have a small group that doesn't really know each other. The Get to Know You Game is a creative way to do introductions, and it's really simple.

Here's how to play the game: Before the event, ask group members to bring a favorite song or item to the presentation (you can do this by emailing them). When you're ready to play, ask each person to introduce themself, present their song or item, and explain why they picked it. For those sharing a song, have them play it on their phones before they explain why it's their favorite. 

7. Live Poll Questions 

When you have a large group, it's not easy to find ways to boost engagement—but poll questions are the solutions, especially when they're live and interactive. With this unique setup, large groups engage by answering questions and seeing their answers displayed in a fun way. 

Your job is to make sure you actually find a game that showcases responses uniquely to captivate your group. For a quick and great option, here's a popular icebreaker activity that promises to display responses using fun formats like word clouds, donut charts, live graphs, and per-player: 

• Create an account for free to access the game:  https://slideswith.com/  
• Click the slide deck and press the button to copy it. 
• Look in the top right corner of the deck and press "Start Event."
• Invite your group to play the game. They only need to use their mobile devices to scan the QR code. 
• Start polling your audience!

This activity is one of those fun presentation games everyone will want to enjoy, so invite all of your team members and students to participate. This game can accommodate up to 250 players and takes 5-10 minutes to complete. Tell your group to use their mobile devices to submit their responses. 

8. Assumptions 

This interactive game is a great way to break up your presentation to see who's paying attention and who can answer questions pertaining to your topic. 

• Ask your audience to stand up (for virtual presentations, make sure everyone's video is on). 
• Show true or false statements on the screen one by one. 
• Tell people to raise a hand if they think the statement is correct and sit down if they think it's incorrect.
• Continue until one person is left standing.
• Award the winner. 

This activity can be as short and challenging as you want. Also, if your presentation is long, you can play multiple rounds to break up your speaking time and test your audience throughout your discussion.  

9. Controversial Questions 

Want to see where your audience, students, or team lands on controversial topics? Then, energize your presentation with a fun, creative game called Controversial Questions. This activity has prompts that inspire lively debates, so it's a great way to get your group excited and chatty. 

However, to maintain a positive environment, make sure to find a tool that offers an office-friendly, classroom-friendly, and conference-friendly game. You don't want to sour the mood by creating uncomfortable division during your presentation. To make sure this game is fun and light-hearted, here's a popular one that's suitable for all audiences and ages: 

• Sign up for a free account by inputting an email address and password here:  https://slideswith.com/pricing  
• Click the game and press the button that says, "Copy and use this deck." 
• Press "Start Event" (the button is in the top right corner). 
• Have participants join the fun by asking them to scan the QR code with their mobile devices. 
• Get controversial and play! 

This interactive game for presentations asks fun (but appropriate) questions like:

• Does pineapple belong on pizza?
• Does the person flying in the middle seat get both armrests?
• Should the toilet roll go over or under? 

Players should use their mobile devices to submit answers. Up to ten people can play for free, and you can customize the game by updating the questions!

10. Word of the Day 

With this activity, you can keep your audience, team, or students engaged throughout your entire presentation. This  game requires listeners to be alert and recognize whenever you say the word of the day. 

Here's how to play: At the beginning of your presentation, tell your group the word of the day (it can also be a phrase if you'd prefer). Say that you'll weave the word into your presentation and that your audience must shout it out whenever you mention it. 

11. Mini Activity: Group Icebreaker

Whether you're doing an in-person or virtual presentation, you need to warm up your audience to get things started on a positive note. The best way to do that is with a quick icebreaker game. 

However, make sure your questions are fun, positive, and engaging. You can easily do this by finding a game that already has the best icebreaker questions included. Here's one that's ready to play (and requiring no tech skills to launch): 

• Input an email address and password to make a free account here: https://slideswith.com/  
• Click the deck and copy it (press "Copy and use this deck). 
• Click the button in the top right corner that says "Start Event."
• Invite participants to play by asking them to scan the QR code. 
• Break the ice to warm up your audience!

Your group should use their mobile devices to submit responses to poll questions. Also, this game accommodates up to 250 players, but only ten people can join for free.

