Virtual Audiences
Virtual audiences are members of your audience who are not actually present in the room or space where you are presenting. In the workplace, it is common to give presentations to people located in a variety of locations.
Neil Gordon, a speaking coach and communication consultant, made this point about virtual audiences in an article in Entrepreneur magazine:
“The sad truth is that virtual presenters face significant obstacles that live presenters do not. In a live presentation, there is an unspoken contract that the people in the seats are going to remain there the entire time. It would draw significant attention to them if they got up and left halfway through, and most people are more likely to just zone out with their phone. But they’ll stay in the room, and could possibly be engaged at a later point.
In contrast, a virtual audience can leave whenever they feel like it. They can even be on their machine doing other things throughout the presentation without anyone even realizing it!”
From: “How to Keep a Virtual Audience Captivated” i
What Virtual Audiences Are Really Doing . . .
What do people do when in a virtual meeting? An article from the Harvard Business School entitled “What People Are Really Doing When They’re on a Conference Call,” included this chart, which displays the most common activities—other work, sending an email, eating or making food, going to the restroom, etc.— that audience members engage in which they are on conference calls. (And the same can likely be said of people who mute their microphones and turn off their cameras during a Zoom / video presentation):
What else are employees doing during a conference call?
Why Is This important?
Unlike audiences whom you can see face-to-face, virtual audiences may mute their mics, turn off their webcams, or otherwise engage in distracting behavior over which you have little control. Because most people are tempted to tune out or multi-task during virtual meetings, presenters must work hard to keep their audiences’ attention.
