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Keeping people engaged in your meeting when they’re participating from their spare room and not the conference room is a challenge. For the remote worker, the meeting isn’t even taking place in a room, it’s happening on a 13” or smaller, two-dimensional screen that’s part of the device that continually displays about 1,000 other things they could be doing. To get people to pay to attention and actively engage, be deliberate about how you deliver the meeting and make sure it stands out from all the others they’re attending. (Being maxed out on meetings is a real thing!)
The key is to design and deliver the meeting in a way that exudes the three Ms of enthrallment: Magnetic, Mesmerizing and Memorable. Here are 12 ways to enthrall your audience:
1. Sizzle from the start.
First impressions last. To get your meeting participants to sit up and engage, make your kick-off gripping, unexpected and fun. Services like ThinkersOne allow you to beam in a renowned expert on a variety of topics for a brief welcome, introduction or thought-provoking conversation. It would cost $10-50K to engage these experts for a live keynote, but you can access a relevant thought-leader to e-greet your team or clients for as little as $150. Think of it as Cameo meets Masterclass. Cofounder of ThinkersOne Mitch Joel says, “Every business is struggling with how to make their meetings more engaging in a world of physical, hybrid and virtual get-togethers, so say goodbye to long and boring meetings, and hello to engaging and impactful learning moments, which is something we all want.”
2. Start with a riddle.
What do Aristotle, Leo Tolstoy and Beyoncé have in common? When you start with something thought-provoking, participants take note. Make the riddle relate to the topic at hand and give participants clues throughout the meeting, awarding a prize to the person who solves the puzzle. Just be sure the answer to your riddle is not google-able or chapGPT-able for that matter. Remember, many the participants are just looking for opportunities to multitask. Once they’ve opened the browser and typed in their search, you’ve lost them.
3. Show a brief YouTube video.
If you query YouTube on virtually any topic, you’ll find pages of videos. And among those videos you’ll find humor, information, statistics, heartwarming stories, etc. Select one that will be both entertaining and energizing. Just keep the video to 1-2 minutes max. You want people to stay engaged and don’t want to use up too much time.
4. Welcome each person individually.
You can take the lead and welcome everyone personally, acknowledging them for something that makes them stand out. Or, make introductions visual. Have each person introduce themselves with a “Me Board” (a PowerPoint or Keynote slide) with info about who they are and what’s important to them.
5. Counteract autopilot.
Monotony motivates multitasking. The more regularly you change the content, format and medium, the more likely your participants will stay connected. Regularly use pattern interrupts (flashes of color, animated gifs or other visual/audio resets) to reengage those who have turned on autopilot.
6. Supersize for the small screen.
When sharing slides, be small-screen savvy. Use fonts that are at least 32pt so they are readable on phones and laptops. Also, limit the words to 12 or fewer per slide and focus instead on images and video. For spreadsheets or anything that requires squinting to read, send it in advance.
7. Prioritize virtual over real.
If you’re delivering a hybrid meeting (the most challenging type), your remote participants are the ones who are having a much less visceral experience, accompanied by an endless stream of invitations to multi-task. Call on remote participants first and reach out to them regularly by name for their input. And of course, don’t hold side conversations or interactions in which remote workers can’t participate.
8. Inspire interaction.
To maintain the momentum and keep people’s attention throughout the entire meeting, use polls, word clouds, chat, hand raising, whiteboards and every other relevant collaboration activity you have at your disposal. Steve Bather, Practice Leader at Realise, a UK-based consultancy that’s focused on working remotely said, “At Realise, we’ve been pioneering collaboration and decision-support technologies for years. We’ve learned that they work equally well whether or not people are in-person or synchronously online.” When you get participants interacting, they become doers not viewers.
9. Be extra human.
There’s a humanity deficit at work, and remote meetings are exacerbating it. Double down on the human aspects of business because the virtual aspect of online meetings strips away the emotional connection. Thwart it by acknowledging, congratulating and expressing gratitude.
10. Tell stories.
Neuroscience tell us that storytelling can drive the retention rate of your audience up to as much as 65 to 70 percent, versus only between 5 to 10 percent for information that’s conveyed through stats. A separate study from Stanford University cited in this article found that the brain recalls stories 22 times better than simple facts. So if you want people to pay attention and remember what happened at your meeting, make it story time.
11. End early.
Even with a short meeting (and virtual meetings need to be short and potent), give participants the best gift of all—some time back in their day. Don’t continue a meeting just to fill the allotted time slot.
12. Capture results.
If your meeting is interesting but not memorable, was it worth it? Document what you learn in the meeting, take screen captures of the results of polls, word clouds and white boards and share them after the event. Remind people of funny moments or quotes that are interesting and valuable.
Remote meetings are much less stimulating than the in-person kind that used to be the norm, but when you apply fun and engaging techniques from start to finish, you can make them meaningful and mesmerizing, while enhancing your personal brand.
William Arruda is a keynote speaker, co-founder of CareerBlast.TV and co-creator of the Personal Brand Power Audit - a complimentary quiz that helps you measure the strength of personal brand.
