Virtual town hall meetings are the perfect way to bring together your employees. When they are run successfully, they can help make every voice feel heard, whether they are working remotely or not.
Here are 17 tools to help you ensure your next virtual town hall meeting is a success rather than a snooze fest.
Interactive tools
Town Halls can be long and dull if there isn’t a plan in place for keeping everyone involved. Fortunately, there are several tools you can use to easily get your team interested.
1. Mentimeter
Mentimeter is an interactive engagement tool for virtual meetings. Through a link, you can ask attendees to ask or answer questions, take part in polls and quizzes, all from their mobile phones. The answers appear live in the presentation and are all downloadable and shareable as PDFs.
I’ve used Mentimeter in several presentations and it’s always been a hit! If you’d be interested in using Mentimeter for your next town hall, get in touch Merv Wyeth, our resident expert at merv@jeremycassellcoaching.com
2. IdeaBoardz
IdeaBoardz is a virtual collaboration tool. Through virtual post it notes you can brainstorm, collect opinions and organise action points easily. It’s both practical and user-friendly, a win-win for teams with varying levels of tech literacy.
3. Pigeonhole Live
Pigeonhole Live is another fantastic interactive tool for meetings. Using live Q&As, polls, quizzes, and surveys during the event it keeps your audience engaged. There are several additional fantastic features also, for example: a live agenda that can be shared ahead of the event, a virtual suggestion box, a leader’s board for quizzes to get everyone feeling competitive, and more…
It integrates with Zoom, Powerpoint, ON24, Cisco Webex, Microsoft Teams, YouTube, Brightcove, etc. You can also embed it simply into a web page.
Organisational tools
Many large organisations have teams scattered across different time zones including an increasingly large remote working base. Finding a time that works across different time zones can be challenging.
Fortunately there are some wonderful tools to do just that:
4. EveryTimeZone
This time zone tool allows you to easily check times using a slider feature. With the pro version you also get access to more features that allow you to find times based on your team’s specific timezones and invite them, all from one place.
5. Spacetime
5. Spacetime is another tool that makes scheduling across different time zones a piece of cake. As a bonus it also integrates with Slack, which is great news if you already use this for internal communications.
Streaming platforms
Streaming platformsThere are many platforms out there for hosting virtual town hall meetings, some of which are specialised, others which aren’t. Below is a short selection!
6. AllHands
AllHands has been built specifically with online town hall meetings in mind. With in-built engagement tools, analytics and plenty of options for including live as well as pre-recorded content, it’s an all-in-one platform for successful meetings.
7. Highfive
HighFive is a software and hardware solution for video conferencing, and is particularly suitable for large meetings such as town halls. Its Moderated Meetings tool makes it easy to control large meetings online through intuitive moderation.
8. Vimeo Livestream
Vimeo has a livestreaming platform that’s perfect for virtual town hall meetings. You can integrate live polls and Q&A’s, as well as have a chat section. One big advantage is the live support available to you when you use the platform during business hours. Perfect for anyone nervous about using new technology.
9. Glisser
Glisser specialises in online and hybrid events, making it a great choice for when your team is a mixture of remote and on-location. With Glisser you can create multiple rooms to navigate between, create virtual booths, and keep your audience engaged with quizzes, word clouds, ranking questions and polls. There are also note-taking features, and the decks are downloadable in-app, making it easier for your team to take action.
10. Zoom, Teams, Skype, Google Hangout and more
10. Zoom, Teams, Skype, Google Hangout and moreYou don’t necessarily need to invest in a specialist tools to host your virtual town hall meeting. Whichever video conferencing tool you ordinarily use for your company meetings can be adapted to a town hall situation.
Simply make sure to integrate it with additional interactive tools so that it doesn’t just become “another meeting that could have been an email”.
Design
You’ve got the software, interactive tools and a great time to gather everyone, but what about the content of your town hall meeting?
Here are a few resources to help people remember your meeting for all the right reasons!
9. Prezi
You might be familiar already with Prezi as an alternative to Powerpoint, but you might not know that it integrates with video conference tools to create impressive presentations.
Prezi integrates with all the main video conference apps (OBS, Zoom, Teams, GoToMeeting, Google Meet, YouTube and more). You can convert Powerpoint or create bespoke slides using Prezi’s canvas.
10. SlideDog
SlideDog is another powerful presentation tool that lets you combine media from different formats including Powerpoint, Prezi, PDF, Word, videos, images, Excel, websites and more. This creates what SlideDog calls a playlist and it saves you from having to constantly change windows during a presentation.
The aim of Flowvella is to create interactive and inspiring presentations that move away from boring bulleted lists. Instead, you can easily add GIFs, videos and more, and navigate through your presentation in a non-linear more organic way.
11. Flowvella
The aim of Flowvella is to create interactive and inspiring presentations that move away from boring bulleted lists. Instead, you can easily add GIFs, videos and more, and navigate through your presentation in a non-linear more organic way.
12. Powerpoint
12. PowerpointOf course, we can’t talk of presentation software without mentioning Powerpoint. Whilst it might not be as trendy as others, it is still the number 1 presentation software used and has far more capabilities than most people realise.
If you want to be surprised at what can be achieved in Powerpoint, get in touch with our friends at Emperor. They make Powerpoint presentations that don’t look like they were made in Powerpoint!
13. Vyond
One way to introduce a new concept to your next town hall meeting could be through animation. With Vyond you can affordably and quickly create simple animations to explain new processes, train your teams, and more.
14. SmartDraw
Need a flowchart? A floor plan? A diagram? SmartDraw is an easy-to-use tool to help you do just that. Create them and add them to your slides to communicate effectively in your next virtual town hall.
15. James the Scribe
Finally, another way to capture your town hall meeting whilst keeping your employees engaged is to use the talents of James the Scribe! Most recently, James created this wonderful summary of my webinar to the Project Management Institute.
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If you’d like James to scribe at your next meeting, whether it’s a town hall or not, then do get in touch by emailing Debbie@jeremycassellcoaching.com
An all-in-one solution for your town hall
Give your next town hall its best chance of success by booking a meeting with me now. From design to delivery, my partners and I can coach you and provide you with all the tools you need to succeed.
Jeremy@Jeremycassellcoaching.com
+44 (0)1903 918654