Everything you need to know about creating impactful content, design, and delivery in our new world

Mastering Virtual Communication

Work Hard to Grab Attention

Getting your virtual audience to focus is challenging.

Virtual audiences often feel overloaded, distracted, and fatigued. In a 2020 study by Forbes, 90% of participants said they were significantly more distracted when working from home. As a virtual

presenter who wants results, you need to work even harder to grab and keep their attention.

It is possible to bring the same kind of experience to a virtual presentation as you would to an in-person one. Doing so will not only leave your audience feeling empowered and inspired, it might just improve their productivity and engagement, too.

VIRTUAL COMMUNICATION

2 © 2020 Duarte, Inc. www.forbes.com/sites/vickyvalet/2020/03/12/working-from-home-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic-what-you-need-to-know/#725e66ca1421

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Empathy Moves People From Ideas to Action

Instead of starting with what you’re going to say, start with how you want to make your audience feel.

After many years of creating thousands of presentations, we learned that the richness of an audience's experience happens at the intersection of story, design, and visuals.

At the heart of that intersection is empathy, where you imagine what people need to hear and how they need to hear it.Empathy is more important than ever in our virtual world if you want to motivate your audience and inspire them to act.

VIRTUAL COMMUNICATION

Empathy

Delivery Story

Visuals

Leaders that must influence change

Message Strategy

Delivery that compels

action

A story that moves audiences

Design that amplifies your message

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Motivate Your Virtual Audience

Write, design, and deliver virtual communication that incites action and maintains an audience-first focus.

VIRTUAL COMMUNICATION

In this ebook, you’ll learn:

How to determine the right virtual Strategy to set you and your audience up for success

How to write virtualContent that keeps your audience interested and engaged

How the right Technology and Setup can optimize your virtual engagement

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02

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How to alter your Visuals for an audience that’s participating on their personal devices

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How to adjust the way you speak to improve your virtual Delivery

Set yourself and your audience up for success

Virtual Strategy

Never deliver a presentation you wouldn’t want to sit through.DUARTE'S GOLDEN RULE

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Before You Begin

Choose the Right Medium

Email, audio, or videoThe type of message you’re going to deliver and the amount of engagement you desire should determine the virtual medium you choose.

Set Expectations

Technology, engagement, goalsYour audience won’t know what you expect from them unless you tell them. Guide participants to be involved in a way that makes sense for each virtual engagement.

Prepare to Collaborate

Tools, discussion, inputIt’s challenging, but not impossible, to work together virtually. Whether it’s a presentation or meeting, engaging dialogue and collaborative tools can help you reach your goals as a team.

VIRTUAL STRATEGY

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Choose the Right Medium

We believe that the goal of any live interaction is to move an audience to think, feel, or do something differently. If no audience participation is required, earn some goodwill by sending a video or email update.

Tips for Live Virtual Interactions

Consider whether audio or video makes more sense.

While video is often the preferred method for interaction, too many video calls can result in audience fatigue. Consider using a blend of technology (email, audio, and video) without sacrificing communication integrity.

Think about what your audience needs to absorb your message and choose the technology that gets them there.

VIRTUAL STRATEGY

VideoMessage

Email Video Call

Audio Call

Collaborative Document

What kind of interactiondo you need?

Simple Complex

Rich Media Theory Rich media (i.e. video conferencing) supports more complex interactions among virtual teams than lean media (i.e. email) does.

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Set Expectations

To achieve maximum effectiveness, tell your audience what you expect from them, and practice what you preach.

Clear expectations reduce uncertainty and anxiety, and that’s something everyone in your audience will appreciate.

VIRTUAL STRATEGY

Agenda: Did you send one ahead of time? Or include one in your meeting invite?

Meeting Prep: Is there pre-read material? What should participants do if they can't get through it? Should they still attend or send you feedback offline?

Showing up: Is this a video call or is audio okay?

Interaction: Should people unmute to interrupt you? Or post questions and thoughts in the chat box?

Feedback: Can people make virtual annotations on

the slides you are showing?

Expectation-Setting Checklist

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Prepare to Collaborate

Collaboration tools can help you facilitate brainstorming and form deeper connections between all participants.

Many meeting platforms have built-in collaboration tools with live slide annotations, quick polls, and digital whiteboards. You can also move meetings forward by asking participants to fill in a shared document so they can see everyone’s contributions live.

If collaboration tools aren’t available to you or they aren’t your style, consider opening up your virtual engagement for some good old-fashioned discussion. Ask questions and promote others’ ideas. Keep it free-flowing and organic, not overwhelming.

