Presentation Skills for Virtual Meetings-How to Keep Your Audience Engaged

You're unlikely to keep people's full attention for long when they're staring passively at the screen. Whether you’re meeting to discuss a team issue or making a formal presentation, make an effort to get your audience to interact with you and the content.

Consider including some form of interaction every few minutes. This can include simple things like asking questions and calling on people to respond. You can also open up for questions from the audience when appropriate.

Another option is to engage in a simple Q&A by pausing after introducing or explaining an idea to ask, “Are there any questions?” Give people a moment to collect their thoughts and show that you are interested in hearing their concerns. The more they feel invited to interact, the more engaged they’ll be.

There are plenty of great video conferencing tools available. Learn which is best for your needs and use its features to boost interaction.

For example, use a polling feature to run real-time surveys. Ask people about their experience or preferences around the topic. When they have to take action and respond, they’re going to think more about what you’re saying.

The chat feature can also get more people to take part and helps you get a sense of what everyone’s thinking. With large groups, try posing a question and asking people to respond in the chat window. Or direct people to the chat feature at the start of the meeting so they can ask questions and provide helpful comments throughout.

If your software has a whiteboard feature, you can create more dynamic interactions. Building out a model or outlining a process while you describe it will help people follow your train of thought more easily and keep them more visually engaged.

If you’re making a formal presentation, plan your slides so they capture the audience's attention. Don’t overload them with dense text. Instead, cut back on words and include meaningful images. Images grab our attention and have the potential to create an instant emotional response.

You can also keep people’s attention by introducing more motion to the screen. Move between slides more often than you might in person and consider adding different forms of media to switch up how you’re presenting info. You can include relevant videos or infographics that focus people’s thoughts back on your message and help keep them interested.

Be respectful of people’s time. When meetings run long, people are going to start thinking about what they have scheduled next.

Instead, plan only for the amount of time you need and stick to it. Could your web conference be 45 minutes long instead of an hour? Are you prepared to begin and end your meeting precisely when you told people you would? Help people stay focused by removing the distraction of worrying about the meeting running over.

Keep your meeting focused. Attempting to cover too many topics will divide people’s attention and could confuse them about what you’re trying to communicate.

Be sure to create an agenda and share it so people know what to expect. A good agenda is a road map that keeps a meeting from getting sidetracked and helps it remain productive.

Remember that the need for dynamic speaking doesn’t apply only to in-person events. If your voice is monotone and your expression is passive, it’s going to be hard to draw people away from more engaging distractions.

Use the same skills for a virtual meeting as you would to add energy in front of a live group, and make sure your head is in the performance mindset. A few tips include: