When Do You Need an Online Meeting?
Online meeting options that work for all your business communication needs.
An online meeting can provide your organization with valuable benefits and insights beyond those of a simple phone call or a long stream of team emails. Before choosing from the many types of meetings, it is helpful to know the options available, how it can help your organization, and when it's essential to hold an online meeting. Armed with this information, you can make the videoconferencing business case to executives in your organization and start taking advantage of the benefits.
What are online meetings?
A virtual meeting is a team meeting online using audio or videoconferencing software. People in different locations and time zones enter a virtual meeting room and communicate in real-time during a remote meeting. An online meeting differs from a face-to-face meeting in that you aren’t physically in the same place, but the best online meetings will create an environment similar to an in-person, conference room meeting.
Different types of meetings
You can use a remote meeting for various purposes. Consider these examples of online conferencing scenarios:
- Online meetings with existing clients: A virtual meeting can improve communication and help get a client relationship back on track. You can use a virtual meeting to answer questions about progress, present analysis, reports, and findings, and discuss your plan going forward. It's an opportunity to provide clarity around any confusion and create a record of information shared and any verbal agreements.
- Online meetings with potential clients: Meeting with a customer for the first time means establishing trust. Online meetings let you see and talk to potential customers or clients with ease and gives them a chance to get to know you. You can use an online meeting to introduce key personnel, such as your sales and marketing teams or your R&D department, and improve sales outcomes by using your online session to make your best pitch.
- Online meetings for team collaboration: An introduction meeting with new team members is an effective way for everyone to get to know each other and build relationships. Holding a team meeting online to introduce a new member or project builds cohesiveness. Companies use virtual meetings for on-boarding and training, daily or weekly updates, and virtual team collaboration. You can even bring different department heads together every month to discuss how they can support each other in projects with a lot of crossover.
- Online meetings with IT: IT can leverage the advantages of online presentations, including screen sharing, to instruct less technical members of the team in hardware and software use. This leads to more effective remote working, especially if your company requires the use of specialized software programs but allows the flexibility to work from home. IT can use a remote meeting to walk offsite workers through a troubleshooting process.
IT can also collaborate with other departments to improve security and compliance. A virtual team collaboration focused on security protocols helps ensure onsite and offsite workers using company-owned and personal devices don't put your organization at risk.
Benefits of online meetings
Online meetings create effective communication among teams who don’t physically work in the same location or are on different schedules. Companies that use effective meeting strategies and virtual meetings can cut down on the cost, effort and time it takes to get people together in a brick and mortar conference room.
For instance, imagine scheduling a meeting with all franchise operators for an important corporate announcement, or having your top sales executive and their team lead an online meeting with a major client. An online business meeting allows anyone to quickly and easily join using different types of virtual communication, including audio and video.
The benefits of remote meetings also apply to internal use. You may use them to:
- Make a companywide announcement and field questions.
- Introduce new corporate procedures.
- Troubleshoot a problem.
- Get everyone on the same page to appropriately react to an incident.
- Have regularly scheduled company conferences, complete with check-in questions for meetings, to gather input from department heads and key employees.
Virtual meeting ideas can also include ways to motivate and reward employees. For example, you can set up a quick meeting to celebrate a loyal employee’s birthday or the birth of a child. Well wishes from multiple people in the organization can boost morale and make the employee feel appreciated. You can also celebrate a project finish and announce an early end to a day after a successful milestone. The possibilities for virtual group meetings are endless.
Why use web conferencing tools?
Wondering how to make virtual meetings more interactive? Web conferencing is easier with tools like GoToMeeting, which provides the following features:
- Calendar integrations so nobody misses a reminder.
- Support for up to 250 participants.
- Mobile and computer applications that let people join from anywhere and participate on the enabled device of their choice.
- A video-to-slide feature to meet your unique needs.
- Screenshare and draw options to make it easy to get your point across in a visual way. Sharing information quickly and coherently is crucial to a well-run meeting.
- Unlimited recording and transcription availability, so you have a complete record of the meeting and can make it available to other participants. This is ideal for promoting worker accountability.
Integrating online meetings can take some time to get everyone on board, but you’ll soon learn the best time for meetings, how to increase attendance and interaction during sessions, and how to gather follow-up from meeting attendees.
An online meeting is one of the most valuable and effective types of virtual communication at your disposal. When you embrace virtual meeting strategies, you create an instant, reliable, and easy-to-use way for you, your team, and your customers to stay connected, with the right communications tools to build relationships and more effectively share information.
Get answers to all of your questions.
Holding an Online Meeting
- What can I do with GoToMeeting?
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With GoToMeeting, you can deliver presentations, perform product demonstrations, brainstorm with colleagues and securely share confidential information online from anywhere at any time. Your meetings can be one-to-one, or you can meet with multiple people at once.
Presentations: Give a slideshow to your online audience and reduce travel costs.
