What are Virtual meetings?
Remote work meetings are running hand to hand with every personal, professional or educational purpose. The entire global system has shifted towards quarantine at home, during the pandemic of Covid-19 and hence physical meetings have adapted to a new shape of online/virtual meetings and remote work. These meetings have transformed into multitudes which have not only opened avenues for people to be a part of online meetings from anywhere around the world, but also has given people the opportunity to transform the way meetings are conducted.
Remote-friendly ways are the major part of the working of virtual meetings. Virtual meetings are best to conduct with team members overseas. Travel and financial costs are reduced. Greater flexibility is one of the most time-effective and one can attend meetings from the comfort of their homes. Internet meetings are more comfortable for anyone with any discomfort or any issue with attending meetings in person.
As we are bombarded with so much online information, and constantly rummaging between daily tasks and virtual meetings might be boring for some, we often lose focus of the meeting. The information just passes over the head. Hence, it is very important to make your participants engaged in the meeting. A lack of feeling of closeness and reachability affects one greatly also.
The job then lands over to the meeting host to make the people engaged throughout the meeting.
Turn your scripts into a series of questions
The script and the agenda of your questions should be turned into a series of questionnaires or an engaging dialogue format.
Plan ahead!
Do not go unprepared and make sure your content is interesting enough, especially the words you are going to speak. There are alot of content writers who can bring the best content writing services on your table so they can help you make more appealing scripts for you.
If you ask a few questions, the participants of the meeting will also be engaged. If you are the only person talking, it puts a really boastful impression on the participants.
If you want to make this even more interactive and quick, you can use a specific questionnaire along with digital strategies like SMS reminders, text reminders, and even emails.
This Email has a series of questions for the customer to fill in before the meeting starts.
This helps you answer better and gives a 90% chance of turning that customer into a lead!
Create a Roadmap
Always remember to create a rough draft, a link map or just basic rough notes beforehand, in order to be better equipped with what you are about to present.
Make sure your Presentation slides, if any, are up-to-date and highly organised. They should be in a proper order and with clear text, images or videos. If you want to leave any comments or must-haves for the audience beforehand to be prepared.
Organize your knowledge into 10- to 15-minute intervals for longer meetings. Shorter attention spans are addressed, and everyone remains involved and focused. Make it evident when you've concluded each piece – perhaps by modifying the tempo of your delivery – so that attendees are expected to move on to the next.
Send out login credentials to everyone involved several days ahead of time. Include the URL, the agenda, a list of attendees, and the meeting's start and end timings, if possible.
Also, allocate someone to deal with any technology problems that may develop during the meeting. You will be able to focus exclusively on steering the debate if you assign this duty.
Decide Time and Test Run the Application
Time of your audience or participants should be valued and cared for. The time should be defined, the number of slides etc.
Consider everyone's time zone while planning the meeting. Try not to schedule that during a participant's working hours. If you can't avoid it, personally check in with them to ensure that the time is appropriate. If you have regular meetings with the same team members, try rescheduling them so that they don't have to appear before or after the rest.
Test run the application at least a few hours before the actual meeting. If it crashes or causes some technical issue at the last moment it will be too embarrassing and a turn-off for the participants.
You can choose Zoom or Meetfox for effective meetings.
Invite Relevant People
Avoid inviting people that are not directly involved in the meeting or the organization process. Even if you need a certain audience number or count, then make sure you have created a proper lobby or enable proper system settings where anyone can only unmute and pitch in, if the moderator or host allows.
Another frequent ground rule is to request the participants mute their microphones until they are ready to talk; this minimizes distracting background noise.
Before speaking, ask everyone to state their names if the call is solely audio. People in the group will be able to follow who said what this way.
Last but not least, encourage everyone to limit any distractions to a minimum, such as background noise.
Select the Appropriate Technology
Examine your plan to choose the best platform to employ. The ideal site for a short "check-in" might not be the best platform for brainstorming or making decisions.
Before determining which platform to use, provide each one a detailed analysis. Some features, such as web polling (which makes it easy to gauge people's opinions) and online whiteboards (which are useful for group brainstorming sessions), may be worth paying more money for.
Understand that video conferencing or call conferencing has both pros and cons.
Begin with a conversation starter
With ice breakers, you can jumpstart dialogue and overcome hesitation. Conducting a fun icebreaker can assist to engage the right brain, create the tone for creativity and participation, and make your guests comfortable speaking and communicating with each other as well - all of which are ideal circumstances for a fruitful virtual meeting.
Make interactive polls that are entertaining
Live polls and surveys are a great way to break up the monotony and show off your results in real time. Polls and surveys, in addition to being a fun way to keep your participants informed, may also be used as a decision-making tool in virtual meetings, offering attendees to vote on follow-up activities and next steps.
Invite feedback
Feedback is a critical part of improving your online meetings. Marketing teams now automate their process of user feedback. Connecting Google Sheets and Gravity Forms come in handy during such cases. Ask your attendees what they enjoyed most, what they liked least, and what they would like to see next time. Collecting this valuable feedback allows you to continue fine-tuning your virtual conference to better engage your audience, increase attendance, and establish connections. Poll Everywhere allows you to aggregate this data over time and make decisions on a macro-level.
It's just as difficult to build an interesting presentation for even an online event as it would be to maintain the attendees' attention. Enhance the interactivity of any discussion, lecture, or keynote with Poll Everywhere seamless integration with Google Slides, Keynote, and PowerPoint.
Do some virtual dance
Everyone sits too much these days, so any chance to get up and move around should be applauded, but not everyone who arrives will be up for it. Some of the people in your group might be hesitant. There are still options available to those individuals. Before they boogie down, they should feel free to turn off their camera. Alternatively, individuals might be taught to stand and stretch.
Make use of Games
Gamification tactics can be a simple and effective way to incorporate two-way communication, increase participation, and encourage active listening in meetings. Games may bring a sense of joy to an otherwise drab and uninspiring setting. Participating in a lighthearted competition could reinforce team bonds and provide opportunity for a quick discussion or conversation.
I don’t know what game this is, but it's definitely something everyone’s having fun at!
Here are some Suggestions:
- Take a quiz
- Play a small online game
- Or just through some smart riddles at your audience
- Word association requires somewhat more mental acuity, but it's a delightful method to get people to communicate in a predetermined order. The game continues until no other words may be added to the chain.
Add Visual Content
In several instances, visual learning trumps auditory learning and recall. Visual cues elicit emotions and assist in the comprehension and retention. An infographic is sometimes a better approach to deliver information to a large group of people.
Visual images and videos make the content more appealing for the audience to underlook. Also, it is quicker to grasp than long pieces of articles.
Make sure to use the right video formats for your video.
Conclusion
Meetings , especially virtual ones, are a great tool to interact and spend some time together.
They can not only be used at a personal level but also at a professional level to interact with people from the comfort of their homes. Virtual meetings can be recorded, stored and used for future reference, and are a great fit for this pandemic.
A technological equipped and well prepared meeting will take you a long way in the art of conducting effective virtual meetings.
About The Author
Farwa is a Digital Marketer at ContentStudio who likes to share her insights and experiences via writing. She likes to test and experience new eras in marketing and share them to the world via her blogs!
