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Let’s face it, sometimes virtual meetings are really boring. But, whether you are a remote employee or manager, there’s always something you can do to light up that (meeting) room!
With more and more companies adopting hybrid or remote work policies, virtual meetings have become a staple in our professional lives. On the one hand, virtual meetings are totally a technological breakthrough of the 21st century, enabling you to attend work meetings from the comfort of your bed or your favourite coffee shop. On the other hand, the lack of human interactions during a conference call can easily make attendees feel disengaged and drift away.
In this blog post, we’ll share with you the expert tips and tricks we have learned from hosting various virtual events so that you can make your next virtual meeting more fun and effective!
Back to the basics, a virtual meeting is a meeting that takes place online using meeting platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet or Webex. Participants can join from anywhere with an internet connection, using a computer, tablet, or smartphone. In a virtual meeting, participants can share their screen, chat, record the meeting, turn on live transcription, etc. Virtual meetings are an essential way for remote team members to connect and collaborate in real-time without the need for travel.
There is more you can do in a video meeting besides screen sharing and changing virtual backgrounds. Below are some key features of the most popular online meeting platforms that can make your team meetings more fun and engaging:
Zoom is the most downloaded business app for remote team collaboration in the U.S. In March 2023, Zoom introduced the new Avatars feature that allows users to show facial expressions and head movements without showing their faces. Your avatar will smile when you smile, and nod when you nod (Pretty cool, right?). If you’re thinking about your most introvert teammate right now then you’re right, Avatars are perfect for them!
On the days when you have a low mood or just don’t feel as social, Avatars are a great in-between option to attend virtual meetings. They give you a safe space for yourself while still engaging with your coworkers. All that aside, Avatars are simply fun to try out!
Another feature of Zoom you may consider for a more engaging team meeting is Immersive View. Instead of showing separate frames of all participants, Immersive View puts everyone on a virtual table.
Check out how to use the Zoom features here:
After Zoom, Microsoft Teams is the second most popular conferencing software. Since Microsoft Teams is also a messaging platform, you can expect the chatting experience during a Teams meeting to be top-notch. When chatting in a Teams call, you can tag other participants, react to others’ comments, send stickers and gifs, and more, which you can’t do in most other virtual meeting platforms. This is great when you want other meeting participants to interact, comment, or ask questions during the meeting.
Microsoft Teams also has a feature similar to Zoom’s Immersive View and it’s called Together Mode.
Check out how to use the Microsoft Teams features here:
Although Google Meet doesn’t have as many interactive features as Zoom and Microsoft Teams, your team can still have fun with their visual effects. Choose the three-dot button next to the red button and choose “Apply visual effects”. A side panel will appear and in there you can choose your virtual background, static or animated, and your filters.
Here is our team having fun with the filters on Google Meet:
Check out how to use Google Meet’s visual effects in more detail here:
Below are our virtual meeting tips so that you can run your meetings like a pro!
No one holds an event without a clear purpose and agenda and a virtual meeting is just another type of event. Whether it is a weekly one-on-one meeting with your managers or a monthly project update, make sure you define clear desired outcomes and agenda for the meeting. Don’t make your participants come out of the meeting thinking “This meeting could have been an email”
Our favourite tool to avoid meeting overload is Calendar Cleaner - a free Chrome plugin that will remind you to add expected outcomes and agenda to your Google Calendar meeting invitations.
Another facilitation tip when hosting a meeting is to turn on background music during waiting time. This is a common strategy event hosts do to elevate the energy among their audience but not many people apply this to our daily virtual meetings. It can be when you’re waiting for other colleagues to join the meeting or when everyone is taking some minutes to brainstorm on their own, some energizing music will make a huge difference. To do this, simply turn on one of the YouTube playlists below and share your screen.
Check out some of our favourite playlists to boost the energy of your meeting:
Another effective meeting strategy is to include an icebreaker before you dive into your main agenda. Most people think because your team already know each other, you don’t need to break the ice anymore, but it’s not true. The truth is the ice always creeps in if you don’t break it often enough.
As Harvard Business Review points out, ⅙ of your meeting time should be dedicated to relationship-building and there are many ways to do this. You can go to a platform specializing in running virtual games for remote teams like Ludio or choose among our free icebreaker templates and run the activity on your own. The templates include all the things you need from step-by-step guidance, messages to instruct your team before the meeting and a script for you - the facilitator, so make sure you check them out!
Often times in our virtual events, we will have an activity in which participants are put into breakout rooms to discuss and share their ideas. This is the chance for participants to let their guard down, share their ideas and create more personal connections with other participants. If your virtual meeting has more than 20 attendees, you can consider doing the same thing.
Lastly, even though your virtual meeting is not a formal event, you can always ask the participants for feedback! If you want, you can create a feedback form to send to your participants after the meeting. However, to save time, you can simply ask the below questions through chat or face-to-face the next time you see them in the office:
To sum up, virtual meetings can be just as engaging and enjoyable as an event or as in-person meetings if the right strategies are applied. By having clear meeting outcomes and agendas, turning on music, breaking the ice, putting participants into smaller groups, and asking for feedback, you can run virtual meetings like a pro. These tips not only make virtual meetings more fun and engaging but also help build better relationships among team members. With these tips and tricks, you can make your virtual meetings more productive, enjoyable, and effective.
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