If you are hosting virtual meetings for a long time now, you must have known that inviting attendees to your virtual meeting isn’t enough, you need to ensure that they enjoy the event. Maintaining audience engagement rate is one of the most crucial factors that can decide if your meeting was successful or not. 

If you have successfully pulled off a meeting where all the attendees were present till the end, it clearly shows that your strategies were on point and attendees enjoyed the event. 

But, how can you do that? By simply making regular boring meetings interesting and fun. For that, you need to include a few activities that will help you do the same. In this blog, we will discuss a few activities that will help you make your regular boring virtual meetings fun and gripping. 

• Start With Icebreaker Questions and Activities: 

It’s all about the first three seconds of joining that the attendees will decide if they want to continue attending the virtual meeting or not. You need to ensure that they enjoy it and decide to stay back. For that, you need to make sure that the attendees are comfortable. So, welcome them with icebreaker questions. Acknowledge their presence, and introduce them to the rest of the attendees. Also, to warm up the meeting, start with a non-work-related talk or question; it will help you eliminate the awkwardness among the attendees. The reason for this is simple; remote working can get quite frustrating. In that case, these icebreaker activities help the attendees get their minds off work for some time. 

• Keep the Meetings Crisp and Short: 

Humans have very short attention spans, as short as six seconds. What adds to this is the fact that virtual meetings are hosted using the internet. So, if your virtual meeting isn’t engaging enough, the attendees wouldn’t think twice before opening their Instagram and scrolling through it. Hence, you need to make sure that the attendees are hooked to the virtual meeting, or else you will find them zoned out within no time. Keep the meetings short and crisp. Also, avoid adding any irrelevant information. Deliver what’s necessary for the attendees. Also, if you are presenting a PPT, use bold letters, and add colors to it. Not only this, you can add jokes and catchphrases to it. It will make the attendees interested in the meeting. 

• Leverage Audience Engagement Tools: 

Virtual event platforms come with several audience engagement tools that help the organizers make the virtual meetings fun and engaging. You can use these tools to boost the inclusivity of the attendees in a virtual meeting. For example, you can use live polls and live chat tools to know the opinions of the attendees. Also, you can keep them engaged by asking questions throughout the session with the Live Q&A features. Also, you can use breakout rooms to divide your teams into further groups. It will help them interact with each other more conveniently. Not only this, you can leverage gamification features that will help you keep your attendees hooked to the meeting platform. To encourage the attendees to participate in games, you can incorporate leaderboard functionality, where the attendees who remain at the top will get some prizes. 

• How About Conducting Workplace Trivia? 

To boost fun and excitement among your attendees, you can host workplace trivia among your attendees. Let’s check who knows who better? Ask the attendees questions related to their co-workers. This game won’t only spill some secrets about your team members but will also give everyone a chance to have a good laugh. Also, it is a great way to take everybody’s mind off work for some time. Not only this, activities like these help in boosting team spirit among employees. Also, once the team members get to know each other, it makes it easier for them to work together, as they know the mindset of each other. 

• Incorporate Virtual Elements: 

Since virtual events allow you to share screens and deliver presentations, you can use them to incorporate virtual visual elements in your presentations. It will enhance the overall experience of the attendees and make the entire learning experience smooth and seamless. Not only this, since a visual element can compensate for a thousand words, pictures, videos, GIFs, and graphics will add to the value of your presentations. In addition, if you are planning to host audience engagement activities, all these elements will help you do that effectively. Moreover, we are sure your audience will prefer watching something rather than reading it. So, include visual elements. But don’t try to overdo things; it might ruin your entire presentation. 

• Host Team-Building Activities: 

If you want to boost team spirit among your team members, host team-building activities. There are several ways to do so. You can host virtual coffee breaks where you and your team will connect and have coffee together; even though virtually. It is a great way to refresh your mind, and know your fellow team members more. Other than that, you can host meditation sessions, have your lunch together, and whatnot. The objective behind hosting virtual team-building activities is to boost a sense of team spirit, unwind yourself and the team members, and develop learning skills among each other. It will help you and your teamwork efficiently in everyday tasks. Since virtual meetings can take some time and might get boring and frustrating at times, virtual team-building activities can help you have a relaxing time. 

Taking some time off from virtual meetings and hosting team-building activities can help you and your team members take your mind off work and have a relaxing time. Not only this, virtual team building sessions enable you and your team to interact with each other and know apart from work. One more benefit of all these activities is that such activities can help you inculcate loyalty and trust among your team members. We hope you found these ideas to host immersive virtual experiences helpful. Host your virtual meetings with an expert online meeting platform now, and make the most of your virtual meetings.