We have all encountered the feeling of dread when we look at our calendars and see “yet another Zoom meeting”. We try and psych ourselves up and perhaps even get a little creative on how we are going to stay engaged during our virtual meetings.
Many of us were familiar with virtual meetings, prior to the pandemic, but now it has become a regular daily occurrence. I’m sure you’ve heard of the term #zoomfatigue and probably have experienced it yourself. If you are in an industry where you are utilizing virtual meetings on a regular basis it is critical that you find ways to make your virtual meetings something that your colleagues, employees, teammates etc. will want to attend.
So how do you make a virtual meeting memorable? At Night Out with “The Girls” (NOWTG) we have spent the last year cracking the code on delivering highly engaging, memorable and fun (yes you read that right), fun, virtual experiences for our participants. If we found a way to get colleagues together to talk about early breast cancer detection and receive responses like this from Melissa at Lumen:
“I truly thought it was one of the best virtual experiences I’ve been a part of.”
We are certain our strategies can help your participants feel the same way!
Let’s get to it:
-
- Know your Audience: Just like any professional meeting, event, presentation etc. you have to know the demographics and shared characteristics of your audience. For example: At NOWTG our participants are typically women, interested in health and wellness, work for a company that believes in wellness initiatives, like connecting and having conversations with their colleagues.
- Invest in Experts: Whether you hire outside experts or look within your organization, seek out individuals that have experience and expertise in adult education, gamification and even psychology. Why? It is important to recognize that you are still interacting with your participants even though it’s through a screen. Enlisting the help of experts in these areas all you to understand how best to engage, inspire and motivate your audience and how to make them remember the content you’re sharing!
- Frequency and Necessity: Remember when we used to say “well that was a meeting that could’ve been an email”… the statement is still true and may even carry more truth than in-person meetings now that virtual meetings are easily accessible. Just because you can do a few clicks on your screen to hop on a “quick Zoom” with your teammates/employees/vendors etc., stop and think if it is truly necessary. Making this assessment will keep your virtual meetings to be something to look forward to and maintain the sense of necessity vs. creating more #zoomfatigue.
- Feedback, Feedback, Feedback: Did we mention feedback? Asking your participants (no matter how small the group or short the meeting) for their feedback is going to be a game-changer! For example: At NOWTG, we do a participant survey at the tail end of our event while everyone is pumped up and still engaged in their experience. The survey asks about their overall experience, the interactions with our events team, takeaways and what we could do to improve the virtual event. The responses are a goldmine and we continue to make tweaks to better our participant experience after each event.
So there you have it. If you take the tips above, even just one of them, you will be able to significantly improve the efficacy and effectiveness of your virtual meetings/events.
Are you already doing something #genius and #innovative in your virtual meetings? We’d love to hear about it in the comments below. And if you’d like to learn more about how to experience our NOWTG firsthand, head on over here: https://nightoutwiththegirls.com/employers-and-groups/
Written by:
Katie Schroeder
COO
Night Out with “The Girls”