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7 Ways to Engage Your Virtual Audience

April 27, 2018
Posted by Paul Barton
No Comments
Man using smartphone

By Dhariana Lozano
Guest Blogger

Keeping a virtual audience engaged can seem like a daunting task. They can see you, but for the most part, you won’t be able to see who you are presenting or talking to. So how do you keep an audience like that engaged beyond having an entertaining presentation? In this post, we’ll review some simple tactics on how you can keep a virtual audience engaged.

1) Demand Undivided Attention

The simplest way to get a virtual audience to engage with you and your presentation is to ask for their undivided attention from the beginning of the presentation. As them to put away their phones, close out of all the other tabs they might have open in their browser windows and dedicate the next block of time to the presentation and what they will learn.

2) Ask questions/Polls/Quizzes

To keep a virtual audience engaged include questions throughout your presentation. You can ask questions in the form of polls or quizzes as well. If there is a chat functionality enabled, you can ask participants to leave their response in the chatbox. For example, you can say “If this makes you feel frustrated type 1 in the chatbox”, or you can present different scenarios and ask your audience to type in the scenario they identify with.

3) Include Interactive Elements In Your Video

Interactive videos are a great way to keep a virtual audience engaged. Interactive videos can include click-throughs to landing pages, quizzes, or play certain sections based on the viewer’s choices. There are some great tools out there to help you create these types of videos like Vizio, or you can check out YouTube, as it allows for simple video interaction cards that can lead your viewer to subscribe to your channel or watch a related video or playlist.

4) Q&A

A simple way to keep a virtual audience engaged is to host a Q&A based on the subject of your presentation. The whole presentation can be a Q&A session or you can present and leave time at the end for some questions.

5)  Include Your Audience In The Broadcast

Live videos are a great way to increase reach for your social media channels, and what better way engage an audience than to give them a chance to be included in the broadcast. On Facebook Live (on mobile), Hangouts On Air via YouTubeLive and Instagram Live Stories, you can have someone broadcast with you in real time! Give your participants a chance to be on air with you to keep everyone engaged.

6) Offer Bonuses

Offering a bonus for those who stay through the end of your presentation can be a quick tactic to keep a virtual audience engaged. Some software will let you know who stayed until the end, or you can simply offer a link, or coupon code at the very end of your presentation to keep things simple.

7) Conduct Chats

One final way you can keep a virtual audience engaged is to conduct chats after a presentation. Perhaps you’ve interviewed someone and the second part of that is for your audience to continue the conversation in a chat or even a live stream session with the interviewee.

I hope these seven tactics to engage a virtual audience come in handy for your next presentation!

ABOUT THE GUEST BLOGGER

Dhariana Lozano has been in the social media and digital marketing world for over seven years. She is the co-founder of Supremacy Marketing, a boutique social media marketing firm based in New York City. Her experience includes creating social media strategies and consulting for both B2C and B2B brands to help them stand out and break through digital walls for ongoing success. She blogs at DhariLo.com where she provides social media tips, resources, and courses. You can see her work published in Social Media Week, Social Media Today, and the AgoraPulse blog. You can connect with Dhariana by sending her a tweet @Dharilo.

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business communication, business presentations, public speaking, Public speaking skills, public speaking tips, public speaking training

7 Ways to Engage a Virtual Audience

August 13, 2017
Posted by Paul Barton
No Comments
Virtual social networking logo

By Paul Barton

One reason I love public speaking so much is the audience. I draw energy from them and immediately put that energy back into my presentation. I become more animated and in turn, my audience shows more engagement. I see them smiling and their heads nodding in agreement. They take notes, and when I make a great point, they write furiously. When they see a slide that they like, they raise their smartphones to snap a photo of it. I hear them laugh at one of my quips. I see their quizzical facial expressions when they are trying to understand. They sit up straight and lean forward as they are listening intently.

I can react to all of that — unless I am making a virtual presentation.

Virtual Business Presentations

Increasingly, business presentations are being delivered virtually via webinars, podcasts, and telephone conference calls. Virtual presentations have many advantages, not the least of which is that they allow people from all around the world to participate without having to travel. But such meetings can be challenging because you cannot see your audience and that makes it more difficult to determine if your messages are resonating.

Last Friday, Kris Pugsley of ON Semiconductor and I co-presented a webinar hosted by Poppulo about how large companies could communicate more effectively with their employees. There were more than 1,000 corporate communications professionals from around the world who listened to our webinar.

Engaging a Virtual Audience

Here are some of the techniques we employed in an effort to engage our audience:

  • Good Content: We knew our topic was relevant to our audience and that they would be curious about what we had to say. We presented intriguing strategies but we also included many practical examples. Audiences want to hear stimulating thoughts but they also want ideas that they can implement right away.
  • Personal Introductions: In addition to our professional biographies, Kris and I each shared a photo and shared some information about our personal lives. Knowing that Kris underwent brain surgery last year and that I have a 10-year-old son with severe Autism helps humanize us to our audience.
  • Vocal Variety: Kris and I took turns presenting so the audience got to hear the content broken up with a male and a female voice alternating. An extra bonus was the charming Irish accent of our host, Emma Hanley (Poppulo is based in Ireland.)
  • Compelling Graphics: We had visually pleasing graphics with compelling data.
  • Audience Polls: We polled our audience at four different points during the presentation. The audience was able to see the results instantly. Having to determine how to answer, the physical act of clicking on the response, and then waiting to see how their answers compare to the rest of the audience helps keep the audience engaged.
  • Q&A: The audience typed questions into a chatbox as the presentation went along and we responded to their questions in the final 10 minutes.
  • Social Share: Our host publicized a Twitter hashtag for the event so that the audience could engage in conversations before, during and after the webcast.

Judging from the number of questions asked on the webinar, the feedback we received on Twitter and LinkedIn, and the traffic generated to my website following the webcast, our presentation indeed resonated with our audience.

As presenters in the digital age, we have to become more creative to engage our audiences in virtual presentations. Performing public speaking virtually can be a challenge, but it can be done effectively with forethought, a little creativity, and good planning.

business communication, business presentations, public speaking, Public speaking skills, public speaking tips, public speaking training, public speaking workshops

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