How To Get Your Virtual Audience To Respond

Zoom meetings, Webex session, and Go-To-Meeting meetups have been here for a long time. But recently, they’ve become much more of a necessity. And because of this, we’ve had soooooo many more meetings.

So, on the one hand… “yay, we don’t have to drive to attend all these meetings.”

And on the other hand, “Hoo boy, another virtual meeting.”

The sheer volume of meetings is challenging. Even worse, many virtual presenters have not taken the time to figure out how to create an engaging virtual experience. So, the current snapshot of virtual attendees is staring into the screen, blank look on face, possibly tapping away on a mobile device. And that’s when they turn on the camera. Ouch!

One of the techniques virtual presenters or facilitators can use to get the audience to respond is asking questions. The challenge is this…what if you ask a question and crickets, no one answers?

This crickets phenomenon tends to occur for two reasons:

1. The audience is disengaged and hasn’t been primed to respond,
2. The question comes out of nowhere, and they don’t know what to do.

The audience needs to get familiar with the presenter and connected with them. Even if the presenter/facilitator is known to the audience…