Hosting an effective virtual meeting comes down to exploring and implementing new ways to boost engagement among participants. To hone in on engagement among virtual employees, you need to find a suitable virtual meeting engagement tool that helps garner and retain participants’ attention. Whether you’re an experienced meeting host looking for a leg up, or a new people manager eager to kick your first meeting off on the right foot, this article has everything you need to choose the best virtual meeting engagement tool for you and your team. 

Technology is often used strategically to boost engagement and keep remote employees connected through effective communication channels in an attempt to foster collaboration, retain top talent, and mimic in-person interactions. A virtual meeting engagement tool can simply be defined as a tool or resource that can be leveraged by an organization to streamline communication and boost engagement among remote employees during team meetings.

Virtual engagement has become a challenge for many organizations as they continue to embrace the shift towards a remote-first workplace. Remote work has become the norm, and as more employees begin to work virtually, the importance of engaging remote employees is more prevalent than ever. Effectively engaging virtual employees will enhance your company culture and ensure your team members are still as efficient and productive as they would be in the office. 

Level up your virtual meeting habits to boost engagement and productivity with a collaborative meeting agenda. Try a tool like Fellow!

Engaging remote employees can be difficult, mainly because they don’t have the same added pressure as they would in an in-person environment to participate, engage, and listen. While remote work boasts many benefits, there are pitfalls. Sitting at home or in a coffee shop and logging into meeting after meeting can be draining. Zoom fatigue is real and if you don’t find a way to level up your virtual meetings, you’ll fail to engage participants. Virtual engagement tools pose a unique opportunity to take your virtual meetings to the next level by making the learning experience fun, testing participants’ knowledge, reiterating important concepts, and helping them retain information in a new and exciting way. 

Fellow is a meeting management platform where teams can gather to have productive team meetings and one-on-ones. With Fellow, you and your teammates can work collaboratively to build great meeting habits through meeting agendas, real-time note-taking, and time-saving templates. You can also leverage the one-of-a-kind feedback feature to give and receive feedback, and request and track real-time feedback on meetings, recent projects, and performance. Plus, With Fellow’s browser extensions, you can access your meeting notes right inside of Google Meet calls and your Google Calendar to supercharge team meetings and 1-on-1 without leaving the tools that you are already using.

Fellow’s pricing is simple with two main plans, including a free plan for teams of up to 10 people that want to try Fellow for free, and a pro plan for $6/user per month for teams of up to 50 people that need to manage all their one-on-ones and meeting notes while fostering a culture of accountability. For additional business or enterprise needs, you can request a demo. 

Mentimeter is an interactive presentation software that provides users with several different interactive slides that are designed to engage users and gather audience insights with the help of instant feedback, word clouds, Q&As, polls, and surveys. Mentimeter makes it possible for you to build an immediate connection with your audience and make them part of your presentation by creating an interactive experience that encourages everyone to vote, ask questions, and interact throughout the entire virtual meeting.  

Plans and pricing vary depending on your needs; however, Mentimeter offers a unique discount for students and teachers. If you only need the basic plan, it will cost $11.99 per month, and for more extensive features, you can request a custom quote. 

Slido is an industry-leading audience interaction platform that helps users get the most out of meetings and events by crowdsourcing top questions and engaging participants with live polls, quizzes, and word clouds. Slido provides you with everything you need to engage participants, capture views, and make everyone feel connected in one easy-to-use platform. In addition, Slido integrates with all of your favorite tools—like Webex, PowerPoint, YouTube, and Google Slides—and you can try the platform for free! You can experiment with the basic plan and upgrade as needed for only $20 per month. Click here to get started for free.

If you’re looking for a versatile tool that boosts engagement during meetings, Miro is for you. With cutting-edge features like timers, voting, a specific meeting mode, and chat features, Miro is built for running collaborative and engaging virtual meetings. In addition to helping you host collaborative sessions, brainstorming is where Miro shines. To get started, Miro offers a comprehensive library of templates with numerous test cases, so you never have to worry about starting from scratch.

Miro has four separate plans ranging from a free plan with its most basic features to an enterprise plan that is quoted on an as-needed basis. Click here to learn which plan is best for you. 

Used in over 200 countries and trusted by 97% of Fortune 500 companies, Kahoot! is leveraged worldwide to make virtual meetings more engaging. Kahoot! transforms presentations, training sessions, events, and meetings in organizations of any size by empowering users to create and deliver engaging learning experiences. When you’re hosting a live Kahoot!, questions appear on a shared screen and participants vote on the answer they believe to be correct. Participants join a live Kahoot! by entering a unique PIN in their browser, or in the Kahoot! app, to submit their answers.

When it comes to pricing, plans vary based on your needs. The standard individual Kahoot! plan starts at $17 and allows up to 20 participants, and the most expensive plan is $79/host per month. Click here to learn more about plan types and prices. 

Coggle is a collaborative mind-mapping tool that helps you break down complex problems into consumable information. Built with collaboration at its center, this online mind-mapping tool is perfect for creating and sharing mind maps that are excellent for brainstorming and mapping out ideas. This tool is ideal if you’re looking for a creative way to empower your team to take notes, brainstorm ideas, visualize connections across concepts, and collaborate with others. 

Are you interested in exploring your biggest and brightest ideas with your teammates? Coggle has three plans that cater to organizations of all sizes. From a free forever plan with basic features to an organization plan that is only $8/member per month, Coggle has accessible plans for everyone.

Mural is an online collaboration tool that empowers teams to think and collaborate visually to solve problems. This unique digital environment leverages visual collaboration to empower every member of your team to unlock ideas and solve problems together so you can level the playing field for distributed teams by ensuring everyone’s voice is heard. Are you ready to level up your teamwork with an intuitive digital whiteboard? Click here to learn which plan is right for you. 

Zoom Polls is a function within Zoom meetings that provides you with the resources necessary to engage meeting participants through polling. The polling feature for meetings allows you to create single-choice or multiple-choice polling questions to engage participants. To use this feature, simply launch it during your next meeting and gather responses as you go. For additional insights, you can download a report of all responses after the meeting has finished.

Unlike other options on this list, the Google Jamboard is a 55-inch digital whiteboard that works with G Suite services and is meant to be used in person. For users that are eager to leverage Jamboard outside of the classroom, Jamboard can be accessed externally in real time by web browser or mobile. 

Poll Everywhere is a comprehensive online tool that empowers users to host interactive online meetings by providing you with the tools necessary to engage your audience, capture feedback, and present live results. Like with some other options on this list, you can leverage Poll Everywhere to seamlessly engage your audience during virtual meetings through live online polling, surveys, Q&As, quizzes, word clouds, and more.

Poll Everywhere has a variety of plans and price points that cater to both businesses and nonprofits. Unlike with other tools, with Poll Everywhere you can choose the plan that best suits your needs and upgrade or downgrade as you see fit. Click here to learn more about plans and pricing. 

In conclusion, boosting employment among your virtual employees is incredibly important and each one of these tools provides different benefits. Don’t forget to check the Fellow blog for more tips, tricks, and resources that will help you engage your remote employees in 2023 and beyond!