Autocues Are a secret super Power for virtual presentations

Autocues aren’t just for politicians and conferences, anyone can use them to enhance their virtual presentation skills.

I’m not great at memorising speeches word for word. My mind has a habit of going blank on a specific word and I get stuck.

As a rule I plan my speeches and presentations using bullet points and my presentation plan template. This means that while I know generally what I’m going to say, the individual words aren’t selected in advance.

But not everyone feels as comfortable with this semi-improvised approach. Quite a lot of people want to write out a speech in prose, and deliver it the exact same way.

If you’re one of those people, and you often have to present virtually, you may well have missed out on a free and easy to use tool that can make your work life easier - the autocue.

The trickiest thing about using an autocue is getting the speed settings right. You want the words to progress up the screen at a comfortable pace, but you should also aim to make the text as large a font as you can, because if the words are too small, people who are on the virtual call with you will be able to see your eyes shifting from side to side as you read.

It takes a bit of experimentation to get these settings right, but it’s worth it.

It’s also a good idea to choose an autocue which has a stop/start setting on the space bar, so if you are interrupted, you can pause the scrolling text and not lose your place.

Finally, remember that often when we read aloud, our voices may sound a little flatter.

We lose some of the musicality of spontaneous speech, so we all need to work a little harder to make our voices engaging and energetic.

A good way of practising this is to read aloud to children - focus on making your voice warm and friendly, on matching the tone of your voice to the emotional tone of the words you’re reading, and don’t forget to pause!

Try it out!

While there are many free online autocues and teleprompters findable with a search engine, the one I often use is https://cueprompter.com/. I am completely unaffiliated with this site, but I’ve had good experience with their settings, and so this might be a good place to start.