In today’s modernized workplace, you are more likely to organize virtual meetings with a global audience. Everyone across the world is shifting to virtual venues to host significant conferences and meetings. However, understanding the most effective ways to ensure your meeting’s success has become the prime need of the hour. Wondering how to make a virtual meeting more efficient, interactive, and productive? Worry not! We have got your back with all notable tips to assure your virtual meeting’s success & effectiveness.
Before moving ahead to explore the best practices for a virtual meet-up, let’s comprehend its vital essence.
What is a Virtual Meeting?
In the simplest of terms, a virtual meeting is a formal gathering that takes place over a virtual meeting platform, with all the global participants attending it virtually. An online meeting helps in team building, lead generating, connecting with prospects, having significant discussions, and ensuring that all the employees of an organization are on the same page. Certainly, a virtually held meeting renders you with countless features to ensure smooth interaction, communication, and information sharing.
Let’s move further and explore some of the most proven ways to ensure the effectiveness of an online meeting.
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20 Expert Tips to Organize a Productive Virtual Meeting
#1 Predefine Your Goal
Determining your goals, purposes, and aims behind organizing a virtual meeting is very important to ensure its efficiency. Therefore, make sure that you set clear aims. This step will not only help you with strategy but also deliver a smooth virtual event. Before moving ahead with the further process, ask yourself the following questions to define your meeting goals:
- Why do you want to organize the meeting?
- Who is your target audience?
- How many speakers do you wish to involve in the event?
- Do you need to bring sponsors or exhibitors on board?
- Which virtual event platform features are needed to be incorporated?
- What type of content format do you need in the online meeting?
- How will your participants benefit from this event?
- What do you wish to achieve from this virtual meeting?
#2 Choose the Right Date & Time
Shifting to a virtual meeting solution means attaining a global reach. But, this advantage comes with the challenge of choosing the right timing that suits your global audience. Hence, make sure you decide on a suitable time to host your meeting. This point also covers the fact that you need to choose the right day as well. It’s vital to assure that there’s no notable meeting for the same target audience on the same day, as this might divide your participants.
#3 Create an Efficient Agenda
A report by The Balance Careers suggests that you can reduce meeting time by 80% by following a structured agenda. Planning a time-effective agenda has great importance when you wish to ensure a successful virtual meeting. The fact that the attention span of your virtual attendees largely differs from physical events also determines the efficacy of your event. Therefore, ensure that your meeting sessions are not too lengthy and include mini-breaks in between.
Most importantly, the agenda of your virtual meet-up should be valuable for your attendees.
#4 Choose the Most Suitable Virtual Meeting Software
Opting for a suitable virtual event software is one of the best tips for effective virtual meetings. An advanced virtual meeting solution is well-equipped with top-notch features to meet all your online meeting goals. Virtual meet-ups can include confidential content where the data has to be safe. Therefore, don’t forget to ensure that the virtual meeting platform you opt for guarantees security. All in all, choose the most suitable virtual venue for your event based on all your requirements.
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#5 Create Efficient Content
Content holds unmatched importance, especially when you are hosting a virtual conference or meeting. You need to ensure that the content you include in the meeting is well-planned, strategized, structured and presented. From audio & video quality to the branded backdrops & presentations, everything should be created with an audience-based approach.
#6 Send Out Meeting Invites With Requisite Documents
One of the most vital tips for effective virtual meetings is to share all the requisite information and details with your target audience at the right time. In addition, informing your attendees about the meeting agenda and session details beforehand will help you keep them updated. Also, ensure that you attach all the essential content files your attendees might need during the meeting.
#7 Make Your Virtual Meeting More Interactive
A prime virtual event platform provides you with countless interactive features that can efficiently enhance your online meet-up. By using these elements, you can not only keep your participants engaged but also add more value to your meeting. The more interactive elements you add to the event, the more your participant’s event experience elevates. Dreamcast renders its users with unparalleled innovative interactive tools like:
- Live polls and contests
- 1:1 interaction
- Chat rooms
- Live audio/video/text chat
- Group discussions
- Reactions through emoticons
- Live Q&A sessions
- And the list goes on.
#8 Make Your Virtual Meeting More Engaging
Engagement is a very significant aspect of any virtual event, be it a virtual conference, a virtual fair, a virtual expo, or a virtual meeting. According to Markletic, 49% of marketers say that audience engagement is the biggest contributing factor to having a successful event.
However, there are numerous ways you can intensify the engagement at your virtual meet-up. Mentioned below are some of the top engagement tools rendered by Dreamcast:
- Gamification
- Live Event Polling
- Social Wall
- Photo Booth
- Signature Wall
- Virtual Escape Room
- Push Notifications
- Networking Tools
- Breakout Rooms
- And a lot more.
#9 Include Excellent Networking Opportunities
Networking is one major reason why attendees feel enticed to attend any event or meeting. To host an efficient online meeting, make sure you incorporate excellent networking opportunities. It will not only enhance the engagement prospects at your meet-up but also maximize its reach. The virtual meeting venue provided by Dreamcast has all the innovative features that can help you make the most out of your meeting. Explore some of them below:
- Virtual Networking Lounges
- Virtual Networking Tables
- AI Matchmaking
- Advanced Search Filters
- B2B Meeting Scheduler
- And many more.
