Are ‘Twitch streamers’ the new 'TED speakers' for online presentations?!

Sergio Benavent
Feb 18, 2021
3 min read

Updated: Apr 2, 2021

While we often turn to TED speakers as inspiration for our 'face-to-face' presentations, this article highlights how TWITCH streamers might be the inspiration for our online presentations.

Face-fo-face and online presentations are different

In the past months during the pandemic, we probably all have seen charismatic presenters who normally leave our usual business rooms with rounds of applause turned into deafening silence when presenting online. Beautifully crafted decks to present to their teams and well rehearsed to ensure they all will be carefully listening. The Zoom call starts and we observe an almost empty chatbox, no answer to their our open-ended questions or complete apathy while sharing business results or conclusions of an analysis. If this happens to them, how to avoid that it happens to us?

''Presenting online the SAME CONTENT in the SAME WAY as face-to-face leads to FAILURE''

3 BIG barriers to overcome online

1/ A bigger gap to bridge

Let’s face it, it’s human, there is a bigger gap to close in a virtual meeting than a real face-to-face gathering. Think about those new hires or new members arriving into teams that they have never met or even seen... In a new world where virtual meetings have become the norm, we need to spend more time to bridge the gap between us, the presenters, and our audience.

2/ The battle for attention is fiercer than ever

Working from home is giving us lots of freedom (like wearing pyjamas for a business call) but also is turning our calls into an unprecedented battle... for attention. Let’s be fair here: there are many things which our audience can do except listening to us (eg. check their smartphone, read a memo, get a coffee) or which could prevent us be properly listening to a presenter (eg. noisy kids at home, pets requesting for attention). This is a battle against unwanted distractions which require us as presenters to bring more energy if we don’t want to lose the fight.

3/ Our deck is on stage

In a room, we are on stage stimulating our audience while our deck is enhancing our performance in the background. In a virtual room, our deck is on stage and we are often just a voice in the background. We must think differently about the role of our deck/support materials and think about how to stimulate our audience’s senses even remotely.

''While I would have turned my eyes to TED for inspiration, my 13-year old advised me to turn them to TWITCH''

TWITCH Streamers can inspire us to overcome those

While I would have turned my eyes to TED speakers for inspiration, my 13-year old advised me to turn them to TWITCH streamers*. Twitch is a live-streaming platform that is used for content streaming by everyone from professional broadcasters to amateurs. Live streaming lets you engage with your audience in real time – with a video feed, chat and more. What might look at first glance as a ‘thing’ for youngsters and hardcore gamers turns out to be an unexpected inspiration. WHY? Those streamers are masters at:

being able to bridge with people they have never met or seen
bringing high levels of energy at key moments to catch the attention of their followers when it matters
stimulating the senses of their audience to keep them engaged not only for a few minutes but sometimes hours.

Don't wait. Get trained and evolve your skills

In 90min you and your teams can be equipped with principles and practical tools that you can immediately use to ge the most of your next presentations. At the end you will know how to:

connect with your entire audience even with people you don’t see or don’t know
catch their attention and keep them engaged when it matters the most
use a range of tactics to keep your audience’s senses stimulated

Group size: 10-15 people (max 20)

Target audience: