Do you know our favorite tip for creating effective sales presentations? “Keep it simple.“
As William Shakespeare once said, “Brevity is the soul of wit.” Being brief while still retaining the crispness of the message is only part of the answer. Every aspect has to not only fit your message, but also your intended audience’s tastes and preferences.
Here are some sales presentation tips you can glean from Twitter:
Cut Down on the Words
Twitter is known for its 140 character limit, which challenges users to keep things short and concise, allowing for easier digestion and sharing of ideas.
This approach lends itself well in sales presentations. If you’re having a hard time condensing your slides to the appropriate amount of text, then impose a limit on yourself. Having a line to avoid crossing enables you to better see which parts are needed and which ones aren’t. Keeping things short and concise also makes your message more memorable, and facilitates its spreading through word-of-mouth.
Get Down with the Trend
Besides becoming a shorthand method for communicating longer ideas, Twitter also popularized the use of the hashtag as a way to categorize and search for similar ideas and statuses. Focusing on current and popular topics gives tweets an amazing platform not only as a messaging or social media tool, but also as a news feed and trend guide.
Keeping up with the trend works in appealing to people, to clue you in on what’s already passé or clichéd. Before you start your deck, look for inspiration from design blogs such as behance.com or smashingmagazine.com to catch up with recent design trends.
Strive for Favorites, Retweets, and Follows
Social media is the fast food of all communication channels. You also have the advantage of easier communication with corporations, clients, or customers. Though this comes with anonymity and less accountability, you still get the benefit of quick feedback and are therefore become capable of rapid response.
Similarly, you need to plan your pitch and structure your slides in a way that maximizes audience engagement and interaction. When planning, designing, or writing, imagine you’re doing this to collect favorites, retweets, or follows.
Conclusion
Twitter is still growing as a microblogging platform after nearly a decade since its launch, proving how its qualities continue to strike a harmonic chord with an audience. For a generation that’s losing more and more seconds of attention span, learning these lessons is vital.
Next time you’re stuck on your slides, try emulating how Twitter engages users to make for interesting and engrossing sales presentations.
References
“3 Ways to Cut Back Your Text-Heavy PowerPoint Slides.” SlideGenius, Inc. 2015. Accessed August 11, 2015.
Smashing Magazine. Accessed August 11, 2015.
“Twitter: Lessons from Social Media.” SlideGenius, Inc. January 23, 2014. Accessed August 11, 2015.