Public Speaking Online

Most everything has moved online, including public speaking.  Many professional conferences now include both real-time and asynchronous online presentations.  It’s usual for people in many professionals to have online meetings.  Training in many professions has moved online.  So it’s important to know how to speak online as well as face to face.

Online vs. Face-to-Face

You might think speaking to a virtual audience would be easier than speaking to an audience in person. After all, you use tools like social media to communicate with others. And speaking online would seemingly remove the anxiety many of us feel when speaking to a live audience. So, online should be easier than speaking in person, right?

Well, maybe not. As speech communication scholar Stephen Lucas writes, “In an online speech you have to do everything you would do for an in-person speech—and more.”^[1]

In many ways, a speech presented online is just like a speech presented in person. As a speaker you want to have a clear purpose (e.g., to inform, persuade, entertain) and focus. You want to include clear main points with supporting details appropriate to your audience’s needs and the speech’s purpose and context. You also want to adapt the style and delivery of your speech to your particular audience.

However, one of the biggest differences between speaking in person and speaking online is that when you speak online your audience is not right in front of you in the same room. In some online speaking situations, you may have the faces of your audience available to you, but more often than not you won’t be able to see your audience.

Not seeing your audience means you are missing the nonverbal cues that can help a speaker understand whether their audience is engaged and understands the speech or is instead disengaged or confused.

The following video presents similarities and differences between online and face-to-face public speaking.

Here is the video with accurate captions: Public Speaking Through Mediated Presentations (opens in new window).

Synchronous vs. Asynchronous

There are two basic types of online speeches, synchronous and asynchronous.

Synchronous Online Speeches

Synchronous speeches are where you give your speech online in real time to a live online audience. Typically with synchronous speeches, the speaker and audience are using some kind of web conferencing or virtual communication software such as Zoom, Skype, or Google Hangouts to be virtually present together for the speech. The audience may be all physically located in a single space such as a classroom or conference room to view the speech or they may not be gathered together and instead be watching from a computer or mobile device in their home or office.

When giving a synchronous speech, a speaker may have the ability to get feedback from the audience in real time and adapt their speech as a result of that feedback.

Asynchronous Online Speeches

Asynchronous speeches are not delivered in real time to a live online audience, but are instead recorded for viewing at a later time convenient for the audience. Typically, asynchronous speeches will be delivered straight to a camera with no audience present. In an asynchronous speaking situation, the speaker cannot receive feedback from their virtual audience and so must prepare their speech accordingly.

There are some types of speeches that combine synchronous and asynchronous elements. For instance, in some cases a speaker talks in front of a live audience and a recording of the speech is posted online for a virtual audience to view. The best known example of this kind of speech delivered to a live audience and posted online would be a TED Talk. More commonly, online meetings or webinars are recorded so that they can be viewed later, hence both synchronous and asynchronous.

In this video, second graders discover that their synchronous session is actually being recorded. You don’t have to be afraid of asynchronous online speech! But you should be aware that it’s being recorded for posterity, and behave accordingly.

You can view the transcript for “‘We’re toast” here (opens in new window (opens in new window).

Here is the video with accurate captions: “We’re toast:” Teacher drops off Zoom call and 2nd graders hilariously try to behave (opens in new window).

Engaging an Online Audience

In many cases, when you speak online you cannot see your audience. Perhaps you are recording a speech that won’t be watched in real time. Of if you are speaking in real time to an audience, you may not be able to see or hear your audience because their cameras or microphones are not turned on.

And if you can see your audience, it may be a very different kind of experience than you have when giving a speech to a live audience. Your audience may, for example, appear in tiny boxes on the screen and, if so, you may only be able to see a portion of your audience at any one time. This reality can make it challenging to remember you are speaking to an audience rather than to a computer screen.

However, if you can, try to learn about your audience to better understand their beliefs or attitudes about the subject of your speech.

Presentation aids like slides can be very effective when used online. However, resist the tendency some speakers have to make their speech essentially a narrated slideshow where their face is seen only briefly, if at all, in the beginning and end of the presentation. Instead, use slides selectively to emphasize key points or show visuals that will help explain important concepts.

Some software that speakers use online provides the speaker opportunities to get interaction from an audience. The software you are using might allow you to poll your audience about a question. Or you might be able to ask for virtual “raised hands” in response to a question. These tools can be valuable ways to engage your audience and solicit feedback from them.

You may have access to real-time text chat or you may have the ability to allow audience members to speak and respond to questions. If you do have these options, be aware that using them takes some practice and they can be distracting to pay attention to. If you use them, you may want to use them selectively and only at certain points in your speech so they don’t distract you from your message.