Meghan Ryan
November 30, 2021
Discover the best Prezi video presentations, hand-picked by our editors based on a number of factors, including design and content quality. It’s an eclectic mix of winning entries from business professionals, industry experts, influencers, and educators.
Hear from Prezi’s Editorial Director, Lorraine Lee, as she describes what we liked about each one:
Ready to check them out? Here’s our list of the year’s best videos.
Using copy to engage on social media
Social media is an essential part of marketing. Not only do most companies use social media to connect with their audiences, many are also building out amplification and advocacy programs with their employees to expand their reach. With such broad use, there’s never been a better time to fine-tune your social media copy.
That’s why we’ve included this excellent how-to video by Ashley Faus, Content Strategy Lead at Atlassian, who discusses tips for writing more engaging copy. She provides tangible, hands-on advice for everyone representing a brand on social media, whether you’re handling a brand account or advocating as an employee. What we love about her video is her straightforward, easy-to-follow framework, as well as her friendly on-screen demeanor. With Prezi Video, her content appears next to her on screen, allowing her to maintain eye contact with the audience and use her hands for emphasis throughout the video. The result is a really engaging video, full of smart and usable tips.
Watch Ashley’s video here:
How to use Prezi Video for product demos
Traditionally, sales people would travel to demo a physical product in person, but would still fire up a presentation to go into greater detail. Now that most product demonstrations are taking place virtually, the presenter is often relegated to a small window of the screen, which can be a bit underwhelming.
Russell Anderson-Williams, founder of presentation design company The Prezenter, blends the in-person experience and the virtual presentation to demo a product like you’ve never seen before. He uses Prezi Video to handle the physical product and show its details next to him on screen. The greatest part of his demonstration is that neither the presenter nor the product are at a disadvantage – both are important elements of the presentation and both are at the forefront.
Watch Russell’s video here for a great example of a product demo:
Engaging the audience at home
What Bonnie Zix’s video shows is that your online lessons can be fun and educational. Here she teaches her students how to extract DNA from a banana, while keeping the instructions and key information below her on the screen. This makes it easy for students to follow along with her demonstration and take note of important details.
This is a great way to engage students at home. While students would be able to see the demonstration and read information on the whiteboard in person, virtual classrooms are sometimes at a disadvantage. Bonnie’s video takes advantage of Prezi Video’s options to create an experience that’s perhaps even more engaging than being therein person.
Check out her video to see for yourself:
Demonstrating and practicing
In a virtual classroom, the time you have with your students is one of the most vital parts of your teaching, but Nucleo’s video uses his time off screen to an advantage. His video teaches students to count eighth-note subdivisions. When he’s first demonstrating the count at the beginning of the video, he appears on screen next to the information. As soon as he wants students to practice the count, he lets his content take over, making it easier for them to focus and perform the count themselves.
Watch Nucleo’s video for a great example of a demonstration and practice lesson:
Grab attention by starting with a story
Elena Valentine starts her presentation with the ultimate attention grabber: a good story. What we love about this opener is that it expertly proves her point that storytelling is a great way to get your audience’s attention and make yourself more relatable. Throughout her video, she discusses the reasons storytelling is effective, shows examples of great storytelling by other presenters, and gives you tips to get started.
Elena is the CEO of the media production company Skill Scout, so she knows a thing or two about engaging content. This video shows off her expert use of color and imagery, and is paced to flow smoothly through the beginning, middle, and end of her presentation.
Discover B2B marketing’s next big role
“If you go back in time and you think about who started innovating first in business, it was the B2B marketers,” notes Carla Johnson, keynote speaker and bestselling author. In her video on innovation and intrapreneurship, Carla speaks directly to the innovator in every B2B marketer. She points out the moments in which B2B marketers have driven change in their industries and have transformed other essential parts of business, such as branding and customer experience.
This is a really effective way to energize her audience and get them excited about learning what they can do to continue spurring innovation. She also uses a bright template and beautiful imagery to keep the audience engaged.
Watch her video for a great example of a conference presentation:
How to get someone to change their mind
“No.” Whether you’re a leader, a parent, a salesperson, or practically anyone else on this planet, you’re probably used to this obstacle of a word by now. And if you’re a reporter like Jessica Marble, it’s an answer you’ll need to learn to overcome.
In this video, Jessica teaches you how to persuade someone to give you something important (such as an interview) when they’re hesitant or resistant. She does a great job detailing how to do this, kicking it off with the three Ps – persistence, politeness, and patience. She also uses a lot of GIFs and animation throughout her video that engage the viewer and make the video more eye-catching. The result is a straightforward video providing the audience with a clear path to follow.
Learn about the three Ps of persuasion and more here:
How to make your Prezi presentations impactful
Joshua Peterse is a specialist at the presentation powerhouse Missing Link who motivates his audience to make better presentations. “It’s time for you to find a way to share your content in a way that’s really interesting, because the truth of the matter is that attention is now a diminishing resource.”
You may think that designing an intricate slide is the best way to grab attention, but your narrative is actually going to do the most effective work. Your presentation design should enhance your narrative, not overwhelm it.
That means you have to rethink the way you design your presentations. As Josh puts it, it’s not that we’re designing slides; “we’re now designing scenes.” To help you get started, he shares six simple examples of scenes, and how to create them in Prezi Video. Watch his video here to check them out:
Presentation mistakes executives and managers make
Boris Hristov is the founder of the presentation agency 356labs. As he notes, “virtual meetings and hybrid meetings are here to stay, so our people need to know how to communicate through those channels.” He urges his audience to deliver presentation trainings that take virtual tools into consideration, and teach trainees how to use them in tandem with more traditional presentation skills.
His video dissects common presentation mistakes made by people who need to be good communicators: executives and managers. He does a great job providing details and solutions for each mistake, and makes his presentation easy to follow with bright visuals, a clean template, and subtle animations. He also takes advantage of Prezi Video’s capabilities by going full-screen when he wants to make an important point.
Watch Boris’ video here:
A quick introduction
Professor Robert Morgan provides this introductory video to new students at Washington University in St. Louis. At just over 90 seconds long, he doesn’t have much time to make an impact, but with a simple template, photos, and some fun tips like his favorite spot on campus, he’s able to create an introduction that gets students excited to see their new school.
Video is a great way to engage your students virtually. We love that Robert uses Prezi Video to show his content next to him on screen, perfect for an introduction when students aren’t that familiar with him yet.
Watch his full video here:
There are so many ways to use Prezi Video to create interesting, memorable videos that break through the everyday noise and make a point that sticks with an audience. These are just a few of the best videos we’ve seen this year, but there’s a lot more where these came from. Check out our Video Gallery for more videos, or create your own video today. You might just be our next staff pick!
