The COVID-19 pandemic has brought new ways to communicate and conduct business. With many employees working remotely, virtual communication is what’s keeping us connected. Video conferencing platforms are crucial not just for virtual meetings during the day but also to host virtual events and webinars. While it’s easy to just default to virtual backgrounds during your Zoom meetings, the plain and boring look can cause attendees’ attention to waver. In order to truly elevate virtual meetings and events, they should include variables of graphic design, video editing and social media. Here we’ll delve into the ways that these techniques separate virtual meetings from being tedious and mundane to captivating and effective.
The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed the way organisations and individuals conduct business. Remote work and virtual communication are now the norm. Social distancing, combined with the challenges of travel restrictions, means interactions in-person are few and far between. Virtual meetings and the platforms that allow them provide the means to connect with others and conduct business as usual. As we’ve quickly learned, however, with the prevalence of virtual communication come new challenges. Among them is the question of how to keep participants engaged during virtual meetings or events.
Importance of Engaging Virtual Meetings and Events
Without question, engagement is key to the success of virtual meetings and events or any meeting, for that matter.Experts say that when participants are engaged they are more likely to retain information, present ideas and actively participate in the discussions that follow. On the other hand, when the virtual environment is unengaging, distractions appear, productivity drops and interest wanes in the blink of an eye. Creating an engaging virtual impact is essential in order to ensure virtual meetings and events are impactful. By combining graphic design and video editing elements plus the use of social media we can create an evocative, interactive and visually immersive experience that will keep participants engaged and interested.
The Role of Graphic Design
Graphic design can play a big part in making virtual meetings and communication more impactful. One way that graphic design can be used for virtual communication is to improve virtual backgrounds. Creating custom visual backgrounds for virtual meetings can make presentations stand out. Instead of dull or generic backgrounds that distract from the content being given, custom designed virtual backgrounds can add context, improve visual appeal, reinforce branding, and create a polished appearance. Having custom branded backgrounds can also help to increase brand recognition, consistency, and familiarity among participants. By taking a video editing approach, companies can improve their virtual meetings and communication, while keeping everything on-brand.
Leveraging Video Editing Techniques
Video editing techniques can be used to improve the look and feel of virtual meetings, making them more visually engaging. There are a few simple video editing techniques that can be used to make virtual meetings more visually appealing and engaging. For example, cutaways and transitions can be used. Cutaways are shots of other relevant images or videos that are intercut in between a main shot. For example, relevant graphs and charts can be shown when talking about market statistics or humorous clips can be shown as a reset to when a video call starts lagging. These help to ease the monotony and keep the viewer/viewers better engaged. On the other hand transitions are when the camera moves from an element of a video meeting to another one using a short graphic effect or bar swipe. This helps the overall look and feel of the virtual meeting seem smoother and more professional.
Storytelling
Communities and engagement can also be built and initiated with storytelling. Storytelling is an extremely powerful tool that can be used in online meetings to both captivate audiences and relay information. By adding story elements to online meetings, participants are more likely to connect with the information and remember it in the future. The storytelling in online meetings could be adding narrative arcs to presentation, creating case studies or relatable characters that audiences can better connect to or structuring the meeting in a clear beginning, middle and end.
Social media
Communities and engagement can also be built and initiated with social media. Social media can help engage attendees before, during and after online meetings. By having a specific hashtag for a meeting, attendees can share questions, thoughts, and key takeaways across platforms. This will also build up community, make attendees feel more involved, and help them build relationships with others who are also participating in the meeting. Social media can also help to build up attendees before online meetings. Live streaming parts of a meeting — like a keynote by a CEO or a panel about a timely trend — can help engage a larger audience and build up excitement for future online meetings. Lastly, promoting online meetings and events on social media can help get information out to a larger group than just standard email marketing.
By integrating these considerations into the logistics of a virtual meeting, organisations can make the virtual experience more immersive and impactful. Elevating the visual and auditory appeal of on-screen presentations through graphic design and video editing can appeal to the human-eye and help to combat screen fatigue. Executing a real-time social media strategy, with a designated staff member live-posting to different platforms in conjunction with the virtual meeting jumps off the page and creates an overall richer experience.
Video Conferencing Solutions
To truly take virtual impact to the next level, organisations must explore free video conferencing platforms like FreeConference that are rich with interactive features. Features like breakout rooms, for example, let attendees break off into smaller groups for discussions or activities. This is a great way of simulating smaller, more intimate meetings and ensures all participants are actively engaging. Virtual whiteboards are another great way to allow for brainstorming, note-taking or collaboration. By incorporating gamification elements like a quiz or contest, virtual meetings suddenly become an interactive and engaging experience. Through these interactive opportunities, virtual meetings can foster collaboration, creativity and overall active engagement by the attendees.
Beyond graphic design, video editing and social media, there are several other factors to consider while optimising the virtual meeting experience. Clear communication and seamless interaction via high-quality audio and video equipment is critical, as nothing kills virtual engagement more than poor audio or video quality. Preparing in advance, with all necessary materials, presentations or visual aids ready-to-go during the meeting is important — as “dead-air” is much more noticeable during a virtual meeting. Lastly, ensure all ideas are communicated clearly and concisely, as the last thing a virtual meeting needs is to become unfocused or confusing.
Conclusion
Elevating virtual impact through graphic design, video editing, and social media is crucial to ensuring the engagement and effectiveness of virtual meetings and events. Transforming virtual backgrounds into a way to showcase compelling visuals, crafting immersive experiences through advanced video editing techniques and infusing meetings with interactive features, and adding a social media component to keep a user engaged are all particularly compelling innovations. Ensuring the entire experience is built on high-quality equipment and plenty of advance prep is also critical. These are the strategies and best practices that allow organisations to optimise the virtual communication environment and thereby guarantee that virtual meetings are transformational, enjoyable and rich in output.
