How To Use Videos To Make Stats Less Boring

In any presentation, it is important for the presenter to find creative and thoughtful ways to connect with their audience. The use of animation in a presentation can keep the mood a bit livelier. However, excessive animation can actually detract from your presentation if not managed well.

As a presenter, you should always attempt to take the audience’s perspective when reviewing your presentation. Ask yourself, “What jumps out to me?” Are the things that were highlighted necessarily the key points that you want your audience to take away from your presentation?

If you are struggling to design a presentation that highlights your key points, conveys relevant information, but, at the same time, is engaging and entertaining for your audience, you might be missing out on a key component of presentation building.

The Missing Link

That component is video! People connect with informational videos, or even humorous clips, that bring together several of the concepts mentioned in your presentation. Additionally, a well-formatted introduction video can help lay the informational groundwork for the rest of your presentation.

If you are designing a presentation that is heavily laden with statistics, or financial information, using video to help spice up your presentation is crucial to preventing heads from nodding in the crowd.

For years, most presenters have primarily utilized charts and graphs to display statistical information. While these are two sufficient means for displaying data, they leave the responsibility solely on the presenter to bring that data to life for the viewer.

The presenter must find an engaging way to make their viewers understand and relate to the various charts and graphs that are displayed throughout their presentation. This often leads to a communication disconnect between presenter and audience.

The Dangers of the ‘Copy/Paste’ Chart or Graph

Charts and graphs that are simply copied and pasted into your presentation often contain additional information or statistics that aren’t necessarily relevant to the audience.

While you, as the presenter, are most likely familiar with the data you are presenting, your audience may enter your presentation with little working knowledge of the importance of that data. Additionally, they will only be given a very small window to attempt to decipher the importance of the statistics you are presenting.

As a presenter, it is extremely important for you to display statistics in the simplest format possible. This will help to ensure that your audience actually remembers some of what they were exposed to when they leave your presentation.

Pulling relevant data out of charts and graphs, and reformatting it in a way that is much easier for your audience to decipher, will help to make your overall presentation infinitely more effective.

Infographics can easily be transferred into videographics, adding an interactive dimension to the information that you wish to display in your presentation.

Making your Statistics Stand Out

When designing a video to display statistics in your presentation, your foremost concern should be compiling all relevant data that you wish to display to the audience. Don’t get caught up in using too much data. Define exactly what you are trying to communicate to your audience and make sure that the data you select is capable of doing so.

Next, you need to consider the best way to display your relevant data in your video presentation. Think about grouping datasets together based on time periods or other variables that will make the information easier for your audience to wrap their head around.

For example, if you wish to highlight a specific trend in data over a number of years, you might display three successive statistics, dated accordingly, in progressively larger font. When these numbers appear one at a time in your video, your viewers will be able to make the linkage between those three statistics, while also becoming aware of the larger industry trend that may be suggested by changes in the numbers displayed.

Finally, you should investigate transitions from one data display to another, as well as how each relevant piece of data is introduced. Context is very important to help your viewer fully appreciate the importance of statistics in your presentation. An adequate introduction will give your viewer a better idea of why you are presenting this information and why they need to pay attention.

Overall, using video to display statistics will allow your audiences to more actively engage with the information displayed, ultimately ensuring a higher rate of retention among the individual attendees of your presentation. Flex your creative muscle and understand your audience to turn simple numbers into clear success.

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