12. Process of Elimination 

This activity is one of the best games for presentations because it's simple yet fun and great at helping listeners get to know each other. You can play it at the beginning of your presentation or in the middle to give your group a chance to stretch their legs. 

• Before your event, create a list of "yes or no" questions. 
• Once you're ready to play, tell your group to stand up (if you're doing a virtual presentation, make sure everyone's video is on). 
• Ask each question one by one. 
• Tell attendees to stand if their answer is "yes" and sit if their answer is "no." 

The questions can relate to your topic or be totally random. Also, if you'd prefer to thin out the number of people standing, you can take a creative twist and ask your questions by saying something like this: "Stay standing if (insert scenario)." When phrasing each question this way, the game will end with one person standing. To acknowledge the winner, you can give them a round of applause or award them a prize. 

13. Conference Opener Icebreaker 

If you're speaking at a big conference, you need an interactive game for presentations that can get everyone involved and ensure every voice is heard. To achieve these goals, you should create an icebreaker game that works for large groups . 

Using an easy, intuitive template is the best step to take. That way, you don't have to start from scratch or spend hours making your game. For a template that requires no code or tech-savviness to build on, here's the best option: 

• Sign up by making a free account here: https://slideswith.com/  
• Click on the game. On the next page, click the button to copy and use the deck. 
• Customize the template using the instructions HERE . 
• During your presentation, press "Start Event" in the top right corner. 
• Ask the group to use their mobile devices to scan the QR code and join the fun. (Also, make sure participants use their mobile devices to submit answers.) 
• Play and engage your audience!  

This template has fun, interactive features built in to keep your large audience engaged. Those features include polls, word clouds, and ratings. Just make sure you sign up for a paid plan to accommodate the large number of people in your group—the free account only works for up to ten players. 

14. Two Truths and a Lie 

This classic game is a fun, energizing way to help your listeners get to know one another. It's perfect for small in-person or virtual groups and is an ideal activity for the beginning of your presentation. 

Here's how to play: Pick any topic (for the purposes of this article, the topic will be "movies"). In no particular order, say two movies you've really watched and one you haven't watched. Ask your audience to guess which statement is the lie. The winner picks the next topic and says two truths and a lie. 

Be Memorable With Presentation Games

Oftentimes, people forget presentations within a week or even days, and that's because the discussions are boring. But you don't work hard preparing a presentation for it to be forgotten. If you want your message to stick, all you have to do is make it enjoyable without being corny.  

If you want to be remembered and actually get people engaged, you need to make your presentation fun and enjoyable, without coming off as corny or desperate to please. Ivan Dimitrijevic, 10 Secrets of Making Every Presentation Fun, Engaging, and Enjoyable

Luckily, the interactive presentation games in this article are unique and exciting—they're far from corny. So, use them for your upcoming presentations to make your messages compelling and memorable. 

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A beginner’s guide on how to fill out an NCAA Tournament bracket: The basics, tips and trends

It is estimated that in a given year, somewhere between 60 and 100 million people will fill out an NCAA men’s basketball tournament bracket, and it’s not just the hardcore fans doing it. March Madness is one of the most interactive sporting events in the country and doesn’t require a deep level of knowledge of the game — or really any knowledge — to get involved in the fun.

If you’ve never filled out an NCAA bracket before — or don’t have a lot of college basketball experience — and are looking to get involved this year, here are some important tips on how to get yourself started.

Important note to start out with: This is not geared toward college basketball fans or experienced bracket experts. It is for people new to the experience and looking to get their start. Yes, they do exist, and yes, they are welcome to join in the fun.

• Follow live coverage of the 2024 men’s NCAA Tournament second round

The NCAA men’s basketball tournament comprises 68 teams (32 automatic bids representing the conference champions and 36 at-large bids) and will involve 67 single-elimination games throughout the tournament, including the First-Four “play-in” games and then the remaining six rounds.

Your goal is simply to pick the winner of each game and ultimately end up with the championship team at the end.

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The tournament is divided into four regional brackets, each consisting of 16 teams seeded No. 1 through No. 16. The highest seed plays the lowest seed in each round and follows a set bracket throughout the tournament.

