Virtual meetings have a whole range of attractive advantages. You no longer have to check whether a meeting room is available when you need to convene a team meeting. In addition, thanks to the use of computers, cameras and other digital tools, you can easily hold meetings even when not all team members are in the office. A simple click on the meeting link is all it takes to quickly gather all the relevant participants. This allows you to share information at short notice and work together on solutions, which not only saves time but also effectively reduces costs.

However, the advantages of online meetings do not end here. Last but not least, virtual meetings are often more distraction-free and can usually be held shorter than team meetings in the office. Side conversations are eliminated and the sharing of important content is accelerated in the long term.

In addition, cross-location and cross-departmental collaboration is significantly optimized. When you see the face of your colleagues with whom you previously only communicated by phone or email, this strengthens mutual trust and facilitates reliable collaboration.

Effectively organize a virtual meeting with the right preparation

For a frictionless process and an effective design of your virtual meetings, the right preparation is the be-all and end-all. This ensures that all participants are well prepared for meetings and that everything runs smoothly.

The three most important steps are:

1. Structure the virtual meeting well: Whether it's a virtual meeting or a meeting in the office, every meeting should be well planned in advance and then structured afterwards. Not only to be able to better assess whether the meeting is necessary at all, but also to guarantee that everything runs smoothly.
2. Preparing the technology for the meeting: Proper preparation for virtual meetings also includes checking the necessary video conferencing technology and presentation technology. Do all cameras and microphones work? Is the software running? These are all questions that you should definitely clarify before the meeting begins.</li
3. Prepare the participants: In the final step of preparation, you should inform the other meeting participants in advance about the agenda for your meeting. This way, your colleagues can already think about questions and suggestions and know what to expect. It is also a good opportunity to remind participants in the home office to check their video conferencing technology for functionality before the meeting starts.

In addition to the right preparation, there are of course other helpful tips and tricks that you can follow to make your virtual meeting as effective as possible.

We have brought you the 5 best tips:

Tip 1: Involve all participants and plan breaks

For online meetings to run effectively, you should ask all participants to mute their microphones at the start of the meeting to avoid distracting background noise and interruptions. In addition, you can actively integrate the participants into the discussions. However, leave enough room for questions and make your online meeting varied by planning breakout sessions, exercises and regular breaks.

Tip 2: Focus on the essentials

The risk of participants losing concentration is much higher in virtual meetings than in face-to-face meetings. This makes it all the more important to avoid long-winded presentations with irrelevant details. Instead, try to focus on the most important information and actively involve the participants by asking stimulating discussion questions.

Tip 3: Distribute tasks clearly

To ensure that virtual meetings produce the most effective output possible, meeting participants should be given clear tasks. To do this, you can address colleagues by name or create small groups to work on important tasks. This way, no one can get lost in the group and you will ideally receive well-developed solutions to current problems.

Tip 4: Make the meeting varied

To avoid boredom, you should make virtual meetings as varied as possible. You have a variety of options for this:

• Regular enquiries
• Breakout sessions
• Feedback rounds
• Task distribution
• Collection of ideas

These are just a few examples of effective methods to avoid a dull monologue during the meeting. Try to involve the other participants as much as possible. Not only will you have their attention, but the likelihood of receiving efficient ideas will also increase.

Tip 5: Creative ideas for interactive virtual meetings

Finally, the creative design of a virtual meeting can also contribute to an effective process and result. Here, too, there are numerous methods on the Internet that you can use. How about live polls or short quiz rounds, for example? This not only keeps the participants engaged, but also shows that you have given a lot of thought to the upcoming meeting, which is likely to be well received by the participants.

It's not just the right presentation techniques and preparations that are crucial for effective virtual meetings; the conference technology should ideally also work perfectly. We will be happy to help you equip your office with the necessary video conferencing technology so that no technical problems occur during your virtual meetings. As most companies offer hybrid working, meeting participants are often still in the office. That's why we also offer comprehensive advice on optimal technical equipment for hybrid online meetings

if required.

With the help of the right office equipment, high-quality displays, camera systems and the right audio technology, we can provide you with all the support you need to make your future virtual meetings as effective as possible. We are also happy to answer any further questions you may have about our range of services.

We look forward to your contact!