#10 Share Meeting Summary With Your Attendees
Sharing the meeting summary with all your participants can be a productive activity to maximize the life of your online meeting. It will also update your attendees about all important aspects of the event that they might have overlooked. So last but not least, send out the summary of your meeting to all the attendees; and magnify the presence of your virtual meeting efficiently.
According to a report by The Business Research Company, the global video conferencing market is projected to grow from $7.45 billion in 2024 to $8.02 billion in 2025, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.6%. Clearly, the world is moving towards the modern way of holding meetings to maximize productivity. And in such a case, virtual meetings are an advanced version of organizing effective meetings over the web with custom conferencing halls & engagement-driven platforms.
#11 Make Sure to Implement a Clear Communication Protocol
Communication plays a crucial part in any event. Therefore, establish some rules for smooth communication during virtual meetings, as this will maintain order and productivity of the meeting. Also, according to a study by Harvard Business, about 70% of virtual meetings are proven to be more effective when there are specific communication protocols. Leverage the instructions guide and utilize the hand raise feature to manage interruptions in a better way.
Consider creating a simple document outlining all the necessary protocols required and sharing it with all participants before the meeting. This will help prevent common virtual meeting challenges like people talking over each other or side conversations in the chat.
#12 Incorporate Regular Tech Check Sessions
When it comes to a virtual meeting, don’t miss out on scheduling a brief technical check-in session 10-15 minutes before your main virtual meeting. You don’t want your virtual meetings to start late and be delayed due to technical issues. Therefore, having a dedicated time slot for troubleshooting audio, video, and connectivity problems ensures your actual meeting time is used efficiently. Make sure to have a backup plan ready for common technical issues and assign a team member to handle technical support during the meeting.
#13 Make Sure to Design Visual-Rich Presentations
In a virtual meeting, visual content matters. It increases engagement by 94% in virtual settings. Begin with creating presentations that effectively balance text with visual elements like infographics, charts, and relevant images. Keep your slides short, concise, clear and visually appealing to maintain attention during longer virtual sessions.
#14 Establish Virtual Meeting Etiquette Guidelines
One of the best tips that you can’t miss is that creating a standardized set of virtual meeting etiquette guidelines helps maintain professionalism and effectiveness. Moreover, this includes guidelines about appropriate virtual backgrounds, lighting, camera angles, and professional appearance.
#15 Implement Role-Based Participation
A virtual meeting requires discipline. Therefore, make sure to assign specific roles to meeting participants to increase engagement and accountability. These roles might include a timekeeper, note-taker, chat moderator, and technical support person. No one wants hassle in a virtual meeting; that’s why assigning roles will help you achieve the objectives sooner.
#16 Create a Digital Resource Hub
Develop a centralized digital location where all meeting-related resources, recordings, and documents can be accessed. Things get easier when participants retain 40% more information as they have easy access to meeting resources afterward. This hub should include presentation slides, reference materials, and action items discussed during the meeting.
#17 Leverage the Power of Virtual Icebreakers and Team Building
Incorporate brief virtual icebreakers or team-building activities, especially for longer meetings or when new team members are present. Research indicates that virtual meetings that begin with a short team-building activity see a 27% increase in participant engagement throughout the session.
#18 Don’t Miss Out on Implementing a Feedback Loop System
Create a systematic way to gather feedback about your virtual meetings. Use post-meeting surveys or quick polls to understand what’s working and what needs improvement. However, consider using WhatsApp for post-event feedback.
#19 Develop a Multi-Channel Communication Strategy
Integrate various communication channels during your virtual meeting to accommodate different learning and participation styles. This might include using the main video feed, chat functions, collaborative documents, and virtual whiteboards simultaneously.
#20 Create and Set Virtual Meeting Success Metrics
Establish clear metrics to measure the success of your virtual meetings. This could include tracking attendance rates, participation levels, action item completion rates, and participant satisfaction scores.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I effectively calculate the ROI of my virtual meetings?
Track key metrics like attendance rates, participant engagement levels, post-meeting survey results, and goal completion rates. Compare these against your investment in platform costs, preparation time, and resources to determine ROI. Best practice is to establish measurement criteria before the meeting.
What contingency plans should I have in place as an organizer?
Prepare backup plans for key aspects, including:
- A secondary virtual platform ready to deploy
- Pre-recorded content in case of speaker technical issues
- Backup moderators or speakers
- Alternative engagement activities if planned features fail
- Emergency communication channels for your organizing team
How do I manage multiple speakers effectively in a virtual setting?
Hold mandatory technical rehearsals with all speakers, create a detailed run-of-show document, establish clear time signals, and assign a dedicated speaker coordinator. Have speakers join 15-20 minutes early and keep a backup presentation copy.
What’s the recommended team structure for managing a large virtual meeting?
A typical structure includes:
- Meeting host/facilitator
- Technical support coordinator
- Engagement manager for polls/Q&A
- Content/presentation manager
- Participant support coordinator For smaller meetings, one person can handle multiple roles.
What are the key platform features I should test before a large virtual meeting?
For a large virtual meeting, test the critical features, such as audio/video quality, interactive feature functionality, recording capabilities, screen sharing performance, breakout room operations, and maximum participant capacity.
Create an Extraordinary Event Experience
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