Recognize that if you are an executive at your company, presenting at an online meeting will be far more effective at reaching out to your employees or customers than having the same online presentation made by an employee in a lower position. Different types of presentations will require varying presentation styles. An all hands style meeting with your employees may require a more laid-back, no tie, regular-guy approach, whereas presenting to prospective clients likely require the opposite. Before making an online presentation, ask these important questions of your staff:

• Who is the audience that I will be presenting to?
• How long do you want me to speak?
• What type of presentation do you want me to make?
• What types of presentations have worked in the past?
• Are there any particular subjects that I should avoid?

You may know the answers to most of these questions. The value in asking them is to initiate a dialog with your staff. If you disagree with your staff, then counter with offers to provide what you consider appropriate. The key here is to establish a mutual understanding of what you will say and how it contributes to the web conference or online presentation. This avoids surprises for you, other presenters, and the audience. It also avoids embarrassing mistakes.

Recent IBM surveys consisting of over 1200 companies have shown that more than 60% of small and medium businesses (SMBs) consider collaboration tools vital to their business success and growth.

Improved and simplified collaboration tools such as video conferencing will allow everyone in the company to teleconference with anyone in the world. These new tools will put the power and control of IT in the hands of the business owner without the need for specialized skills or excessive IT staff.

SMBs will use audio and video teleconference technology to collaborate more easily far beyond their physical location, and will create extended communities built on the Web. These communities will allow them to function as “secure virtual enterprises” on the same scale as much larger companies.

While the cost of professional-grade software may have hindered SMB investment in conferencing technology previously, more online web conference tools are breaking down that barrier. Many of these tools such as InstantPresenter require no software or hardware to buy, install, maintain or upgrade. By running programs from these subscription-based websites, SMBs can focus on their core competencies without incurring the high IT maintenance costs.

The majority of web meetings today consist of a phone teleconference with a presenter scrolling through PowerPoint slides. While this usually gets the information across, it lacks the personal connection and audience engagement required for the buy-in. With small and medium businesses continually increasing their use of web conference technology, the focus needs to be on customer engagement.

Using live audio and video throughout your entire web conference will create a personal connection between you and your audience. Develop a lens presence. Presenting to a camera with no feedback is vastly different than presenting to a live audience. Look directly into the camera and speak naturally. Don’t over-script your presentation or read directly from the slides. Your confidence and familiarity with your presentation will do much more to sell your idea than mere PowerPoint slides alone.

Audience members of a webinar don’t have to worry about the embarrassment of looking bored or even dozing off during a presentation. As a presenter, you need to keep your energy level up if you expect your audience to do the same. Speak loudly and clearly and stay on topic. Keep your audience engaged. Studies show that audience retention drastically drops after 30-45 minutes unless the content is extremely interesting. Regularly take questions and conduct polls from your audience.

Webinars allow you to collaborate with customers more quickly, and over longer distances with huge cost savings on travel and travel expenses. As the technology grows however, so must your ability to appropriately use that technology for the maximum benefit for you and your audience.

Video based conferencing can save your company and your clients an untold amount of time and money. The convenience of being able to meet with your employees regardless of their location saves travel expenses and travel time… time that can more effectively be used completing other tasks. Webinars allow you to touch more clients than you would ever be able to gather in a single meeting place at a single time. More clients = more business. Video conferencing has become an essential tool in today’s business place.

While everyone realizes the benefits of interactive web conferencing and webinars, not all presenters realize the importance of being able to fluidly control their presentation. How many times have you been in an on-line conference where slide transition and controls are out of sync and the presenter spends half of the time blaming the software? More often than not, the software is function correctly, and the presenter is trying to misdirect his lack of preparation.

You wouldn’t make an important presentation without reading over your notes and making sure you’re familiar with the A/V equipment. The same goes for an on-line presentation. Spend some time running through your entire presentation, and read through the Help and FAQ pages of how to operate and navigate the software. If you have any questions that you can’t find an answer to on-line, contact your video conferencing provider and they will work with you to make sure that you understand the software and answer any questions you may have. If they aren’t so helpful, you should consider finding a new video conferencing software provider.