Demonstrations: Show prospects how your product works by inviting them to view a demo in real time, whether they are across town or a thousand miles away.
Work together: Meet with others online to share, discuss and edit any document. Transfer presentation controls to other attendees.
- How do I start using GoToMeeting?
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Simply register for your free trial now. After the quick automatic setup is completed, you can immediately begin using it.
- Do I have to be at my computer to hold a meeting?
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No, you can hold a meeting from any computer – or even a mobile device – as long as it has Internet access. Just log in with your account email and password at www.gotomeeting.com.
Hold a scheduled meeting: Your scheduled meetings will be listed under My Meetings – just click the Start Meetingbutton next to the meeting you want to start.
Hold an instant meeting: Click the Host a Meeting button, then choose the Meet Now button. Your meeting will start immediately. To invite people to your meeting, click the Invite Others button in the control panel. A window will open with instructions for joining that you can email, instant message or tell your attendees over the phone.
To schedule a meeting: Click the Host a Meeting button, then choose the Schedule Meeting button. Fill out the meeting information and click the Schedule button. A meeting invitation email will launch automatically. - How do I start an impromptu meeting?
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On a PC
There are several ways to start a one-click impromptu meeting:
· Double-click the GoToMeeting system tray icon.
· Click the Meet Now button integrated into Microsoft Outlook and various instant-messaging applications.
· Scheduled meetings can be started with one click from the My Meetings web page after logging in to the GoToMeeting website.
On a Mac
Just click the GoToMeeting icon in the dock and then click the Meet Now button.
Your meeting will start and the GoToMeeting organizer control panel will appear on the right side of your desktop. - How do I schedule a meeting?
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On a PC
To schedule a meeting in advance, right-click the GoToMeeting system tray icon on the bottom-right corner of your screen, select Schedule a Meeting... and log in by entering your account information and clicking the Log In button. Then, on the Schedule Meeting dialog box, enter your meeting information and click the Schedule button.You will be notified that your meeting has been scheduled. If you are using Microsoft Outlook, a meeting reminder will be generated and give you the option of inviting attendees via an Outlook Calendar appointment.
On a Mac
To schedule a meeting in advance, click the GoToMeeting icon in the dock, select Schedule Meeting and log in by entering your account information and clicking the Log In button. Then, on the Schedule Meeting dialog box, enter your meeting information and click the Schedule button. You will be notified that your meeting has been scheduled. - How do I set up recurring meetings that I can use any time?
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On a PC
To set up a recurring meeting, right-click the GoToMeeting system tray icon on the bottom-right corner of your screen, select Schedule a Meeting... and log in by entering your account information and clicking the Log In button. Then, on the Schedule Meeting dialog box, click the check box next to Recurring meeting. This will disable the scheduling settings, keeping the meeting open and available in My Meetings until you delete it. Click the Schedule button.You will be notified that your meeting has been scheduled. If you are using Microsoft Outlook, a meeting reminder will be generated and give you the option of inviting attendees via an Outlook Calendar appointment.
On a Mac
To set up a recurring meeting, click the GoToMeeting icon in the dock, select Schedule Meeting and log in by entering your account information and clicking the Log In button. Then, on the Schedule Meeting dialog box, click the check box next to Recurring meeting. This will disable the scheduling settings, keeping the meeting open and available in My Meetings until you delete it. Click the Schedule button. You will be notified that your meeting has been scheduled. - How do I start a scheduled or recurring meeting?
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On a PC
To start a previously scheduled meeting, right-click the GoToMeeting system tray icon, select My Meetings and log in by entering your account information and clicking the Log In button. Then, on the My Scheduled Meetings dialog box, select the meeting you wish to start and click Start.
On a Mac
To start a previously scheduled meeting, click the GoToMeeting icon in the dock, click the My Meetings button and log in by entering your account information and clicking the Log In button. Then, on the My Meetings – GoToMeeting dialog box, select the meeting you wish to start and click Start. - Can I use GoToMeeting with email or instant-messaging applications?
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GoToMeeting integrates with Microsoft Outlook and other popular email and instant-messaging applications, so you can easily start or schedule meetings while using them.
- How do I save chat sessions from my meetings?
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Under the File menu select Save Chat Log... This opens the "Save Chat Log to a File" dialog that allows you to store it locally.
- How do I share one application and nothing else?
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On a PC
A presenter can share a single application by right-clicking the screen-sharing icon on the control panel grab tab and then selecting the application to share from the list of applications presented.
On a Mac
Since specific screen sharing is not yet available for Mac users, we recommend you close any application you do not want to share before initiating screen sharing. - What do I do if my attendees can't see my screen?
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Screen sharing needs to be turned on after starting a meeting – GoToMeeting starts with it turned off to prevent early attendees from viewing your preparation.
To enable screen sharing, click Show My Screen in the organizer control panel.
If attendees still can't see your screen, please contact Global Customer Support.
