There is one simple thing you can do within the content of your presentation to make it more relatable, more audience-focused, and more engaging. And the craziest part? This simple thing doesn’t require you to spend a lot of time editing or rewriting your existing content.
The secret is pronouns. By definition, pronouns are words that refer to the nouns within your content; for example: you, she, this, it, his, etc. A lot of people don’t think about these tiny words within the slides of their presentations. Almost every deck that comes through our doors uses a full company name, or proper noun, throughout the deck instead of shortening the text.
Here’s an example. Let’s say your product is called ProteinX5, and you want to give an overview of sales for the last year. The content in your deck would say something like “ProteinX5 Sales Figures.” Adding in a pronoun to replace the proper noun both simplifies the text, and adds a more conversational tone. The edited text would now read: “Our Sales.”
Which pronouns should you use in your presentation, and most importantly, why should you use them? Let’s examine our top picks for the strongest pronouns you should be using:
“You”
Addressing the audience directly with the “you” pronoun is one of the best ways you can draw them into the presentation and engage with them. You could include slides that ask questions like “what do you think?” or use statements to transition into a main point such as “you interact with technology every day.” This informal pronoun makes the entire presentation much more conversational and personal when used correctly. Don’t you think?
“We”
You can use this pronoun to either connect with your audience during a call to action (“we can do it together!”) or describe your company team, (“we’ve been working hard to bring you product X.”) Either way, referring to yourself or your group with a more casual “we” voice humanizes the proper name of the organization, and makes the content seem less robotic.
“Us/Our”
Why call your team slide “ProteinX5 Team,” when you can simply say “Our Team”? Using us/our functions very closely to using “we,” but can be used more frequently when you refer to your own company or experience. “Our product line,” “our hard work,” “our results,” are examples of this. Using “us” can be especially strong when placed in a call to action, like “join us” or “join our team.” Again, both of these pronouns make a presentation more personal and connected to your audience.
Don’t believe that these three pronouns can make your deck conversational, or even contemporary? Go through a past presentation and replace most of the proper nouns with pronouns, with the exception of the title slide. Now read through your deck, and imagine you are an audience member seeing it for the first time. We have faith that you are going to love our writing tactic.
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