From work to school to Wednesday night book club, we’ve all gotten a lot more comfortable operating in an increasingly online environment. Sometimes, a little too comfortable.
Everyone’s probably guilty of checking email, sending a text, playing with the dog or grabbing a snack while attending yet another virtual presentation. With a growing preponderance of “Zoom fatigue,” it can be tough to capture and keep your audience’s attention in the same way you can in person. Here are a few great tips from Visme for stepping up your virtual game and making sure you’re connecting effectively.
Be seen. While you might be uncomfortable about being on screen, your viewers will pay more attention if they’re looking at your face instead of the PowerPoint and spreadsheets you’re sharing. Invest in a good webcam and connect personally with those on the other end.
Engage your audience. Virtual presentations can easily turn into a passive experience where you’re the only one speaking. Force a little engagement with your viewers by taking a pause and giving them time to process and share a comment or question. Pausing will also help you emphasize key points and avoid your presentation turning into one long monologue. You can also take a quick poll or ask a question or two.
Be smart about visuals. Remember that everyone will be viewing your presentation from various sized screens. So keep any visuals you do share simple and scaled down. Stay away from fancy animations and videos that could lag and be out of sync with your talk.
Incorporate movement. We’re inherently trained to respond to movement, so grab your audience’s attention with some planned actions, such as changing a slide or using a web tool to point to certain things. Just stay away from rapidly jumping around.
Start and end on time. Just because everyone might be working from home, it doesn’t mean they have more time on their hands or more flexibility in their day. Start your presentation on time, perhaps easing into the discussion with an intro to allow stragglers more time to log on, and most importantly, end on time. Make yourself accessible for direct follow-up for anyone who has more to discuss or questions to be answered.
