You’re Losing Influence Online—Here’s Why (And How To Fix It!) Feat. Andrew Brodsky

Here are the top 10 key takeaways from Ed Mylett's podcast with virtual communication expert Andrew Brodsky that will transform how you connect, influence, and succeed in our digital-first world.

1. Virtual communication dominates all relationships regardless of location

The traditional debate about remote versus in-person work misses the fundamental shift in how we communicate. Whether you're sitting two feet away from a colleague or working from home, most interactions now happen through digital channels. Even office workers send instant messages instead of walking over to someone's desk to avoid interrupting them constantly.

This reality extends beyond work environments into personal relationships. Family members in the same house often text each other rather than speak face-to-face. The key insight is that mastering virtual communication has become essential for everyone, not just remote workers. We've all become digital communicators by default.

2. Perspective-taking becomes critically impaired in virtual settings

When communicating virtually, people become significantly more self-focused compared to in-person interactions. In face-to-face conversations, the other person dominates your visual field, naturally encouraging consideration of their perspective. During virtual interactions, you're looking at a small square on your screen while simultaneously seeing yourself, creating a self-centered communication environment.

This shift leads to messages we would never say if the person were standing directly in front of us. The lack of immediate human presence reduces our natural empathy and consideration for others. Understanding this psychological shift is crucial for improving virtual communication effectiveness.

Research demonstrates we're overconfident about our ability to convey emotions through text-based communication. We hear the intended emotion in our heads while writing, assuming others will interpret it the same way. However, recipients lack this internal context and often misinterpret the emotional tone completely.

3. Audio communication provides the optimal balance for difficult conversations

When dealing with challenging conversations that require emotional sensitivity, audio-only communication offers unique advantages over both text and video. While email and text feel safer because they seem to hide emotions better, they actually represent the worst choice for sensitive topics. Video calls can reveal unintended facial expressions or grimaces that undermine your message.

Audio strikes the perfect middle ground by demonstrating high effort and care while masking potentially problematic non-verbal cues. A phone call shows significantly more consideration than an email for serious matters. Recipients can hear your tone and inflection, which conveys sincerity and emotion effectively.

This approach works particularly well for surface acting situations where your internal emotional state doesn't match what you need to express professionally. Audio allows you to control your vocal presentation without worrying about facial expressions betraying conflicting emotions.

4. Small talk builds essential trust but requires intentional integration

Virtual interactions naturally reduce small talk by about one-third compared to in-person meetings. This reduction significantly impacts relationship building, trust development, and overall communication effectiveness. Research with negotiators showed that those who engaged in just five minutes of phone-based socializing before text negotiations achieved better outcomes for both parties.

Small talk fills crucial knowledge gaps about people that enable trust. We trust what we know, and without information about someone's weekend activities, family, or interests, they remain an anonymous entity. This anonymity makes collaboration and positive relationships much more difficult to establish and maintain.

The solution involves deliberately scheduling time for connection in virtual meetings. Setting clear agendas that include five to eight minutes for relationship building, followed by structured business discussion, prevents meetings from becoming either all social or completely impersonal. This intentional approach ensures both productivity and relationship maintenance.

5. Visual cues and background details significantly impact professional perception

Your virtual presence communicates volumes about your professionalism and respect for others before you speak a single word. Taking meetings from your car, dressing unprofessionally, or having distracting backgrounds sends negative signals about your commitment and seriousness. These visual elements become especially important when seeking investment, partnership, or client relationships.

Eye contact proves particularly challenging in virtual settings since cameras and screens are typically positioned differently. Looking at the person on your screen makes it appear to them that you're looking away. Successful virtual communicators position others' video feeds directly below their cameras or invest in equipment that aligns these elements properly.

Professional dress, appropriate backgrounds, and attention to camera positioning demonstrate respect for the relationship and meeting importance. These details become magnified in virtual settings where visual information is limited, making each visible element more impactful than it would be in person.

6. The ping framework provides systematic approach to virtual excellence

The PING framework offers a comprehensive system for virtual communication improvement. P represents perspective-taking, acknowledging that virtual settings make us more self-focused. I stands for initiative, recognizing that each communication mode has strengths and weaknesses requiring proactive compensation.

N covers non-verbal elements, from typos conveying emotion in emails to background choices in video calls. G focuses on goals, emphasizing that no single communication mode works best for every situation. The optimal choice depends entirely on what you're trying to achieve in that specific interaction.

This framework helps organize the complex landscape of virtual communication options. Rather than defaulting to familiar modes, it encourages strategic selection based on situational requirements and desired outcomes.

7. Communication mode selection signals relationship value and importance

The communication channel you choose sends an implicit message about how much you value the relationship and conversation. Receiving an email about serious personal matters from a close friend feels cold and distant compared to a phone call or visit. The effort level associated with different modes communicates care and consideration.

However, this hierarchy isn't universal across all situations. Sometimes efficiency matters more than relationship signaling, particularly for routine information sharing or when working with established relationships. The key lies in matching the mode to both the content importance and relationship stage.

Voice notes occupy an interesting middle ground, showing more effort than text while remaining asynchronous. They work particularly well for adding context and emotion when text-based conversations go sideways, though they can feel burdensome for recipients due to time investment and difficulty referencing later.

8. Overcrafting communications creates anxiety without improving outcomes

Spending excessive time crafting emails or messages creates a counterproductive cycle. Beyond a certain point, additional editing and revision doesn't improve message effectiveness and can actually make it worse. Overcrafted messages often bleed anxiety, with recipients sensing the sender's stress through overly cautious language and excessive qualifiers.

The spotlight effect explains why we overestimate the importance of our individual messages. We assume recipients will scrutinize and remember our communications far more than they actually do. Most people receive over 100 messages weekly and forget individual communications almost immediately after responding.

Finding the middle ground involves ensuring messages are professional and error-free without falling into the anxiety trap of endless revision. Once you start feeling anxious about a message and aren't genuinely improving it, it's time to send it and move forward.

9. Strategic engagement techniques combat virtual meeting fatigue

Virtual meeting fatigue stems largely from staring at ourselves during calls, which creates unusual psychological stress. Shorter meetings with fewer participants consistently outperform longer sessions with larger groups for engagement and productivity. The key lies in varying activities and interaction types throughout virtual sessions.

Successful virtual presenters mix video clips, polls, volunteer activities, and chat engagement to maintain attention. Chat during meetings can actually enhance participation by allowing normally quiet participants to contribute thoughts throughout the discussion. This parallel conversation stream increases overall engagement when managed properly.

The cameras-on versus cameras-off debate should be goal-dependent rather than following rigid rules. Early relationship building benefits from cameras on for trust development. Established teams working on routine tasks may benefit from cameras off to reduce fatigue and increase focus on content rather than appearance concerns.

10. Artificial intelligence requires careful boundaries in important communications

AI can serve valuable roles in brainstorming, editing, and handling routine communications, but important interactions demand authentic human input. The risk lies in recipients detecting AI usage, which can retroactively damage trust in all previous communications. Once someone suspects you've used AI for communication, they question the authenticity of your entire relationship.

AI-generated messages often use vocabulary or phrasing that doesn't match your natural communication style. Words like "proficient" or "elevate" can signal artificial generation. Additionally, AI lacks context about recent conversations or shared experiences, leading to potentially awkward mismatches between digital and in-person interactions.

The safest approach reserves AI for low-stakes, repetitive communications while ensuring your own words drive important relationship-building conversations. Your unique knowledge, context, and communication style provide value that AI cannot replicate, making authentic communication your competitive advantage in meaningful relationships.