The Five+ Training Principles That Keep Online Audiences Riveted

Are you facing a sea of Zoom names as you try to engage an audience in online training? People turn off their cameras and go do their dishes. They’re on their phones. Or heck, sometimes, they leave the room altogether. There’s no magic potion that snags and keeps the attention of our online audience. But we do know certain principles engage and ignite the people we train.

The Five Principles of Keeping Online Audiences Riveted

1. Make the training valuable to them and show them how it adds value to their lives and work. If it’s not valuable, you’ll lose them.
2. Keep each session short with frequent breaks for trainees to have time to absorb and apply the information. If you don’t give them time during the training, they’ll take it themselves.
3. Use breakout rooms and peer-to-peer teaching. People often learn best what they teach to others.
4. Tell stories and keep them fun, funny, and still relevant. Keep them personal (as in your stories, not ones that happened to a friend or colleague). Leave sufficient time for that sort of interaction. It’s better to train fewer topics but train them effectively.
   1. Bonus! Ask your participants to share their own stories. You’ll be amazed at how well that works.
5. Make the entire training interactive. (Play a game during training. I play something I call, “Lingo!” I develop a board where I’ll use certain words during the training that will be on that board. The first person to get Lingo! wins a prize. My audiences love the interaction, and the prize is always something that will add value to their work.

A bonus sixth principle to employ at the beginning. Unless you dozens of people in the training, ask everyone to introduce themselves and tell you something they do for fun at the beginning. It takes some time, but it will help them feel engaged. And it’ll give you more possible examples and teachable moments if you can incorporate their hobbies into the training. It means you need to think on your feet. But isn’t that why we got into training in the first place? If we didn’t like to think on our feet, we’d be in a different profession altogether.

So, keep your trainees engaged and having fun. That’s how they’ll stick around, interact, and learn.

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