The method isn’t as important as the inspirational work you create together; it’s simply the canvas with which you explore those ideas.

VIRTUAL STRATEGY

Only use collaboration tools when they provide value, and when you

understand how to use them.

Annotate

Poll

Chat

Breakout

Keep your audience interested and engaged

Virtual Content

Creating great ideas is what we were born to do; getting people to feel like they have a stake in what we believe is the hard part.

NANCY DUARTE

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Writing Best Practices

Keep It ConciseIntention spans are short in a virtual setting. The length of your engagement, as well as the length of your sentences, will impact your audience’s ability to focus.

Make Your Intro MemorableGrabbing their attention up front can be the key to keeping it throughout your virtual engagement.

Use Stories to EngageStories, more so than straight information, keep audiences focused and interested. Implementing stories into your virtual communication is likely to hook them.

Implement ContrastMixing the type of content you present virtually will help your audience pay attention. Their ears will perk when they hear something unexpected..

Offer Helpful Transitions Connect the dots for your audience to help them follow along from beginning to end. Transitions ensure that each segment of your message is seamlessly linked.

VIRTUAL CONTENT

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Keep It Concise

Keep your presentation—and your sentences—short.

Presentation Length

Work-from-home distractions mean your virtual presentation must be shorter than 60 minutes.

Choose only the details you really need, and offer

your message more concisely. Your audience will not only appreciate getting time back, they’ll be more likely to hear everything you say.

Sentence LengthYour audience will absorb your ideas if they’re delivered in shorter bursts. Write sentences with 10 words or fewer

and remove conjunctions such as “and” and “so”.

VIRTUAL CONTENT

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Make Your Intro Memorable

You have about 30 seconds to capture your audience’s attention.

Rather than starting with your name, title, and agenda, try writing something unexpected:

• A stat that wows them

• An interesting quote

• An analogy that ties to your content

• A powerful visual

• A story

Try something immensely different from the cliché introductions they typically hear, and your audience will choose to listen to the rest.

VIRTUAL CONTENT

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Use Stories to Engage

When we can’t be in the room together, stories make us feel as if we are.

There’s a reason we liked bedtime stories as kids and ghost stories around a campfire—they’re engaging. They’re also likely to keep your audience’s

attention no matter how many virtual distractions surround them.

Consider one of these story types for your next virtual communication:

A personal story: Audiences connect

well with vulnerability.

A customer story: Let the audience see themselves in the shoes of people that have been there before them.

A leadership story: Talk about a time when you faced a similar challenge

and describe how you overcame it.

A vignette: Story snippets are impactful and sometimes all you need to make your content feel story-like.

of business professionals say a great story captures their focus and keeps them

engaged with content

VIRTUAL CONTENT

55%

prezi.com/resources/2018-state-of-attention-report/

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Implement Contrast

Give your audience something they weren’t expecting, and their ears will perk.

Imagine driving the same route from home to work. The same car. The same music. The same route. When all the elements are familiar, you give yourself permission to tune out. But when there’s an un-expected accident, or a detour, or heavy traffic, you’re forced to maintain attention.

Your audience, especially a familiar one, is on autopilot when you speak. They expect the expected. But when you surprise your audience with how you talk about your topic, their ears perk. They lean in and pay attention.

Types of Contrast in Content

VIRTUAL CONTENT

Problem

Solution

Before

After

Past

Present

Reality

Possibility

Story

Data Point

What Is

What Could Be

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Offer Helpful Transitions

Transitions are short sentences that tie one content segment to the next—and they’re critical to your audience’s understanding.

If you don’t connect messages for them, they’re likely to miss something important. Be sure to make them natural and conversational, helpful, and interesting.

Make your transitions natural and conversational. A slide change doesn’t mean your content has to

feel separated and siloed. Think of your content as one, seamless, connected story—even when you’re advancing slides.

Helpful transitions answer the questions your audience is asking in their heads. For example, if your audience might be asking themselves, “How are we going to implement that?” your transition could be, “We’re going to implement this in two ways.” Answering the assumptive questions are a great way to connect the dots.

Finally, make your transitions interesting. Rather than using the same, expected transition, think of a way to build some suspense for your next slide by teeing it up before you click on it. For example, “We’ve been waiting for months to reveal this new plan to the team, and we’re excited to unveil it now.”

VIRTUAL CONTENT

Unique, unexpected transitions will grab your audience’s attention and get them ready to hear what’s next.

Alter your visuals for online viewing

Virtual Design

Design is not solely about making things aesthetically pleasing. Design, at its core, is about solving problems.

