Keeping Your Video Audience Engaged With Karen Tiber Leland

A lot of us are still spending quite a bit of time on Zoom and in my work, I’ve found that a few things can make a big difference when it comes to keeping people attentive and interactive during virtual activities.

 

Today I’ll share four really quick tips and one tool so that you can start engaging your audience more interactively right now. While we all know that content is the key piece, tune in for a quick rundown of why you need to keep all channels open, how to keep people engaged, why you need your audience feedback, and how to make it more personal.

Tips

 

Keep all communication channels open — different people like to work on different platforms, and building flexibility into your communication channels will enable this for them and ensure optimal attendance and participation.

 

Keep your audience engaged — keeping people’s attention for long periods on video isn’t easy, but one good way is to keep them interacting with you on your virtual activity. Every five minutes or so, try asking them to answer a question verbally or put up something in chat, raise their hands, or to do a thumbs up/down virtually.

 

Encourage feedback — one really important thing in virtual facilitation is to use information from the participants. You can use a poll right before or after the event (mentee.com is a good tool) and I like to ask people to put comments and questions in chat. People like feeling heard and useful, it will keep them coming back.

 

Make it personal — use people's names. I know that sounds incredibly simple, but just saying the person's name in a session is important because it makes them feel like they're recognized as individuals, rather than you're speaking into this sea of meaningless people.

 

Content is queen; it always was — if your content is strong and designed engagingly, it will transcend any technological issues you or others may have.

About Karen Tiber Leland

 

Karen Tiber Leland is the founder of Sterling Marketing Group, a branding, marketing, and color strategy and implementation firm helping CEOs, executives, and entrepreneurs develop stronger personal, business, and team brands. Her clients include Cisco, American Express, Marriott Hotels, Apple Computer, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

 

She is also the best-selling author of nine traditionally-published business books that have sold over 400,000 copies and been translated into 10 languages. Her most recent book is The Brand Mapping Strategy: Design, Build and Accelerate Your Brand. She regularly writes for Inc.com and Entrepreneur.com and has had articles published in Self, The Los Angeles Times, American Way, The Boston Globe, and many others.

 

Karen has spoken for Harvard, The AMA, Direct Marketing Association, and Stanford, among others. She has been interviewed on The Today Show, CNN, CNBC, and Oprah.

 

Get in touch with Karen on Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook

 

Resources

 

If you are interested in a complimentary consultation on either your CEO brand or your business brand, please feel free to contact me at [email protected] or go to KarenLeland.com.

 

I will be delighted to schedule an appointment with you to take a look at how and what you’re doing and give you some advice on how you can convert your social following to customers a bit better.