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Virtual meetings on Zoom open up new avenues for internal and external communication. It can be difficult to engage a virtual audience, but if done right, you can make your virtual meetings just as impactful as if they were in person.

However, if you’ve ever been responsible for organizing a Zoom call, you know how difficult it can be to do so effectively. You could waste as much as 10 minutes just setting things up at the beginning of a meeting, which could seriously reduce your organization's productivity. There are many ways to organize your Zoom meetings better ahead of time and save yourself some hassle. We’ll highlight six templates you can use to help organize your virtual meetings more effectively.

Ways to organize your virtual meetings better

Create a personal Zoom call template

Zoom offers different settings and customization features to help people create virtual meetings that align with their goals. However, it can take a lot of time to align these settings for each Zoom call, time you could be spending getting prepared.

Many people don’t realize you can create templates that save your preferred settings on Zoom. The process for this is fairly straightforward as well. Here’s what it looks like:

1. Sign into the Zoom web portal
2. Navigate to the “Meetings” option from the menu
3. Click on “Schedule a Meeting”
4. Choose any settings that you want to apply to this meeting
5. Click on “Save”
6. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on “Save as Template”
7. Choose a name for the template and click “Save as Template” again

You can save up to 40 meeting templates to your account. It’s important to note that while you can save the schedule for a recurring meeting in these templates, you can’t save the exact time or date of the meeting.

By saving a template, you won’t have to waste time choosing the appropriate settings for Zoom etiquette each time you launch a new meeting. You can just open up the template instead. This will save you time in every meeting, which you can use to fine-tune your comments and strategy.

Schedule meetings automatically

Zoom meeting scheduling is another opportunity you have to improve organizational efficiency. Instead of manually scheduling each meeting on your own, you can save time by scheduling recurring meetings automatically.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Sign into the Zoom desktop client
2. Click on the Schedule icon to open up the scheduling window
3. Choose the meeting settings or select a template
4. Name a topic for the meeting
5. Select the date and time of the meeting
6. Choose whether this will be a recurring meeting and select the schedule you want to automatically schedule future meetings on the same topic. This is a nice feature for things like weekly team meetings and monthly company-wide Zoom calls. It gives attendees plenty of advance notice and saves a lot of time that could be better spent elsewhere.
   
   

Record your call as a video

Your meetings may cover important topics for the company, and you need everyone to be aware of what you’ll cover. However, someone might be on vacation or unable to make it. In those situations, having a video of the call recorded for them to review on-demand is extremely helpfulHere’s how to do it:

1. Sign into the Zoom web portal
2. Navigate to the “Settings” option
3. Click on the “Recording” tab
4. Click on the “Local Recording” toggle to enable or disable it.
5. Click “Turn On” to verify the change if asked
6. Decide whether to enable or disable additional features, such as saved chat messages

Once you’ve done that, you can record any Zoom call that you lead. When you start a meeting as the host, just click on the “Record” button and select “Record on This Computer” if asked to do so.

If someone cannot attend the meeting, you can send them the recording and ask them to watch it. That way, they don’t miss out on everything you’ve covered, and you don’t need to worry about a follow-up meeting with individuals. 

Set up a meeting assistant

The biggest concern with organizing the meeting is being able to conduct the conversation while taking notes and managing the technical side of the meeting itself. If one takes priority over the others, you may miss out on important details or drag time by fixing technical difficulties.

Two heads are better than one! You may want to enlist help with your Zoom meetings in the form of a cohost or an assistant. Having an assistant who can assist with a call's scheduling and technical aspects can allow you to focus on the meeting.

When conducting a meeting, have a colleague act as your cohost. To do this, you first need to enable the cohost setting by taking the following steps:

1. Sign into the Zoom web portal
2. Click on the “Settings” tab
3. Click on the “Meeting” tab
4. Verify that the “Cohost” setting is enabled

Once you’ve done that, you can make anyone a cohost from within the meeting by hovering over their video, clicking on the ellipsis icon, and clicking the “Make Cohost” button.

If you want a colleague to schedule a meeting for you, you’ll have to give them scheduling privileges on your behalf. There are some prerequisites you’ll need to consider before this is an option, but having an assistant schedule a meeting on your behalf takes a lot of the organization of the meeting off your shoulders. 

Organize breakout rooms before the meeting starts

When you run large Zoom meetings, you may need to divide participants into breakout rooms to accomplish your goals. This is beneficial because it encourages engagement from every participant, making it easier for everyone to understand and implement the topics you’ve been covering throughout the meeting.

You can pre-assign people to breakout rooms before the meeting starts to save yourself from having to do it on the fly during the meeting. Here’s how:

1. Sign into the Zoom web portal
2. Click on “Meetings” and “Schedule a Meeting”
3. In the “Meeting Options” section, click on “Breakout Room Pre-Assign” and then Click “Create Rooms”
4. Use the “+” icon to add as many breakout rooms as you need
5. Then use the pencil icon to name each room
6. Find the “Add Participants” text box and then press enter to add them to the breakout room
   
   

Detail what you hope to achieve during the meeting upfront

Much of what we’ve covered until now has involved using Zoom settings to optimize organization. However, how you lead the meeting greatly impacts how organized the rest of the conversation will go. It’s up to you to make sure that the conversation is leaning in the direction you’d like.

That’s why it’s important to begin by laying out what you hope to achieve during the Zoom call. This will give everyone a point of reference to think about as you go through your topics. It will also allow you to track the effectiveness of the meeting with targeted questions at the end.

Start the meeting by introducing its purpose and clueing the participants in about the topics you’ll cover. They’ll better understand the meeting, and you’ll have a frame of reference to stay organized.

Use a teleprompter app to stay on track

Don’t have the time to memorize everything you need to say? You don’t have to! Adding a virtual teleprompter to your Zoom calls can deliver many organizational benefits. 

For example, using a teleprompter will make it easier to stay on topic throughout the meeting. It’ll also help you use precise language, which could be critical to making the points you intend to make throughout the meeting. You’ll also be able to control the pace of the meeting even better, making sure you can land every point you need to.

Virtual teleprompters provide these benefits while making it easier for you to maintain eye contact and engage your audience with non-verbal communication without losing your place. The best way to engage with your audience virtually is to look at the camera; with a virtual teleprompter, your notes can be conveniently placed below your camera to help you focus on speaking.

Easily pace your virtual meetings with VODIUM

The way you organize your virtual meetings will greatly impact their effectiveness. With VODIUM, it’s easy to maintain a high level of organization throughout the entire call.

Whether you’re leading a Zoom meeting for your team at work or have hundreds of students to deliver some important messages to, VODIUM’s virtual teleprompter technology will help you do it as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Don’t take our word for it. Try VODIUM for free today to experience it yourself.