Presentation Tip: Choose the correct “you” for your audience.
Good presenters – indeed, anyone involved in marketing communications – know that to really connect with an audience it’s important to write in the “you” format. This involves using the pronoun ‘you’ frequently throughout the presentation. Doing so shows that you are genuinely concerned about the audience’s needs.
‘You’ can be used in two ways: as a plural form (“you folks”, “you guys/gals”, “you all”) or in the singular. For the purposes of the column, I want to concentrate on electronic presentations. Those include online presentations (webinars, teleconferences and video conferences) and recorded material (training videos and tutorials).
Webinars, teleconferences, and video conferences by their nature involve groups of people. It’s natural to speak in the plural form. You are, after all, speaking to a number of people simultaneously.