Use Enthusiasm to Engage Your Virtual Audience

When conducting webinars and web meetings your goal is to be a dynamic presenter and to engage your virtual audience.  Since your audience can’t see you while you present, you need to keep them interested and on-track using just your voice.  While you may be a dynamic speaker in person, you’ve probably noticed that you fall flat during web sessions.  So how do you adjust your voice to the virtual medium? The following steps will get you on track:

  1. Push your enthusiasm. One of the easiest ways to become more dynamic online is to push your enthusiasm.  Your voice can lose a lot of energy and enthusiasm when you speak on conference calls or webinars, because you are usually just speaking to your computer screen instead of to an audience.  So to re-energize your voice, ask a colleague to sit in your office with you during the webinar.  That way, you will have a live (if small) audience that you can feed off of.  Presenting to even one live audience member will automatically increase your speaking volume and enthusiasm.
  2. Stand while you talk.  This will help energize your body and voice. If you are standing, you will be more likely to gesture, which will help you to be more relaxed.
  3. No reading. Make sure you only use bullet points, not sentences.  If you have sentences on your slides or if you use a script you will read and sound very monotone.

Also consider telling a story, calling out someone’s name on the call or refer to an experience or conversation you had with one of the attendees. If you follow these simple steps, you’ll be on your way to increasing your vocal enthusiasm and being an engaging online presenter!

Make Every Presentation Great,
Sheri Jeavons

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