NANCY DUARTE

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Design Best Practices

Limit One Idea per Slide

There’s no need to fear slide count in a virtual presentation. Your audience’s understanding is more important. Limit each slide to one main point and they’ll easily follow along.

Reduce Visual Noise

Don’t allow your design to prohibit audience connection or understanding. Keep things simple and stick to the basics to ensure they’re not distracted.

Use Design Consistency

There’s no question that virtual design must capture your audience’s attention. But too much flash can divert their attention. Maintain design consistency to help your audience focus.

Create Visual Contrast

Similar to virtual content, contrast rules when designing slides for virtual communication. Use visual hierarchy and contrast to highlight what’s most important.

Vary Your Slide Type

Humans are wired for novelty. New and different things capture our attention. Change a slide’s design and your audience will notice.

VIRTUAL DESIGN

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Limit One Idea per Slide

Contrary to popular belief, the number of slides in your presentation does not necessarily correlate to the length of your presentation.

You can present for an hour on 1 slide or five minutes on 20 slides. We’ve seen both, and the latter is much more interesting. Busy slides cause confusion, especially if you’re showing charts or tables.

When you change your slides often, you limit the

time your audience spends looking at one visual, and they’re more likely to stay interested.

Why does this work?

Consider the “glance media theory”, which states that shoppers in time-limiting environments (such as grocery stores) can’t give media more than a quick glance as they pass by. The media must therefore deliver a message and create a call to action in 2-3 seconds.

VIRTUAL DESIGN

Glance MediaProcessable in 2 seconds

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Reduce Visual Noise

Visual noise describes anything happening on the slide that prohibits audience-presenter connection or negatively impacts audience understanding.

Visual noise may include too much information on one slide, bedazzled graphics, or poorly applied animations

and transitions. To ensure your audience will maintain attention, keep your animations and transitions simple by sticking to the basics.

These animations and transitions also tend to be reliable in lower bandwidth environments. The more complicated the graphic, the more likely you’ll experience slowdowns when presenting. The suggestions on the right are less likely to be affected by low-res environments that tend to accompany virtual platforms.

Reliable Animations

+ Appear

+ Fade / Dissolve

+ Float

+ Simple Motion Paths

+ Zoom

Reliable Transitions

+ Cut

+ Fade

+ Push

VIRTUAL DESIGN

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Use Design Consistency

Color and Fonts

Titles, headings, and body text should each have their own size, style, and color unless you need to cue the audience to something special (think

quote or intro slide). Consistency will help the audience recognize content types in relation to other visuals.

Imagery Style

Icon style, photography, and shapes should be consistent. Apply a family style to icons or use closely-resembled icons. For photos, use similar lighting to

create a consistent tone. If you are using shadows in your shapes, use the same shadow across each one.

Item Emphasis

Emphasize the same objects or text across slides. Be selective about emphasis. If too much is emphasized on a slide, then nothing

will seem emphasized.

VIRTUAL DESIGN

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Create Visual Contrast

Direct attention to what matters most.

Your virtual audience is viewing on smaller screens, so turn up the contrast more than you would for in-person meetings. That way, your audience will see

what you’re trying to show them.

On each slide, guide their eyes by highlighting what’s most important. Ask yourself, ”What’s popping on my screen?” If the part you want to pop isn’t doing so, adjust your design. Use color, font type or size, italics, or a graphic that guides the audience’s eye toward what’s most important.

VIRTUAL DESIGN

75K

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Vary Your Slide Type

Slide variation helps increase your audience’s interest.

While staying within the same color system is critical to maintaining visual consistency, your audience will likely tune out if they see the same type of slide repeatedly. Keep them interested by varying the slide background and choosing some photography, icons, graphics, and text. Changes in slide design alert your audience to topic changes and can cue them that something new and important is happening with your content.

VIRTUAL DESIGN

Adjust the way you look and sound

Virtual Delivery

Your idea's perceived value will be judged not so much on the idea itself, but on how well you can communicate it.

“

NANCY DUARTE

Delivery Best Practices

Voice Is Critical

Whether on audio and video or audio only, your voice is a powerful communication tool. It’s critical that you use it to engage your audience

and demonstrate authority.

Body Movement Matters

Body movement counts whether your camera is on or not. Posture and gestures can make or break your virtual communication. Make

them impactful and congruent with your content.

Audience Connection Rules

Everything you do during a virtual engagement should be in service of the audience. But there are several ways to directly connect with them

and make them feel as if you’re in the room together.

