Think about it – you get into any video conversation super easy – simply at the click of a button. And while it is a brilliant opportunity, there is a downside – it is also super easy to get out.

It is a low-risk opportunity for you – you did not have to travel by plane, train, or car to attend our conference and Mark’s session. You put little to no resources into it and because of that, you already rate the content lower than when you have put more risk into it. So, what are your options?

As a solution to that, Mark recommends welcoming your audience into your house in an engaging interaction right away. Keeping it social brings you closer and creates a social obligation for them to stay and listen.

Moreover, every time you stand in front of a screen to watch another human being, you expect to watch and not interact. Your audience does the same, they show up ready to be passive. You have to break that pattern by engaging them and getting them invested. But how do you do that?

Introduce them to a community in which you are involved, Mark said. Invite them to the social space you have created. We are in each other’s homes. Imagine somebody came over to your house and said nothing at all. That would be odd, right?

By pointing at his friends printed on his The Behavioral Panel coffee cup Mark is welcoming the audience into a community.

Eye contact tells your audience that they are safe and paid attention to because we all have a bias towards a person who holds strong eye contact. Let yourself be visible and look at the camera.

Then Mark explained the power of the Duchenne smile, where both sides of your mouth turn up and your eyes wrinkle, and how it triggers your audience into feeling that you already have an intimate relationship with them.

What Mark also does is a lot of open hands gestures that follow the beat of his speech. Why is that useful? It aids the audience to understand you through your movement as well. It helps them grasp the words you are saying when they can sense words not just on your lips but also in your motions. Your audience’s brains love to see hands move and get thrilled when they see individuals being dexterous.

Mark explains that strong eye contact is linked to increased dopamine levels in the body – the “neurotransmitter of optimism”.

If you think that your background is not that important – you are wrong. We establish a personal relationship with the individual and the environment in which we see them.

It gives your viewers an understanding of your values and helps them judge you properly. For example, if you display books, it suggests that you respect information, and if you have a photo of your kids in view, it implies that you value family, and so on.

When asked about virtual backgrounds, Mark stated that he does not mind them but advised to avoid using any picture with which you have no connection. You’d be losing on the impact it could have because you can let your audience see in seconds something that would take minutes to explain.

We could not stop ourselves from asking about Mark’s lamps in the background. He says that they serve two functions – they offer the audience a sense of space ownership which equates to authority, and the second reason is that they make a room feel brighter, warmer, and more welcoming. This is something that film has been using for decades, and art has used them for millennia.

Place a smiley face behind the camera to get triggered to smile at the audience.