How to Present on Camera: Top 5 Tips for Executives.

Presenting on camera is a vastly different skill than presenting from a stage or in a boardroom. If you connect, you’ll engage your audience and they’ll engage withyour message. Here are some proven pointers to help.

1. Look through the lens

Where do you look when presenting to camera, at the lens or through the lens? The answer is to look through the lens because it softens your eyes and connects you with your audience more. If you look at the lens it hardens your eyes and gives you a glazed outlook. This is why you should always present to the camera and never a phone or computer.

2. Less is more

The camera is a very intimate medium and everything you do is exaggerated. Unlike presenting from a stage, large movements look even larger. Small subtle movements carry well. Remember that less is more. So do less, move less, and you will connect even more.

3. Present to one person

A big trap is treating the camera as a mass medium. Sure you might end up in front of 1000’s of people but from the viewer's point of view, you are talking to them. If you mass broadcast you lose connection. So present to just one person.

4. Warm-up for the start

A presentation on camera is like a motor race, if you start cold and slam your foot down, it takes a while to gain traction and momentum. If you have a rolling start, you are up to speed before the start line. That is how you need to present. Say a few lines before the camera rolls, walk into shot and start presenting before the first word.

5. Don’t present

After years of coaching presenters and executives on camera the biggest tip, and probably the hardest, is not to present. Put people in front of a camera and most instantly slip into presenter mode which is stilted, robotic and fake. And the camera picks that up. So don’t ever present. Just have a chat, a conversation, keep it real.