VIRTUAL DELIVERY

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Voice Is Critical

Articulation

Work hard to form your words using your lips, tongue, and jaw so your audience can easily understand you. Open your mouth and round your lips; think of stretching out your words. Articulation is even more critical if you speak with an accent or your presentation contains a lot of multisyllabic words.

Vocal Variety

The best way to put people to sleep on virtual communication is to sound monotone. You need to add excite-ment in your voice if you want people to pay attention.

Find the most important words in your sentences and really punch them by changing your volume, pitch, or pausing before and after the word.

Downward Inflections

Otherwise known as upspeak or uptalk, upward inflections give the impression you’re rambling, asking a question rather than giving a statement, or not standing behind your own ideas. They can rob you of your authority, especially over the phone. To avoid them, speak in short sentences and pause in between.

VIRTUAL DELIVERY

Observe your mouth during your next virtual meeting. If you don’t see much movement, chances are your audience is having a challenging time understanding you.

PRA

CTI

CE

TIPS Read to your kids using character voices or

read newspaper headlines out loud, punching the key word(s) in the headline. Record yourself and notice how you sound.

Place one hand above your head, and on the last word in your sentence, bring your hand swiftly down to your side to encourage a downward inflection in your voice.

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Body Movement Matters

When you’re not in person, you need to use every tool you have to connect with your audience. Your hand movements and how you sit or stand can make a big difference, whether you’re on camera or not.

Gestures

Effective use of your hands can help audiences understand your content. Keep these gesture tips in mind:

• Make them purposeful and meaningful. They should always match your content.

• Drop them occasionally.If they’re always up, they will distract audiences.

• Keep them within the frame of your

camera. They won’t be impactful if your audience can’t see them.

Posture

Whether you choose to sit or stand, the way you hold your body can make a difference to your audience.

If you choose to stand: Stand balanced and grounded from the waist down. Don’t step back and forth or sway on your hips – that will distract your audience.

If you choose to sit: Choose a chair without wheels to prevent swaying. Sit at the front of the chair with your feet flat on the floor and your back upright to avoid poor vocal quality.

VIRTUAL DELIVERY

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Audience Connection Rules

How can you make a direct connection with an audience that’s not in the room with you?

Eye contact and pausing will let them know you care about whether or not they absorb your message.

Eye Contact

Even if the people in your audience don’t have their cameras on, when you look directly at the camera, your

audience will feel as if you’re speaking directly to them.

Place your eyes in a direct line with the lens. You may need to raise your computer to frame yourself well.

Arrange your participant windows closer to your camera lens to help you remember you’re talking to people, not your computer.

Pausing

To fully grasp what you’re saying, your audience needs you to pause in between your sentences. Give them

time to process, especially if your virtual engagement is through audio only, and they don’t have visuals to help them understand.

Note that pauses can feel like forever moments-of-silence to speakers, but to audiences, pauses feel empathetic

and generous.

VIRTUAL DELIVERY

Choose and use the right stuff

Virtual Tech and Set-Up

When new technology is introduced, it changes the way we need to communicate.

NANCY DUARTE

“

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Technology Best Practices

Check Your Technology

Before you start to think about what you’re saying or how you say it, check your tech. You’re at a huge disadvantage if your audience can’t see or hear you well.

Mind Your Visual Appeal

Where you position yourself on camera and the lighting in your room can make or break your visual appeal. Take note of both before you present or meet virtually.

Find the Right Audio

Microphone and headphones are important pieces of equipment for audience attention. The right audio ensures a positive listening experience for all.

Consider Your Background

The right background, whether real or virtual, deserves consideration. Backgrounds can make the difference between a distracted audience or an engaged one.

Position Your Speaker Notes

Looking at the camera and your speaker notes simultaneously is difficult, but it is possible to get your content right while main-taining a connection with your audience.

VIRTUAL TECH AND SET-UP

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Check Your Technology

Avoid unforeseen issues. Double check your tech before your engagement.

When it comes to technology, Murphy’s Law rules. If it can fail, it will. So give yourself time to make sure everything is running optimally:

• Test your internet bandwidth; if it’s poor, use an ethernet cord, avoid using video, or dial in on your phone

• Update your virtual software

• Turn off distracting notifications on your device

• Conduct a test recording to check your audio and video quality

VIRTUAL TECH AND SET-UP

Internet Speed Test

www.speedtest.com

START

Internet Speed Test

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Mind Your Visual Appeal

Positioning

Eye contact is critical when it comes to audience connection. To get it right, reconsider your body position in front

of the camera. The wrong angle can not only impact your ability to connect, it can distract your audience.

