You’re in the middle of a virtual meeting, and you noticed that the energy of the “room” has dropped completely – your audience has zoned out. The crickets begin to sing their song ?.
Has this ever happened to you?
We all know how easy it is to hit “mute” and get stuff done during a Zoom conference- I’m guilty of this myself! How do you keep people excited to hear what you have to say when there is so much to be done?
Keeping online audiences engaged can be tricky!
Here are four tips to make your Zoom audience excited, so they stay plugged in throughout your session.
[tip 1] Create a curiosity gap
Grabs your audience’s attention in a way that indicates you will be well worth it by creating a curiosity gap. Here’s how you do it:
- Ask a question that speaks to the problem you are addressing “How many of you spend an hour or more on email per day? I have a solution that cuts email time to 15 minutes”.
- Make a provocative statement, “It’s time for us to change everything about how we….”
- Start a relevant story “I’ll never forget the day I learned…”
[tip 2] Break out the Icebreakers
Have the people introduce themselves to get to know each other a little better.
Because humor connects people, throw in a silly question to answer during introductions. Here are a few examples to ask participants to share:
- Something we would never guess about you
- Your most unusual talent
- Best book suggestion
[tip 3] – Remember that two heads are better than one [partner brainstorming]
If you can, break your audience up into groups or pairs, or kick off a good old Q+A session. Do this anytime you feel energy lagging during your presentation.
Remind your audience that they can use the chat feature to ask/answer questions, so you have a queue of inquiries to refer to.
[tip 4] – Don’t be afraid to push the buttons!
Ask a lot of questions and have your audience use the voting button feature.
Pro tip: Be prepared with questions to ask your audience. Make a list of premade questions so you prevent those *awkward* silence moments during the Q&A.
[Bottom Line] – Use these helpful tips to engage your audience at your next virtual meeting!