The brackets do not re-seed after each round.

Your bracket will not be perfect and picking the eventual champion is not easy, even for experienced college basketball fans. So don’t get frustrated when your picks don’t pan always pan out.

The highest seeds generally win

Not only do the higher seeds win their individual matchups, they also tend to win the whole thing.

Since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, No. 1 seeds have won the overwhelming majority of championships. No. 1 seeds have accounted for 24 of the 38 championships since then (63 percent), while No. 2 seeds have won five and No. 3 seeds have won four.

That means 33 of the past 38 tournaments have been won a by a top-three seed. That is nearly 87 percent.

Only three tournaments since then have been won by a No. 5 seed or lower, and the lowest seed team to win it was a No. 8 seed (Villanova in 1985).

You will still have upsets

While simply picking the highest seeds can produce some results for you, there will always be upsets in the tournament. Some are bigger than others.

The toughest upsets to get are in the No. 1 vs. 16 games (only twice in the history of the tournament) and the No. 2 vs  15 games (only 11 times), so you usually want to avoid picking those. The odds are stacked against you, and you might be throwing away a potential champion early on for no reason.

On average, there are eight upsets per year throughout the tournament where a lower-seeded team wins. There are rarely less than five. There are rarely more than 12. Keep that in mind when filling out a bracket. Ten upsets is usually a safe sweet spot to aim for.

There is also usually at least one No. 12 or No. 13 seed that advances every year, so it makes a lot of sense to mix in one of those in the No. 5 vs. 12 and No. 4 vs. 13 matchups.

While those teams tend to pull off early round upsets, they do not generally advance beyond the Sweet 16 or Elite 8.

Trust the big-name teams

Along with being dominated by higher seeds, you tend to see the same big-name programs cutting down the nets at the end of the tournament.

Since 1985, the 38 tournaments have been won by just 19 different teams. Twenty-three of the 39 tournaments have been won by just Connecticut, Duke , Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina and Villanova .

With the exception of Villanova, all of those teams are among the best in the country again this season and will be among the top seeds in their respective brackets. It is reasonable to think one of them could add to their championship legacy this spring.

It might be boring to pick them. You might hate doing it. But it is not dumb.

(Photo credit: Andy Hancock / NCAA Photos via Getty Images)

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Adam Gretz is a freelance sports writer based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Along with the Athletic, he's written for CBS Sports, NBC Sports, Yardbarker, and SB Nation.

All Interactive Maps and Locations

• Walkthrough

Welcome to IGN's Dragon’s Dogma 2 Walkthrough and guide. This Dragon’s Dogma 2 walkthrough will guide you through all main quests, with plenty of tips and tricks to help you along the way. This walkthrough will also cover enemy and boss strategies, optional secrets, and collectibles.

Getting Started

There are no difficulties or game modes to choose from in Dragon’s Dogma 2. Getting started is as simple as selecting new game and creating your character.

After creating your Arisen you will gain control and start on the first of many main quests, Gaoled Awakening.

Gaoled Awakening

After waking up in a prison camp goal, the Arisen is put to work until a mysterious figure intervenes to help you escape confinement with the help of a surprising ally.

• Gaoled Awakening Walkthrough

Tale’s Beginning

After escaping the prison camp, you wake up in the wilderness far to the north. With the help of some knights, you make your way to a nearby camp where you learn more about your powers.

• Tale’s Beginning Walkthrough

Tale's Beginning

In dragon’s wake.

After learning more about your connection to the dragons, head south to the town of Melve where a dragon was recently spotted. After a flashback that explains how the Arisen obtain their powers, knights arrive to escort you to the capital of Vernworth.

• In Dragon’s Wake Walkthrough

In Dragon's Wake

Seat of the sovran.

After arriving in Vernworth, a knight by the name of Brant who believes you to be the true Arisen offers to help you gain renown and usurp the queen and false Sovran. Speak to him at the Tavern at night to learn more.

