Nothing beats being in the room. You can read the energy, work the space, and feel when the audience is engaged. But here we are, years after lockdowns, and video calls are just… normal life. Now you’re presenting high-stakes information (board strategies, budget breakdowns, risk briefings, safety updates) while sitting at your kitchen table in a freshly ironed shirt… and the same trackies you’ve been wearing for three days.
If you’re part of the meeting, you can mostly get away with nodding in the right spots. But if you’re the one running the show, you need more than “unmute, speak, mute.” Here’s 3 easy tips to keep their attention when the room is made of little boxes.
1. Break it into bites
Attention online slips faster than in person. If you talk in one unbroken block, you’ll lose people somewhere between your second point and your third coffee sip. They’re distracted by their inbox, their phone, the neighbour’s dog, or their own reflection.
Split your content into mini-chapters to give people small, clear “chunks” they can latch onto. Then reset before you move to the next “chunk”. Change your slide colours, your tone, your pace. Call for questions, or ask a quick question yourself. That reset makes the audience think, Okay, new bit, I can handle a bit more of this. It buys you a few more minutes of their brain space.
2. Don’t Let Your Energy Drop
Without the hum of the room, nodding heads, or little laughs, it’s easy to flatten out. Here’s my totally-made-up-but-feels-true stat: standing up can give you at least a 20% energy boost. I’ve used ironing boards in hotel rooms, stacked boxes in offices, even tripods balanced on eskies. Whatever it takes to lift your camera to eye level so you can stand and use your hands. Standing changes your posture, your breathing, and your thinking. It’s like flipping your brain into “presenter mode.”
3. Light it up (literally)
You wouldn’t stand in a dark corner with only half your face showing and fiddle with your phone in a real boardroom, don’t do it online.
Put the light in front of you, behind the camera. Try facing a window, natural light is awesome. Your background is telling a story whether you like it or not, make sure it’s the right one.
Online presenting isn’t about pretending you’re in the room. It’s about creating as much connection and presence as you can with the tools you’ve got. And sometimes, that’s enough to make the fact you’re three suburbs, or three time zones, away completely irrelevant.
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