Virtual town hall meetings are an important aspect of virtual events.
They can be conducted as large-scale events with fewer speakers and a wider audience across the globe.
With the increasing popularity of the virtual venue, various universities, colleges, governments, and businesses have started conducting virtual town hall meetings. The town hall meetings are meant for sharing updates, discussing significant development on purposes, and meaningful interaction with their respective associations.
We’ve curated the most important tips that will help you plan your virtual town hall meetings in a better and successful way;
Set a Meeting Agenda
Planning a meeting agenda is the most crucial step involved in hosting a fruitful town hall meeting. This meeting agenda will act as a roadmap for running the virtual town hall on point. With a clear agenda, it becomes more comfortable to keep the exhibitors, presenters, and the audience engaged and mindful.
Choose the Right Virtual Event Platform
To take your town hall meetings online, you need to choose a reliable and secure virtual event platform. Understand your business needs and make sure that the virtual venue you select has all the features that can fulfill your business requirements and the goal of the virtual town hall meeting. Consider performing a dry-run with all the event technologies and platform features to avoid any unforeseen error.
Create an Attractive Landing Page
A great landing page is a powerful means to lure more participants. Make sure to include the date, time, and registration link of the virtual town hall meeting on your landing page. It will enhance your reach to a wider range of audiences.
Begin Your Town Hall Meeting With An Icebreaker Activity
The biggest challenge faced by most organizers during any virtual town hall meeting is to keep the attendees engaged. Hence, this is why you need to grab the attention of the audience right from the beginning.
To promote this practice, consider asking questions like: “What is that one impressive work-related thing achieved by them in the last week”? or “Which places have they shortlisted for their vacation after things normalize”? It will not only keep the attendees engaged but also promote two-way communication.
Celebrate Employee/Company Wins
Be it a clap & hoot or a lively shout-out from other employees, an acknowledgment for presenting organization values, employee recognition is an effective way to boost attendee engagement during virtual town hall meetings and make sure that each employee’s hard work is valued. Therefore, consider including an important session in your virtual town hall meetings for employee recognition. It will keep the employees motivated and inspire them to perform even better.
Include Notable Speakers
To incorporate a variety in the virtual event format, strategize your approach and bring speakers from different departments and management levels to speak at the virtual event. It will arouse a sense of excitement among the attendees and help deliver the virtual town hall meeting’s message accurately.
Along with sharing important updates, having meaningful discussions, speakers can share the success stories of their employees to encourage the attendees.
Make Sure To Prioritize Networking At Your Virtual Town Hall Meeting
Many individuals are not comfortable interacting in front of the entire company. Hence, consider including virtual networking tables like 1:1/group discussion via live chat, audio, or video features. You can keep this after every speaker’s session to facilitate two-way interaction among the attendees and speakers.
Keep Live Polls and Q&A Sessions
To boost engagement during a virtual town hall meeting it’s vital to facilitate two-way communication. Features like live polls or real-time Q&A sessions are tools to gauge the active participation of the attendees. Hence, this is why choose your virtual event platform wisely. Make sure that your platform can seamlessly include these features, as they are the ladders for hosting a successful virtual town hall meeting.
Hold Shorter Sessions
Keeping longer sessions with minimal attendee engagement or participation is of no use. Therefore, you need to include breaks between the sessions so the attendees and organizers can restore themselves.Keep shorter sessions to ensure no important updates or content are missed by any of the participants.
At which point should you keep the breaks? The best approach is to hold a break just before an important session or update.
Include Gamification
Gamification is an important tool to keep the attendees engaged and hooked throughout the virtual town hall meeting. Including games like word games, crossword, spin the wheel, or shooting games are some great options that can add a fun element to your event.
You can also include a leaderboard challenge to make the gamification element more enjoyable. Leaderboard challenge will award points to each attendee who wins the game, and the top scorer can take away exciting rewards and prizes.
Have a Strategic Approach and Market Your Virtual Event Correctly
Make sure to spread awareness about your virtual town hall meeting at least a few weeks before the event. Use different social media channels or company websites to let the potential attendees know that the town hall meeting is happening – so they can save the date! Post relevant pictures, videos, or updates on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn to maximize your reach.
For the most likely attendees, you can also send emails with the registration link and the name of the speakers to attract them to your event.
You can also ask your speakers to post about your virtual town hall meeting on their social media handles to boost your reach among their followers or fan base.
Remember To Take A Follow-up
It is a crucial step that should not be missed during any virtual event. Create a feedback survey form and circulate it among all the attendees. Through this form, you’ll be able to get the plus points of your event along with the opportunity areas. Gaining insights into the attendee viewpoint will help you plan even bigger and more prominent virtual town hall meetings.
