Boost Your Online Impact in Five Areas

On 15 March 2020, my life as a pro speaker and corporate trainer for rhetoric and charisma came to an abrupt end... Covid. Lockdown! This was the end as I knew it.

But where there is disruption, there is opportunity. Thanks to 25 YouTube live sessions called "Q&A on Public Speaking" (My steepest learning curve thus far!) I could gain online credibility fast. Which I definitely needed for my first two-day online training on 26/27 May 2020.

151 online training days later - on 26 December 2022 - I come to the conclusion that, when it comes to online presentations, so many of you can still boost your online impact - tremendously.

Especially in five areas.

Get Your Tech Right

Imagine you sent your message/presentation in a package. What kind of package do you think your clients would love to receive? An ugly package, color brown, with holes and overuse of tape?

Or would they love to receive it with the same quality as an Apple product package?

Once you have acquired the right tech to package your presentation like an Apple product, how do you want to set it up?

IMPORTANT! Make sure that your light source always descends from the back of your camera.

Finally, throw away your virtual backgrounds. In two words: they suck! For the reasons stated below.

Respect the Black Hole

"But Flo, online you have much less connection with your audience than offline."

I thought the same back on 15 March 2020. Today, I'm convinced that, in online meetings and/or presentations, you can connect even more with your audience.

The reason? That black hole, your cam.

When you look straight into your camera you connect not only with one person like in offline set-ups but with every single one in your audience (1:N). That is 100% connection!

And not only that! The camera offers two more big advantages compared to offline meetings: props and intimacy.

For an optimal impact with your cam make sure that eye level equals camera level.

Use More Props

Talking about props... For more than a decade I would tell everyone: "Not more than two, max three props in a presentation."

Then Covid hit. My world turned online. And I learned that the online world is a different world. Teams, Meet, Zoom - it's all Netflix! The perception is completely different.

Objects come by surprise, their handling is easy, and everyone sees them equally sized. That is a big advantage compared to offline presentations.

But I'm not only talking about objects. It's paradoxical. Online I use even more paper than offline. I learned that objects and paper beat any slide anytime. They raise attention levels and they are, by far, more memorable.

Improve Your Presence and Body Language

First things first. Get yourself a great camera (see above) and avoid coming across as Marie Antoinette after the action (screen 2).

When I created the infographic above I still talked about 2/3 of your screen being perfect. Today, I would increase my (base) presence even more. Imagine you are the late-night host Seth Meyers. That is what I call a great presence.

In offline presentations, speakers love to shut down their bodies with closed body language. I always ask training participants, "Do you know that you can move your arms at other angles than 90o?"

In online presentations, something different happens...

In online presentations, you do not have a stage. Horizontal stage movements raise the level of attention and help your audience with your transitions.

Still, you can achieve the same effect in online presentations using hand gestures.

Something that is completely different in online settings is the power of verticality. When you start to take advantage of verticality you will be so different from all those monotonous Marie Antoinettes out there.

But your online creativity doesn't stop there. You can turn your entire room into a hologram.

Interact, Interact More, Chat

For stand-up comedians, Zoom meetings must be a blast. One of the eight patterns of humor that I have detected, analyzed, and explored since 2005 is "Call the room".

A golden rule for stand-up comedians is to call the room whenever there is a distraction in the room, e.g. a cell phone goes off. They will always say something like, "If it's my mother-in-law, tell her I'm busy!"

In online meetings, there is not one room to call. There are plenty of rooms made for humor.

Finally, make the chat your new best friend of interaction.

Rhetoric only knows one KPI: action. The chat is a perfect tool for CTAs.

The Brave New Online World has been a game changer for me. And it can change your game too. Whether it's your tech in general, your cam, your props, your presence and body language, or new ways to interact - start to explore and keep exploring all these wonderful ways to engage much more with your audience in online meetings and presentations.