Keeping people engaged in both live and remote presentations can be challenging.
Whether you’re gathered ’round a conference table or wearing a blazer and your pajama pants on Zoom, getting everyone to stay attentive and involved is one of the most important parts of an effective presentation.
Unfortunately, meetings and lectures tend to be draining. Boring, even.
Finding new ways to communicate your ideas and helping people stay engaged is key, and there are lots of creative ways to do that.
5 Benefits of Graphic Recording
Digital graphic recording, or virtual live sketching, is a form of visual note-taking that utilizes colorful icons, conceptual illustrations, organizational elements, and creative fonts to record information in an easy-to-digest format.
So what are the most significant benefits of graphic recording? We’re glad you asked! Visual facilitation with graphic recording can help you:
1. Increase Remote Presentation Engagement
Unsurprisingly, visual communication is the most effective to help someone learn something.
An astounding 83% of all learning occurs visually, with the remaining 17% being a mixture of auditory, kinesthetic, and other types of learning.
This may be because the human brain processes visual information like graphics and pictures roughly 60,000 times faster than written text.
When the same information is available in both text-based and visual formats, people consistently retain the information presented visually better than the information that was presented as text.
Simply put, if your business isn’t already using visual communication in some way, you should be.
Visual note-taking helps take what would ordinarily be difficult-to-remember text and dresses them up with colorful icons, conceptual illustrations, organizational elements, and creative fonts.
This stimulates the brain’s ability to rapidly understand and digest visual data.
Graphic recording can transform blasé remote presentations into material that keeps attendees highly attentive, even when keeping them engaged is more difficult to do through a screen.
2. Improve Visualization of Live Lecture Concepts
Live sketching is a great way to make lectures easier to understand by presenting complex topics in a visual manner.
Many people lack good note-taking skills, meaning they are often only able to record parts of a presentation or lecture.
This leads to attendees missing important information that they can’t go back and review without notes.
When a graphic recorder attends your lecture or presentation, they can create a visual representation of the most important points of your material. Then, attendees can easily copy them for their own notes.
If you’re giving an online presentation, digital copies of the sketches can be sent to attendees for later reference.
Not only does this help increase information retention during your presentation, but it also helps reinforce that learning when the visuals are readily available post-event.
Work with your live sketch artist prior to your presentation to make sure they have a general idea of what you’ll be discussing and can begin planning visual note layouts.
3. Help Learners Better Process and Retain Information
When presented verbally and visually, information is retained six times better after three days than compared to just a verbal presentation.
Did you know that the vast majority — 93% — of all communication between people is nonverbal?
When you’re presenting important ideas, visual elements help people see the message you’re trying to communicate. Data presented during conferences and lectures is processed and stored faster, increasing recall ability and making room for new information more quickly.
Visual elements aren’t subject to a language or hearing barrier either. They’re incredibly effective at ensuring those who aren’t native English speakers or who may be hard of hearing can also process the information being presented.
This means that when you add a visual element to any kind of speech, be it a PowerPoint slideshow or visual notes, your efforts are immediately rewarded.
4. Align Learners with Ideas Being Presented in Real-Time
Recent changes to work environments due to COVID-19 mean that you don’t have time to spare to explain and re-explain information multiple times.
Even when the working world returns to some semblance of normal, you’ll still want to ensure your presentations and meetings are both efficient and effective.
Graphic recording during meetings, either remote or in-person, helps align attendees with the concepts contained in your material in real-time.
When you move forward to the next concept, fewer learners will still be struggling to understand the concept you just presented. Fewer follow-up questions will be needed to comprehend the information, allowing you to stay on track and optimize data digestion.
5. Create Shareable Social Media Content
Finally, graphic recording and live note-taking help you create highly shareable resources that continue to improve information processing and retention well after your presentation or meeting.
Sharing visual graphics is more fun and engaging than sharing text; for example, tweets that include a picture will receive approximately 50% more shares than tweets that don’t.
This trend continues across all social media platforms, with visual content consistently outperforming text-based content by a wide margin.
Infographics, which are similar to visual notes are liked and shared on all channels roughly 3 times more than any other kind of content, including blogs and image-only posts.
After your presentation, your graphic recording will be available in an easy-to-share digital format that you can post on your website and publish on your social medias.
Depending on the material, they may be able to also be used as employee training or customer education resources.
Start Using Digital Graphic Recording to Communicate Your Ideas Today
Many organizations and small businesses are struggling to keep employees engaged during remote or in-person presentations in the wake of COVID-19.
Your company can’t afford for employees to miss critical information and important ideas during meetings.
Using a graphic facilitator can help your organization create captivating presentations that increase information retention and align your team to the company’s goals.
The Sketch Effect has a number of graphic recording offers to meet the needs of organizations of all sizes. We take pride in providing customized visual communication solutions.
Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you host presentations, meetings, and conferences that are interesting and keep attendees immersed while they learn.
Don’t think graphic recording is the right fit for your business? Consider video animation to enhance your communication efforts.
