what makes a good webinar presentation

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How to Give a Webinar Presentation

• Dorie Clark

Strategies to make the experience less awkward for you — and your audience.

Presenting in a webinar — when you often don’t have access to visual cues about how the audience is responding — can sometimes feel disconcerting or awkward. Here are a few strategies to improve the experience for you and your audience. First, make use of the camera. Many professionals don’t like looking at themselves on camera, but that’s not a valid excuse when you consider how much more engaged listeners are when watching a real person talk to them. Next, an important corollary point: If you’re using the camera, you have to be mindful of visual aesthetics. Specifically, adjust your camera so that it’s giving a straight-on view of your face, and test out how your chosen backdrop appears to participants. It’s also a good idea to rehearse the mechanics of the webinar software you’re using. And finally, decide in advance how you’ll handle audience participation.

As more and more companies cultivate a global workforce and international client base, it’s increasingly necessary to present remotely. For years, teleconferencing was the best option, but in the past five years internet speeds and web conferencing technologies have become sufficiently robust to support a shift to live video streaming. But presenting in a webinar — when you often don’t have access to visual cues about how the audience is responding — can sometimes feel disconcerting or awkward.

• Dorie Clark is a marketing strategist and keynote speaker who teaches at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and has been named one of the Top 50 business thinkers in the world by Thinkers50. Her latest book is The Long Game: How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World (HBR Press, 2021) and you can receive her free Long Game strategic thinking self-assessment .

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