How to make remote presentations and meetings more memorable with body language

Some tips around remote presentations. Gestures are vitally important for speakers when presenting in any format. However, presenting remotely presents additional challenges.

When you  are speaking ‘live’ to an audience in a room,  it is easier to build a natural connection. People may be sitting near you,  so you can easily catch their eye. Perhaps you have chatted to them beforehand over coffee and built up some rapport. You can also more easily pick up signals as to how well whether they are understanding you.

Conversely, when you are remote, such as  on  a video-call, the audience can also feel more distant. It is easier for them to be distracted when they are not seated right in front of you. Furthermore,  it is harder to see their reactions and in many remote talks you may not see the audience at all.

Perhaps the biggest challenge is that when you viewed on a laptop or even a screen in a room,  your energy and impact is diminished.  The camera seems to remove your energy so that when the audience see you on the screen,  it just doesn’t have the same impact.

Therefore , as a remote presenter you need  compensate by lifting your energy and being even more emphatic. One way to do this is through making sure you use strong body language,  and in particular, clear gestures.

By using gestures and other body language, we can help other people understand us more easily. Gesturing is also proven to help us be more articulate.

More benefits of descriptive gestures include:

They ‘paint’ pictures so the audience literally ‘see’ what you mean.

It’s less mental effort for people to understand

They add energy and conviction and help you bring ideas alive with emotion

Research by Robert Krauss at Columbia University found that gesturing helps us marshal our thoughts, find our words and be more fluent.

To utilise your body language and come across naturally in remote presentations and meetings – try the tips below:

Position your screen so people can see you from the waist up

When you do this your colleagues will  have a wide view of your upper body and can see your gestures as you speak.

Sit up straight

Avoid slouching or sitting casually when you speak. An upright posture will help you come across as confident and credible.

Look into the camera
Work on looking into the camera to provide a more natural conversation.  People will feel as if you really are looking at them Avoid glancing around.

Use your hands naturally

Practice letting your hands move as they would in a normal conversation. You will find yourself repeating the gestures that work well.

Paint pictures with gestures

Let your gestures paint pictures. You can describe size, movement, shape and much more. Be literal, for example, a winding river needs a winding gesture to give a visual sense and a feel for it.

Describe abstract concepts with gestures

Just as we use gestures to paint pictures of concrete things, we can do the same with abstract concepts, so an upward gesture can show an upward trend.

Allow ‘daylight’ between arms and body

Do not keep your upper arms ‘stuck’ to your body; it looks odd and restricts the width of gestures. Instead, move your arms away from you so there is ‘daylight’ between your arms and body; it looks much better.

Make your gestures the right size

Describing a house with small gestures makes it look like a doll’s house. Instead, make your gestures reflect the size of what you are describing. A big mountain requires a big gesture and a tiny insect needs a small gesture.

Use the full ‘canvas’

If you do not open up your gestures, it is like an artist with a huge canvas who paints only in the middle of it. Instead, open your arms wide to find the full width of your canvas. This is the range of your gestures. It might feel big, but to the audience it looks fine.

Be clear and deliberate

Do not make really fast gestures or flit about. When you do this, it is like a television picture shimmering and people cannot follow so well. The exception is when you are purposely describing something that really is very fast or erratic.

Hold a gesture still to maximise the effect

To indicate something solid like a wall, you need to hold your gesture still. You may have seen a mime artist pretending to be inside a box. They ‘push’ their hands against the sides of the imaginary box. This is a good example of holding a gesture.

When gesturing with one arm keep the other by your side

You want people to focus only on the gesturing arm so keep the other arm still at your side.

TIP – Start gesturing right from the start — it gets you into the ‘swing’ of it.

When you use gestures in this way you will instantly increase your energy and impact.  Your audience will be more engaged and find it much easier to follow you and to recall what you said.

By Graham Shaw who is a speaker coach, Business Book Awards finalist as the author of The Speaker’s Coach: 60 secrets to make your talk, speech or presentation amazing, published by Pearson

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