Present Like a Pro - Even With No Pants On!
“You need to engage participants every 4 minutes [online].”
– Becky Pike Pluth, M.Ed., author of Webinars With Wow Factor
Recently, during one of our Mastering Virtual Presentations online workshops, one of our students was a multi-tasking millennial know-it-all. He knew every technical aspect of the online platform we were using — and he let us know it. However, when it came time to put his technological know-how into a brief presentation, he suffered. We suffered!
There is a difference between knowing and doing.
To breathe life into your virtual presentations, it is not about technical settings.
“Presenting in person is tough. Mastering virtual presenting is ten times tougher!”– Ed Tate
Today, if you want to grab and keep your virtual audience’s attention, you need to engage them every 2 to 3 minutes! According to Microsoft research, the average person’s attention span is eight seconds! In the same study, the attention span of a goldfish was 9 seconds — a full second longer! [1]
POINT: Attention spans are short. You need a hack to keep your online audience’s attention!
Because of the global health crisis, virtual presentations are a part of the “new normal” –an essential business skill.
And there is nothing normal about mastering virtual presentations!
- It’s not normal talking to a screen, rather than a person.
- It’s not normal talking to yourself in a room by yourself… out loud.
- It’s not normal, not getting feedback from the viewers on the other side of your screen, and you can’t see their faces.
Are you completely connected to technology (you know what buttons to push) but disconnected from your virtual audience (you don’t know how to communicate with online viewers)?
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How you come across online is far more important than your technical knowledge. Eventually, we will all catch up and be technically competent.
“Sameness is the enemy of the presenter.”
– Patricia Fripp, Hall of Fame Speaker
THREE HACKS TO KEEP YOUR ONLINE AUDIENCE ENGAGED
Here are three approaches to change the pace during your next virtual presentation.
- Polls. Poll questions are one of the best change of pace elements in an online presentation. It is a great way to get the audience an opportunity to participate. As addictive as sugar is to food, a poll question is its addictive virtual cousin. People love them. However, like sugar, you should use it sparingly. Use anonymous poll questions to get answers for sensitive topics.
- Chat. Think of chat as virtual texting with the host, co-host, panelist, and audience. It’s a way to communicate throughout your entire presentation. You can use it as a check-in, get the audience’s opinion on a topic, ask questions. Do not use chat for sensitive subjects, because unlike polling, chats are not anonymous. People are less likely to respond.
- Unique Experience: The third change of pace element — unique experiences; this includes icebreakers, games, or competitions. Any activity that keeps the audience involved and engaged will make your presentation memorable.
These are only three change of pace elements
…and there are dozens more!
Learn about the rest of the “Pace Changers” in the Mastering Virtual Presentations Workshop (MVP).
The rules of engagement change online. Leave this workshop knowing how to:
- Master grabbing and keeping an audience’s attention throughout a virtual presentation
- Learn dozens of Change-of-Pace essentials
- Avoid common mistakes that make you look bad online
- Discover how to make your presentations remarkable and memorable
- And much more
[1] The 8-second attention span for humans actually reflects the average time a person will spend on a web page before looking somewhere else.
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