How to be a Presentation God: Build, Design, and Deliver Presentations that Dominate!

13.3. TWITTER AS A BACKCHANNEL

Presentation adventurers are increasingly employing Twitter as a backchannel while delivering their presentations. If you're unfamiliar with how this works, you've probably seen it before since many popular cable news outlets do this, too. The commentator breaks from the show's narrative for a bit to address an ongoing Twitter discussion where users are able to ask questions, make points, or otherwise participate with the programming, as opposed to idle listening.

Whether or not to use Twitter in this manner is a personal decision every presenter needs to make based on the subject matter and the circumstances surrounding the presentation. For complicated subjects or engagements where problem solving is a primary objective, the backchannel is extremely useful for a presenter trying to keep a finger on the audience's pulse. The more questions start popping up in the backchannel, the more you know you need to slow down and provide your points in a more thorough manner. You'll also know when the audience doesn't believe a claim you've made or is skeptical about something. Maybe that's good; maybe that's bad. In the end, it comes down to how important you feel it is to know what audience members are thinking.

I'm an optimist; I tend to believe the best about people. But I'm not so crazy as to assume my audience is going to behave appropriately in the backchannel. If you don't regularly watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart or The Colbert Report, then ...