We’ve all attended virtual meetings these past several months and it looks like we will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. In every meeting, whether it’s virtual or face-to-face, the challenge for the speaker is to keep the attendees engaged. The challenge for the attendees is to stay engaged.
Fostering engagement begins before the meeting even starts. Begin by connecting your content to your audience. What do they ultimately need to know?
Begin the engagement process by setting expectations in your meeting invite. You can do this by including the agenda and questions for the attendees to consider ahead of time. Let them know that their participation is expected.
Early on, by using some of the tools available on the Zoom platform, you can have them do something that’s interactive and will get their brains engaged. Some of the available tools include:
- Conducting a poll and sharing the results. Poll results often lead to spirited discussions.
- Showing a short video that illustrates a key point of interest to the group.
- Asking an open question beginning with, “What if…”, or, “Imagine…”
- Showing the attendees how to share their screen. Show them how they’ll get a pop up asking what they want to share before they share so nothing confidential or embarrassing is displayed by accident.
For more tips on how to keep your virtual audience engaged:
Take a look at the blog post: Tips to Keep Your Virtual Audience Engaged. It contains 7 tips that can be applied to the Zoom platform, or any other virtual meeting platform. Work on applying one or two of these tips to each virtual meeting, and you’ll notice an improvement in the effectiveness of your meetings.
For more information on conducting virtual meetings more effectively, please visit www.communispond.com and check out Communispond’s Virtual Presentation Skills™ program and Virtual Meeting Skills™ program.
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About the Author
Jim Moushon is a Senior Master Trainer at Communispond. Jim’s areas of expertise are in executive coaching, presentation skills, media interviews, persuasive dialogue, interpersonal communication, business writing and sales effectiveness. In addition, he does train-the-trainer for Communispond as well as for many of Communispond’s clients.
You can connect with Jim on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jim-moushon-b33b1810/