Your camera height should be eye level. (Make sure the audience can’t see your ceiling.) Your camera angle should follow the rule of 3rds. (Place

your eyes 1/3 of the way down from the top of your computer.

Lighting

Aim for natural light to hit the front of your face.

If you can’t change your setup, defuse bright back or side light using curtains, blinds, or even a sheet.

If natural light isn’t an option at all, use a lamp or LED light strips to better front-light your face. Tip: when it comes to artificial lighting, warmth matters. Aim for a light source between 2700k and 3000k. Anything higher will be too harsh.

What Not To Do

VIRTUAL TECH AND SET-UP

Too much ceiling Speaker is too low

Speaker is too high Backlit

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Find the Right Audio

When communicating virtually, your voice is the most important tool at your disposal, so you should always prioritize the quality of your audio. Adjust your microphone and your audio connection to help your audience hear you loud and clear.

Wired headset

Standard earbuds that manually connect to your phone or computer work great. You can upgrade to a recording-quality headset or microphone, but it’s probably not necessary.

VIRTUAL TECH AND SET-UP

Laptop microphoneIf you have a newer computer and a room that absorbs sound well, your laptop microphone is a fine option. If not, your voice may sound echo-y and background sound may be obvious to your audience.

Avoid BluetoothBluetooth-connected audio tends to sound poorest compared to other options because adding layers of technology reduces audio quality.

Avoid conference linesAvoid connecting your audio through a dial-in phone conference line. Audio quality is better through your computer.

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Consider Your Background

Simplicity is key when it comes to your virtual background. Whether you choose a natural setting or a digital one, your background can encourage or discourage audience attention.

Real backgrounds

Showcase your personality by curating the wall space behind you with family pictures, artwork, or plants. Personal items offer opportunities to tell your audience something about you – you can even mention them as part of your introduction. The key is to keep it simple. If you can’t curate your space, declutter. Hanging simple drapes or sheets behind you works well in a pinch.

Digital backgrounds

Don’t let digital backgrounds distract your audience. They can be fun for low-stakes internal meetings or to effectively distinguish your team when working with external clients, but for more serious interactions, they can be distracting and unprofessional. You should be the most interesting thing in your video frame, not your background.

VIRTUAL TECH AND SET-UP

If your real background is cluttered and you must go digital, choose a simple one.

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Position Your Speaker Notes

If you need to read or reference your content during your virtual presentation, you may have a difficult

time balancing audience eye contact with looking at your notes. There are two fixes for that.

+ Place a large desktop monitor behind your laptop, raised to a position where your notes are behind your laptop camera.

+ Place your notes window as close to your camera as possible.

VIRTUAL TECH AND SET-UP

Place notes directly below your camera

Not in the corner or side of the screen

Test your setup with a colleague to ensure they feel a connection.

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Remember to Put the Audience First

Impactful virtual communication is rooted in empathy.

If you create your virtual presentation with an audience-first mindset, you’ll likely overcome the biggest challenge in virtual communication: grabbing and holding your audience’s attention.

More importantly, you’ll leave your audience feeling empowered and inspired. Your empathy might just spark an improvement in engagement and productivity across your organization. And that’s something we can all get behind.

IN CLOSING

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Want to Learn More?

Virtual Communication

How to Lead Better Virtual Meetings

Facilitating Virtual Collaboration: Tips and Tricks for Being Creative Virtually

Tips to Make the Most of Your Virtual Communication Experience

Webinar: Presenting with Empathy in Virtual Comms

Design

4 Principles To Live By When You Design Presentations

5 Simple Tweaks for Killer TED Talk Slides

How to Select the Best Photos for Slide Backgrounds

5 Popular PowerPoint How-To Questions Answered in One Place

Content

Use Contrast in the Middle of a Presentation to Transform

Finding the Right Presentation Metaphors for Your Audience

How to Effectively Repurpose a Presentation for Different Crowds

How to Write a Great Talk: Murder Your Darlings

Delivery

To Become A Powerful Public Speaker Master These Qualities

Facial Expressions Matter When Presenting

Webinar: From Stage Fright to Stage Presence

3 Speaking Skills That Will Help You Communicate Data

Tech and Set-up

Step Up Your Virtual Setup: Quick Fixes to Look and Sound Great From Anywhere

Get More From Your Virtual Platform: Confessions of an Accidental Platform Expert

RESOURCESAdditional resources at duarte.com

EMAIL US ACADEMY TRAINING

Call us. +1 650.625.8200

AGENCY SERVICES

Let us help you communicate your best, virtually.