By: Wayne Turmel
Speaking to large groups is often intimidating; communicating to large groups online can be even scarier. Why? In a one-way, lecture-type of presentation, you’re getting all kinds of feedback, but virtually presenting feels like you’re talking into a void. This feeling often throws a lot of speakers, particularly experienced presenters, off their game. So, how can one make sure his/her audience will engage and give positive feedback to your virtual presentation when there are so many distractions around them?
Imagine you’re facing an audience of over 100 people in an auditorium or lecture hall. You hear the audience laugh, or even yawn, (hey, that’s feedback too). The people in the front row watch you attentively, but at times, you hear them rustling around. This non-verbal communication tells you to pick up the pace and get to the good stuff, because they are getting bored and restless. There are a lot of ways of getting both verbal and nonverbal feedback.
We use that feedback to make adjustments to our talks — speed up, slow down, stop and check for understanding. Competent presenters are constantly taking in as much information as we’re transmitting.
Online, it’s a different game. With a large group, odds are everyone but the speaker is muted. You can’t see people’s faces. The nods, smiles, and eye rolls we rely on to pace ourselves are missing. Lacking that feedback, most online presenters start to speed up, going too quickly for the audience to understand. We just read our scripts, negatively impacting our vocal tone, which results in a boring podcast or webinar for our listeners.
Most dangerously, we try to pack too much information into a short space. This actually overloads the audience’s limited attention capabilities and too often defeats our stated purpose.
There are, though, some ways to gather useful information online and use it to our (and thus, our audience’s) advantage.
Use Polling: Many of the most common web presentation platforms (WebEx, GotoMeeting, Lync) have some kind of interactive polling feature. This can not only give you good information about your audience, it gets them kinesthetically involved (a ten-dollar word for “actually doing something”) that enhances engagement. But don’t just use polling at the beginning and end. You can use it to test understanding and keep people’s attention throughout a long presentation.
Watch the “attention meter” (if you have one): If you’re doing large online webinars and meetings, you’re probably using a robust presentation system. Most have some type of icon to let you know when people are looking at your screen (good) or looking at something else on their computer (potentially, not so good). For example, in WebEx, it’s a red exclamation mark. Don’t get paranoid, people occasionally drift (we all aren’t Oprah!), but if you see a lot of people looking elsewhere, do something to draw their attention back to your presentation.
Ask for feedback in other ways: With a large group, you’ll usually mute the phones in order to prevent background noise and distractions. However, you might still want to hear from people or get their attention. Try using other feedback methods such as the chat tool, the “hands up” button or checkmarks. This will vary from platform to platform, but the trick is to quickly and efficiently garner useful information while giving people a reason to stay engaged in the meeting.
Take questions periodically instead of saving them for the end: You can take questions in writing, or unmute people’s phones individually (the auditory aspect of hearing other voices will be more engaging, but it’s tough to do if you don’t have a co-pilot). Either way, expecting people to sit passively holding their questions for 40 minutes or so is counter-productive to receiving good input, and a steady stream of questions tells you that people are actually listening to what you say.
While nothing beats being in the same room as your audience, presenting virtually doesn’t need to be a lonely, scary thing to do, either.
Wayne Turmel
W. Wayne Turmel is a speaker, writer and corporate drone who lives in Chicago Il. He is the founder and president of Greatwebmeetings.com, a co-founder of The Remote Leadership Institute and the author of Meet Like you Mean it, a book that helps virtual and remote teams collaborate more effectively.
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