• Seat of the Sovran Walkthrough

Captain Brant's Requests

The next set of main quests will all be assigned to you by Captain Brant . There are seven in total, but only a handful of them need to be completed before you gain enough renown to attend the false Sovran’s coronation. The first three available Brant requests are:

Monster Culling

This is the most important and longest of Brant’s quests. He asks that you go and deal with three groups of monsters causing problems for knights in the area around Vernworth. The three locations are: Trevo Mine , Harve Village , and eastern Vermund

• Monster Culling Walkthrough

Disa’s Plot

Brant asks you to sneak into the palace and search the queen regent’s office for proof of her misdeeds.

• Disa’s Plot Walkthrough

Disa's Plot

The caged magistrate.

Brant asks you to break into the dungeon of the Vernworth palace and find the former magistrate who was imprisoned. However, he will not leave until you find him a new hiding place. To complete this task, you will need to finish a different quest, The Heel of History .

• The Caged Magistrate Walkthrough

An Unsettling Encounter

Brant asks you to sneak into the palace again and search the office of the minister, Allard, and investigate the delivery of a mysterious package.

• An Unsettling Encounter Walkthrough

The Stolen Throne

Brant asks you to sneak into a masquerade taking place in The Royal Quarter to try and meet face to face with the false Sovran. For this quest you will need a set of Courtly Clothes .

• The Stolen Throne Walkthrough

The Nameless Village

After learning more about the false Sovran, Brant requests that you explore eastern Vermund to see if you can learn more about his origins. This will take you to a secret village, where you must complete a secret test to earn the trust of the locals.

• The Nameless Village Walkthrough

The Arisen’s Shadow

This quest is actually triggered by a random event where a mysterious figure approaches you in Vernworth. After thwarting the mystery man’s assassination attempt, you must wait for Brant to interrogate him to get more information.

• The Arisen’s Shadow Walkthrough

The Arisen's Shadow

Feast of deception.

At long last, Brant will give you the okay to attend the false Sovran’s coronation. Don your Courtly Clothes , then follow him to the palace.

• Feast of Deception Walkthrough

Nation of the Lambent Flame

After witnessing the false Sovran’s power at the coronation, Brant recommends you head south to the city of Bakbattahl to learn more about the mysterious relic known as the godsway. To aid your travels, he gives you a Border Entry Permit .

Make your way to the border checkpoint, then follow the road south to Bakbattahl .

• Nation of the Lambent Flame Walkthrough

Nation of Lambent Flame

Flickering shadows.

Enter Bakbattahl in search of more info about the mysterious godsway. This will lead you to The Dragonforged and the oracle, two important NPCs who will guide you on your journey.

• Flickering Shadows Walkthrough

Convergence

You continue your search for the truth behind the godsway by exploring the mysterious Seafloor Shrine that has emerged from the waters of Harve Village bay.

• Convergence Walkthrough

A New Godsway

With the Dulled Godsbane Blade in hand, we return to Ambrosius at the Forbidden Magick Laboratory to see if he can help us restore the relic's power.

• A New Godsway Walkthrough

The Guardian Gigantus

Follow Phaseus south toward the Moonglint Tower . Along the way we will encounter an ancient enemy, the Guardian Gigantus .

• The Guardian Gigantus Walkthrough

Return to the Excavation Site at the base of the Moonglint Tower where our journey began. Climb to the top of the tower where we will begin our final encounter with the dragon.

• Legacy Walkthrough

Dreams Apart

Having escaped the designs of the watching one, you now find yourself in a "world unchosen", which is slowing giving way to oblivion. You set out to explore this doomed world, but first we need to reunite with our Pawn in Bakbattahl .

• Dreams Apart Walkthrough

A Scholarly Pursuit

You approached one of the red beams coming down from the sky, which caused a mysterious dragon statue to appear. Join Phaseus to investigate the strange relic and save Bakbattahl from invasion.

• A Scholarly Pursuit Walkthrough

Halls of the First Dawn

You return to the Seafloor Shrine to speak with Rothais , who has new information for us about the watching one and doomed world.

• Halls of the First Dawn Walkthrough

Up Next: Gaoled Awakening

Top guide sections.

• Side Quests
• Vocations and Classes
• Things to Do First

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