More than 300 million people use Zoom every day. That statistic underscores just how powerful the tool can be for connecting with other professionals virtually.
Zoom meetings don’t always end up how you anticipate, though. It’s very easy to lose your place, disrupt the flow of the meeting, and diminish the impact of the points you’re trying to make. Even for low-priority meetings, this can be a huge waste of time for everyone involved.
Luckily, in this article, we’ll provide a handful of practical tips you can use to run your Zoom meetings without losing your place in the conversation.
How to run a Zoom meeting effectively
Describe the meeting purpose at the beginning
When you run a Zoom meeting, it’s important to move through the topic of conversation logically. You want to start with an introduction, dive into the discussion, and then wrap everything up with a conclusion.
Your introduction is especially important, as it will set the tone for the entire meeting. It tells people what to expect and allows them to consider their opinions and questions related to the various subjects that you’re going to discuss.
Your goal at the beginning of each Zoom meeting should be to make the purpose of the meeting abundantly clear. How do you do that? Think of why you scheduled the meeting in the first place. What are you hoping to accomplish?
For example, maybe you’re running a Zoom training meeting. If so, you could begin the gathering by highlighting what you want everyone to know about Zoom by the end of the meeting.
The average worker spends at least three hours in meetings every week. Starting your meetings with this kind of introduction will ensure they don’t get lost in the noise and you’re able to accomplish the purpose of the gathering.
Be an active listener during the meeting
Research suggests that the average person only listens at about 25% efficiency. It also tells us that we spend more time listening while communicating than speaking by quite a fair margin. As the meeting facilitator, you want to ensure everyone feels heard. That’s why, when you’re conducting a Zoom meeting, it’s important to be an active listener.
This doesn’t just help your attendees, though. By reviewing important points that others have made, you’ll be able to regroup and move on to the next topic. You’ll have a good pulse on the conversation while still sticking to the matters at hand.
Being an active listener is an important part of leading a Zoom meeting. Active listening means:
- Verbally acknowledging the points that have been made (and potentially including them in your meeting recap)
- Being careful about your body language so that it doesn’t distract or make you appear uninterested
- Physically showing that you’re listening, like maintaining eye contact or nodding your head
- Not interrupting a participant
- Asking poignant questions that show the person you hear what they’re saying
Body language is particularly underrated when it comes to listening. Some research shows that up to 93% of communication is nonverbal. That means even if you say all of the right things, you may still not achieve active listening if your nonverbal communication is poor.
Have a cohost so you can focus on the conversation
Having a cohost is another strategy you can use to run your Zoom meetings more effectively. When you have a cohost, they can take care of all of the technical and administrative aspects of the meeting for you so that you can focus entirely on the conversation.
The good news is that Zoom makes it very easy to add a cohost to your meeting. Start by ensuring that the cohosting feature is activated on your account, which you can do by:
- Going to settings
- Clicking on the “Meeting” tab
- Checking to verify the cohost setting is enabled
As long as you’ve done this, you can make anyone a cohost of your meeting directly within the meeting. You just hover over the user’s video feed with your mouse and then click on the ellipses icon and select “Make Cohost.” Make sure to give them a heads up beforehand, being clear about what you need them to do.
Have a teleprompter script to follow along
Having a virtual teleprompter for your Zoom meetings can also be very beneficial. It will give you a running script to follow so that if you ever get distracted or lose your place, you can immediately return your focus to precisely where it needs to be.
When you use a teleprompter in a Zoom meeting, you’ll say exactly what you planned to without any of your participants knowing. To them, you’ll seem like a natural presenter.
VODIUM is a great example of this. Our virtual teleprompter makes running a Zoom meeting a breeze by giving you an easy way to stay on topic and engage your audience.
We’ll take a closer look at how a virtual teleprompter can help you run your Zoom meetings more effectively in the next section.
How a teleprompter app can help you run a Zoom meeting
Focus on the meeting’s purpose
Running a Zoom meeting can sometimes feel an awful lot like juggling. You have to manage the technical side of using Zoom, keep everyone engaged, and ensure the meeting is an efficient use of all of your time—all without losing your place.
Using a virtual teleprompter will solve this problem for you. You’ll always be able to refocus your attention back to the purpose of the meeting if you get distracted.
Having a virtual teleprompter can also prevent you from getting distracted in the first place. You’ll have something tangible to focus on at all times so that you don’t have to worry about keeping all of your points straight in your head.
The net result of this could be a more efficient meeting. Some data shows that about 15% of every hour-long meeting is wasted entirely. That’s a huge amount of time when you consider that the average person has more than one meeting per day.
Using a virtual teleprompter can reduce the amount of time that you waste while running Zoom meetings so that your organizational efficiency improves.
Make key points precisely
The specific language that you use during a meeting can have a tremendous impact on the points that you’re making.
For example, you might inadvertently use language that diminishes the importance of a point that you’re making instead of enhancing it. Also, you could accidentally use ambiguous language that causes some people to mistake your real point for another.
The point is that you need to be precise while leading meetings if you want to ensure that you convey exactly what you mean. Virtual teleprompters help you do that.
With a virtual teleprompter, you can type out exactly what you want to say before the meeting and then read those words directly when the time comes. It’s impossible to be more precise than that.
Look your participants in the eyes
Eye contact is a very important part of communication. It shows people that you’re confident in what you’re saying and makes them feel like you’re speaking directly to them. This can help other meeting participants stay engaged and become active in the discussion at hand, thereby helping you get more out of the gathering.
At the same time, you’ll likely want to follow a script in your meeting to ensure that you’re being precise with your words. It’s extremely challenging to maintain eye contact when you’re reading from a static piece of paper.
Virtual teleprompters solve this problem. When you use one, you’ll be able to place the teleprompter anywhere on your screen, and you can place it near the camera. This will make it appear as though you’re maintaining eye contact even while you’re reading.
You can also take advantage of transparency features to become even more effective at maintaining eye contact, another reason why VODIUM could be the answer to your Zoom meeting struggles.
Use VODIUM to run a great Zoom meeting
Running a Zoom meeting isn’t always easy. There’s so much for you to manage that it can be difficult to focus on things like precision, eye contact, and body language.
VODIUM can help. Our virtual teleprompter software is the easiest way to enhance your Zoom meetings. It sits directly beneath your computer’s camera to make your audience feel like you’re speaking directly to them. It’ll also help you stay on topic at all times to ensure that your Zoom meetings are as efficient and productive as possible.
We don’t just expect you to take our word for all of that. That’s why we’re offering a free trial of VODIUM to anyone who wants to improve their Zoom meetings. You can visit our homepage today to sign up for it and experience the value VODIUM offers.
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