Like most professionals, your calendar probably contains regular teleconference calls. Whether you host these calls or simply participate, you probably struggle to pay attention. There is often no clear format to the meeting, people tend to talk over each other, meetings get off topic, and it’s extremely easy to multi-task. All of this leads to unproductive meetings and frustrated attendees. For these reasons, business leaders are switching to virtual software to make these meetings more engaging, interactive and informative. Skeptical?

If you’ve tried to host virtual meetings, you may still struggle to keep everyone on track. I’m here to tell you that these virtual platforms can help make your meetings more engaging and productive. However, just as in face-to-face communications, the presenter has to be organized and concise. To transform your teleconference calls into dynamic web meetings, you need to transform your content and communication style. The following tips will help you stay on track for more successful virtual meetings:

1. Your voice is your only contact. To fit this new medium, you need to adjust your voice. You must sound enthusiastic, increase your pausing and learn to emphasize key words and phrases. The best tip to help you accomplish this is: Do NOT talk to your computer screen. Instead, imagine you are speaking to someone sitting across your desk or to someone five or six feet away. If you can, wear a headset and stand up while you speak. This will help increase your energy and project your natural enthusiasm. It feels a little phony at first. You will need to practice. To get a feel for the difference this can create for you, record yourself, and then listen to the recording.

2. Content is King! The days of rambling through content and talking for an hour or two are over. If you have transitioned to web meetings and are still using the same meeting format as you did for teleconference calls, I’m willing to bet it’s not going well. Am I right? It simply will not work. The way you prepare, organize your content, and what you say will need to change. 

To captivate your virtual audience, you have to cut your presentation into small segments, each of which has to have direct value to your audience. All of your content needs to be value-based. Remember, you only have two or three minutes to grab their attention before you start to lose them. You need to use shorter sentences and repeat your ideas often as it becomes harder to keep people focused.

3. Plan for interaction. One of the main issues with teleconference calls is that there is no opportunity for interaction. If you are hosting a web meeting instead, you gain a whole host of tools to help keep your attendees on track and increase productivity. However, you have to plan stopping points to engage your attendees. This means it will take you MORE TIME to prepare for these meetings. Since the available tools will vary from platform to platform, so it is important to familiarize yourself with what is available. I suggest that something should change visually every 60-90 seconds and your attendees should be touching their computer every 2 minutes.