Who doesn’t love to hear stories?
PowerPoint presentations become more effective in their purpose when supported by engaging stories.
Why are They Important?
1. Make Your Messages More Relatable
There’s a reason why many of us had filled our notebooks with doodles during our school days: Barrage of facts and figures can make any lecture boring and mind-numbing. When incorporated into your presentation, the right stories can make your message more meaningful and more importantly, digestible. This is especially true if you take the time to learn more about your audience and the type of life stories that are likely to get their attention.
After doing your research, draw a story from your own experience that’s similar to that of your general audience and use it to appeal to them emotionally.
Stories can help establish a bond between the storyteller and the audience. We may not be aware of it at times but every one of us longs for a connection with others – especially with those who have had the same experiences as ourselves.
2. Allow You to Connect with Your Audience
As stories can cut through the audience’s filter better than facts, you have a greater chance of earning their trust.
If you’re a good storyteller, you could even establish a connection with them. Once you have a connection with your audience, you can practically say anything to them and they’ll hardly express any disagreement.
3. Can Make Your Audience Agree with You
As long as your stories hit their mark, they can help you make your case and have your audience agree with your points.
This happens because stories shut down whatever counter-arguments your listeners have, making them less likely to think of reasons to disagree. Another reason for this is that stories have the power to touch human emotions, which increases the likelihood of your audience agreeing with you.
Now that you know the importance of storytelling in creating a presentation, what now? How do you take advantage of it? Well, all you need to do is find a nice way to tell your stories. Here are some tips for your to consider:
How to Incorporate Stories
1. Add a human element to your story
As with any stories, you need someone for your audience to relate to. This someone is the hero. In your case, this could be a student, a colleague, a consumer, or anyone who’ll make sense being included in your story.
2. Give your hero a goal and an obstacle from achieving that goal
A story without conflict can be boring. So give your hero something to aspire to as well as some challenges he needs to overcome. In your PowerPoint, this could be the part you introduce the problem.
3. Come up with a satisfying ending
People love happy endings. They inspire feelings of hope and joy. This is where you show how your ideas can solve the problems you’ve introduced earlier.
Hopefully, these three steps are enough to get you started on polishing your storytelling skills. In any case, arranging your deck in this order can make your presentation more engaging and make your job as a presenter much easier.
Reference
“How to Use the Persuasive Power of Metaphors.” Enchanting Marketing. 2013. Accessed June 2, 2014.
