Eight Flubs and Flaws to Avoid When Presenting a Web Seminar
So many web seminars, so little time. Yet as relevant and high content as many web seminars are, some are more professionally presented than others. If you present web seminars or hope to some day, here are eight annoying flubs and flaws—and how to avoid them.
1. You are not familiar with the web seminar platform. Web seminar platforms differ just enough to cause confusion if you’re unaware of the differences—or if you’re presenting your first web seminar. Don’t make viewers witness your fussing and fumbling. Arrange for a trial run beforehand.
2. You start late. People who are attending have shown up on time. Don’t make them wait. I once attended a web seminar that started twenty-five minutes late due to technical problems. When the web seminar finally began, the presenter said nothing to indicate she was aware of the delay. Interestingly, she was a professor of communication, and she was speaking on communication skills!
3. There's a lot of background noise during the web seminar. Try to give your web seminar in a quiet room. Co-workers whispering in the background can be a distraction to viewers, to say nothing of carrot chomping, knuckle cracking, and paper shuffling. If you’re presenting from home, don’t keep your cat on your lap as you present. If you do, please warn viewers in advance about the occasional meow.
4. You fill the web seminar with dead air. When you’re presenting to a live audience, a few moments of silence are no problem. However, during a web seminar, long stretches of silence confuse participants. If you need a moment or two to take a sip of water or to reflect on a point, just let them know that’s what you’re doing, so they don’t wonder if they’ve lost the connection.
5. You deliver a sales pitch. If the stated purpose of the web seminar is to sell, fine. Otherwise, mention your products and services if they’re relevant, but keep it brief and then move on. People attend web seminars for education and information. If you annoy them with sales pitches, they won’t hesitate to sign off, and they won't return for your subsequent web seminars.
6. You use boring slides. Pictures, graphics, and color are especially important to hold people’s attention in web seminars. But despite the otherwise sage advice in this video, steer clear of bullet points, which are even more sleep inducing in a web seminar than in a live presentation. Unless, of course, the purpose of your web seminar is to help people overcome insomnia, in which case, go for it.
7. You don’t proofread before presenting. It’s easy to overlook a typo, missed word, or grammatical error. But viewers will notice these errors, and since you’re not standing in front of them taking some of their attention from your slides, these errors will stand out even more glaringly.
8. You end late. Just as in all other presentations, even if you start late, it's still your responsibility to end on time. I give the above-mentioned communication professor credit for ending her one-hour web seminar on time—even though she began twenty-five minutes late.
