The Top 5 Ways To Make Your Virtual Meetings More Engaging

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Although meeting remotely is an effective way to pull together a team that works from different locations, it’s not without its challenges. Many speakers find it hard to keep participants engaged when they don’t have the opportunity to read the room and foster personal connection.

Fortunately, there are several smart ways to make your next online meeting more engaging. From creating a standardized virtual office background to building in break time, here’s how to increase involvement in your remote conferences.

Uniform Backgrounds for Your Team

Reducing distractions is key to maintaining engagement, and that means ensuring your team is focused on the discussion at hand and not what’s going on in everyone’s surroundings. Sending out a Zoom background with logo or other company imaging and asking all attendees to use it during virtual gatherings creates uniformity and keeps people attentive.

Sending an Agenda Before the Meeting

Distributing a meeting agenda ahead of your next meeting serves two purposes, both of which boost engagement. For one, when attendees know what’s being discussed in advance, they’ll prepare content and questions that allow them to be contributors rather than idle listeners. Additionally, a set agenda provides a roadmap for everyone to follow. If things veer off course and people begin to tune out, it helps get the meeting back on track and restores focus.

Keep Your Audience Small

When you’re not limited by the size of your conference room or the number of chairs around your office, it’s tempting to include too many people in your virtual meetings. However, if people feel lost in a sea of tiny on-screen faces, they lose interest in taking part and engaging. Keeping things small makes participants feel seen and heard, and it’s easier to keep tabs on everyone’s attentiveness.

Limit Side Chats

If you want to ensure that your meeting attendees interact productively rather than engage in off-topic side conversations, you’ll want to adjust your platform’s chat function. Most virtual meeting host sites allow administrators to restrict chatting or eliminate it altogether. Although you may appreciate input and questions from participants, too much public comment becomes distracting. To maintain engagement, it may be best to turn off chatting and, instead, solicit feedback once the meeting wraps up.

Include Breaks

It may seem counterintuitive, but encouraging attendees to step away from your meeting for a few minutes is a great way to reengage those whose minds have wandered. For many people, staring at a screen and struggling to appear focused takes priority over actually engaging. When you schedule breaks at regular intervals, your team has a chance to mentally reset and ready themselves to resume productive interaction.

Now that you know how to make your online meetings more engaging, it’s time to plan your next confab. Begin by searching for “Zoom office backgrounds free” that meet your technical requirements while allowing for easy sharing. Then send out your uniform backdrop and agenda ahead of your next gathering, and get ready to have more productive and engaging conferences with your team!

Also Read: What Is Meant By Huddle Room? Know Why You Need This New Meeting Space