For many companies, in-person meetings are out, which means meeting software is now a necessity. But what is a meeting software, and how do you choose the right tool for your company? We’ll answer these questions and more in this guide. Let’s dive in!
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What is a Meeting Software?
A meeting software, AKA a video conferencing software, is exactly what it sounds like: software that allows users to meet with each other online via web conferencing.
Online meetings are useful for distributed teams who cannot meet in person on a regular basis — either because every member lives and works in a different city or because the team is temporarily working remotely due to COVID-19.
How to Choose Meeting Software in 3 Easy Steps
The truth is there’s a ton of online meeting platform options available to you. Because of this, you may be wondering how to choose a meeting software that fits your company’s unique needs. Start by asking yourself the following three questions:
1. What Features Do I Need?
The first thing you need to assess in terms of video conferencing software is features. There’s no point investing in a solution that won’t do what you need it to.
If you want to video chat with your family and friends every week, you can probably choose an online meeting platform with basic functionality. But if you want to host business meetings with your team, you’ll want to choose a professional-level tool.
For example, screen sharing options, presentation tools, private chat capability, and Grade-A security are features you should definitely look for.
2. How Secure Do I Want My Platform?
Speaking of security, how secure do you want your platform to be? Again, if you only plan to discuss the weather with your dear old aunt in Charleston, security might not be a big concern for you. But if you’re looking to invest in online meeting software for professional purposes, security should be one of your top concerns.
You do NOT want some cyber miscreant hacking into your private team powwows and stealing proprietary information and then selling it to a competitor.
3. What’s My Budget?
Lastly, be honest with yourself about what you can afford. There are free web conferencing solutions available, as we mentioned. But a professional-grade service will cost you — though it might not be as expensive as you think.
The key is to find the perfect balance between the features you need, the security level you feel comfortable with, and the amount of money you can realistically spend.
ClickMeeting: A Fully-Featured Online Meeting Platform
So far, we’ve covered what an online meeting software is and how to choose the right tool for your company. Now let’s talk about a specific solution you can use to host secure and productive digital business meetings for your team.
ClickMeeting is a popular online meeting, webinar, and webcast platform used by hundreds of thousands of happy customers worldwide.
With ClickMeeting, you can…
Host Up to 25 Team Members at Once
Whether you want to host a small, intimate meeting or a full-fledged department powwow, you can do it with ClickMeeting. Up to 25 team members can participate (i.e., see, hear, and talk) in a single event room with our software.
This is important because it will allow you to host one meeting for everyonerather than multiple smaller gatherings that will waste your time. It will also keep your entire team engaged as they can interact with allof their colleagues at once.
From small businesses to Fortune 500 enterprises, every kind of company can benefit from the additional online meeting space that ClickMeeting provides.
Enable Screen Sharing for All Attendees
The best online meetings are ones in which all attendees participate and contribute. This will be much easier for your teammates and/or employees to do if they can easily share their screens with the rest of the group.
Screen sharing allows meeting participants to literally showothers what’s happening on their screens rather than describing it to them. Screen sharing is great to illustrate complex processes efficiently and makes online meetings more engaging.
Choose ClickMeeting for your web conferencing tool and enable each of your meeting attendees to share their individual screens with the click of a button.
Enjoy Top-Notch Presenting Tools
Do you know what’s boring? Video conferences that feature one speaker (usually the boss) simply give orders to their employees. To really engage your team and bring out the best in them, you should view your online meetings as presentation opportunities.
Use ClickMeeting to spice things up with graphs, tables, and charts. Take advantage of our tool’s whiteboard feature and illuminate the concepts you discuss with notes or illustrations. Play a YouTube video in the middle of your meeting or share Excel documents and other files.
With ClickMeeting, you have the chance to turn a boring, every-day-meeting into something that fires up your team and really propels your company forward.
Communicate Clearly with All Participants
If you can’t communicate clearly during your video conference, what’s the point? That’s why you need to choose an online meeting platform that makes it easy for you and your team members to get your points across quickly and succinctly.
ClickMeeting offers an abundance of communication tools:
Video and Audio. Of course, you can always speak directly to meeting attendees and show them graphics and files to hammer home points.
In-App Chat. You can also use chat boxes to communicate during a ClickMeeting session. Chat messages can be sent to the entire group or specific audience members.
Polls and Surveys. The easiest way to get attendees’ opinions is to send a quick poll or survey. That way, answers are recorded and saved for future reference.
Meeting Recordings. What if a key team member is unable to attend your video conference? Simply record the meeting and send them the footage with ClickMeeting.
Use ClickMeeting to communicate in a variety of different ways and ensure your team always understands each other.
Make Sure Your Online Meetings Are Secure
We mentioned it earlier, but it bears repeating: your online meeting software needs to be secure if you plan to use it for business purposes.
ClickMeeting ensures your online meetings can’t get hacked with a password and/or unique token protections that automatically expire after being used. You can also lock any meeting room inside our software to completely prohibit unwanted intruders from entering.
Don’t let anyone steal the proprietary information you share in your video conferences. Protect your company with ClickMeeting!
Prepare Your Conference Room in Advance
You and your team have a lot of important tasks to accomplish each day. Meetings, while necessary, often keep professionals from completing the things they need to complete. Combat this by preparing your meeting room for attendees before your meeting actually starts.
With ClickMeeting, online meeting hosts can upload PowerPoint presentations, audio and video files, survey questions, and necessary documents to their meeting rooms in advance.
This feature will save you and your team time because you won’t have to search for files mid-meeting. They’ll already be there, ready and waiting for you when you need them. A pre-prepared meeting room will also help you look more professional in front of your team.
Synchronize Layouts for All Attendees
At ClickMeeting, we understand that every company is unique and has specific workflows that help them achieve success. Our online meeting platform is designed to assist your workflows, not replace them, with customizable features.
For example, you can change the layout of your meeting room. Supersize the chat window to easily follow written conversations or hide it entirely, so it’s not a distraction. You can also dock, undock, drag and drop, or eliminate your AV pod.
The best part is, the layout you choose for your meeting can be synchronized across all attendee screens, so everyone receives the same video conferencing experience.
Easily Test Your Web Conferencing AV
Finally, ClickMeeting offers an audio-visual testing tool that you can use to make sure the technology for your get-together operates correctly ahead of time. Faulty cameras and microphones delay meetings and make it difficult to communicate clearly.
Using the tool is super easy:
Enter your meeting room before your event starts. The AV Tester popup will appear.
Choose the microphone and camera you’ll use from the drop-down menus.
Test your framing and lighting in the video window on the left-hand side of the popup.
Speak into your microphone to check audio levels.
And that’s all there is to it! The ClickMeeting AV tester tool can be used in a matter of minutes. It will save you from technical difficulties during your meeting.
Host a Better Video Conference with Online Meeting Software
Whether you manage a completely distributed team or are simply working remotely until the novel coronavirus subsides, an online meeting platform will help you host better virtual meetings for your team. Just remember to ask the right questions to find the right platform:
- What Features Do I Need?
- How Secure Do I Want My Platform?
- What’s My Budget?
After asking yourself these three questions, you might find that ClickMeeting is a viable option for you. If so, we encourage you to sign up for our free trial. That way, you can test out every feature for yourself for 30 days before committing.
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