Boost Engagement in Your Virtual Town Hall With These Tips 2023

With the increase in the number of employees working from home, organizations have started hosting town hall meetings virtually. While virtual town halls have become popular, replicating the in-person event experience is still difficult. This article consists of the most effective tips for boosting engagement in your virtual meeting.

Set the Mood With Ice-Breakers

Ice-breakers are a great way to get everyone together and going. They play a crucial role in bringing everyone on the same page and making them comfortable. Playing music in the background can also act as an ice-breaking activity and help set the mood for the event. In addition to this, you can also include several ice-breaking activities in your virtual town hall meeting like Never Have I Ever, virtual bingo, rapid-fire, share a story etc. You can simply ask a general question or ask everyone to introduce themselves and let everyone speak. This will help make everyone comfortable with each other.

Virtual Town Hall Meeting Platform

Selecting the best virtual platform for meetings is another way to boost attendee engagement. A platform with a lot of unique engagement features would be the best choice for hosting a virtual town hall. Consider including features like a virtual photo booth, live polls, signature walls, and gamification to your online event.

Celebrate Small Wins 2023

What could be better than celebrating company wins and appreciating your employees for their hard work? A virtual town hall meeting is the best place to share your company’s achievements and celebrate the small wins. You can reward individuals and teams for their exemplary performance. This helps build the organization’s rapport among the attendees and make them feel that their contributions are valued. According to research, employees prefer to be praised publically rather than privately.

Keep it Short

Rather than holding long sessions, try to keep them short and focused on the content. Remember that everyone is short on time and have busy schedules. Therefore, create a clear event agenda and focus on that during the meeting. Do not get into much detail about the topics and only provide an overview. Getting into the details of every point could make the attendees lose interest. Try to focus on 4-5 areas and plan the sessions accordingly.

Let Everyone Speak

Getting the same person to host the town hall meeting or allowing only a few people to speak can make it monotonous and make others lose interest. You can consider giving the mic to someone else and letting them share their views or host the event. This will help spice things up at the virtual town hall meeting and keep everyone alert & engaged. Letting everyone speak develops a sense of value among them. It also helps integrate different perspectives and increase engagement levels.

Use Gamification

Include online individual and multiplayer games in your virtual event. Everyone loves playing online games, therefore gamification of an online town hall meeting is an amazing engagement boosting tactic. Encourage the attendees to take a break and indulge in playing games. Some virtual event platforms allow you to add external games to the event. Search for such event platforms and add games that your attendees might like. This will further increase engagement and participation. Gamification also helps the attendees interact with each other via live chat and audio/video calls. Moreover, it develops a sense of healthy competition among the attendees. Therefore, you must include a lot of games in your event agenda if boosting event engagement is your objective.

Conduct Live Polls

Conducting live polls is a brilliant tactic to check the attention and alertness levels of the attendees. Try to include 2-3 live polls in your virtual town hall meeting. Live polling is a great way to let the attendees share their experiences in real-time. If you act smart, you can also use live polls to get details about attendees choices and preferences. You can frame the poll questions in a manner that helps you gather more relevant data.

Get Creative With the Activities

Conducting the same activities every time at the town hall meeting can make the meeting boring and monotonous. You must know that your employees are constantly looking for new ways to engage with their colleagues. Therefore, you must get creative and plan new activities for the town hall. You can also take suggestions from the employees and implement their unique ideas in your online town hall to make it more engaging and interactive. While every idea of yours might not prove to be great, you must always keep experimenting.

Plan Quirky Punishments

Another great tip to boost engagement and add fun and quirkiness to your town hall meeting is to plan quirky punishments. You can keep punishments for the latecomers or for those who lose in the games and activities. The punishments could include dancing. You can also plan quirky awards as this will amp up the fun element of the event.

Present Future Plans

You can also keep the employees hooked to the meeting by presenting a broad overview of your organization’s plans. There is no better place than a town hall meeting to share your plans, goals and objectives for the future. You can use screen sharing and document presentation features to present your plans.

Reverse Q&A Sessions

After you have shared your plans and goals with the employees, it is crucial to provide them with the opportunity to ask questions. Flip the tables on Q&A sessions and let the attendees ask questions. Moreover, it could be intimidating for the attendees to ask questions during a physical event. Therefore, you must hire a virtual event expert that provides a live chat feature. This feature will let the employees ask questions and share their insights on the subject.

Conclusion

Providing a physical like event experience at your virtual meeting is the key to a successful online event. Following the tips mentioned in this article will help boost engagement at your virtual event and keep your employees engaged.