Gone are the days when Executives had to travel halfway around the world just to meet inside an expensive boardroom to discuss critical business plans.

Many people use the Internet to connect with family and friends but now a new era of connecting through virtual meeting rooms has been ushered in. Virtual meetings are a convenient and a flexible way to connect and get people talking.

A virtual meeting is “An event that brings people together over the internet or through a digital network to accomplish a common goal”.

Virtual meetings allow individuals to communicate and share information in real-time without having to be in the same physical area.

In Virtual meetings, people use video, audio, or text to connect online.

A few years ago, virtual meetings were still gaining their ground in the industries. But as remote working has become increasingly widespread, the adoption of voice and video calling tools has become essential for almost every organization.

According to reports, “94% of businesses say video conferencing increases productivity”.

Best Platforms for Virtual Meetings

Having the proper platform among your remote work is essential for efficient virtual meetings. The following are some well-known virtual meeting platforms:-

Zoom -

Zoom is a video and audio conferencing virtual meeting tool that allows you to record meetings, share displays, and host webinars.

Google Meet -

You may share your video, desktop, and presentation with your teammates with this video communication tool. There is also a chatbox on the side, allowing employees to leave comments and chat on the sidelines.

Skype -

This one is another video and voice chat and calls service virtual meeting tool that lets you add subtitles to your conversation as well.

GoToMeeting -

Virtual meetings are easy to join and even easier to set up with GoToMeeting. One of the things that set GoToMeeting apart from its competition is its mobile friendliness. A meeting invite can be scheduled and sent directly from your phone.

Virtual meetings are useful not just for distributed teams to interact across time zones and regions, but they may also be used to host virtual events such as webinars, training, and conferences.

To host successful virtual meetings, you need to have a good strategy.

Top 3 tips on hosting successful virtual meetings

1. Make a schedule

Going into a meeting without an agenda is like running a marathon without running shoes; you will get there eventually, but it will be a long and unpleasant journey.

To prevent stumbling, devise a game plan so you do not fumble a few steps from the end zone.

Select talking points and schedule them according to how much time you want to devote to the subject during the meeting. These figures are not exact, but they will give you a good idea of how much time you should devote to each area.

You should also distribute that agenda to your participants ahead of time so that they may start brainstorming before your team meets.

2. Set an agenda for your meeting

If people turn up to a meeting with random questions, it could cause you to stay off-topic or result in a longer than intended meeting.

So, always make sure you have a clear goal in mind; make a list of topics you want to cover and then estimate how long each one will take. What do you need to talk about, and what could be slid in at the end if there’s time? For longer sessions, try breaking everything down into 10-minute segments – this will appeal to shorter attention spans and keep the group focused.

3. Make use of meeting reminders

Even when meetings are scheduled in advance, last-minute distractions might lead them to vanish from people’s minds. After all, we are just human! Meeting reminders sent at the right moment can help solve this difficulty.

Simply specify how far in advance you want to remind people, whether you want to send an email or an SMS (or both), and the notification will be sent automatically.

Instead of arriving late and flustered, the extra 30 minutes before the meeting will allow attendees to finish what they are presently working on, grab a cup of tea, and focus on the topic at hand.