5 Guidelines to Make the Most of Your Next Online Meeting

Having meetings online with clients, employees, vendors, trainees, and business associates has become a common occurrence facilitated by the use of online conference apps and software. No longer is it necessary to gather everyone together in one room, wasting the time and money of travel. Conference apps allow you to contact multiple individuals and set up a meeting within minutes. 

However, not all conference apps are created equal, and if you want to make the most of your online meetings, you'll want to choose the conference app that best suits your needs by offering you features and functions that will be useful to you and improve the overall meeting. Follow these five guidelines when choosing your conference app, and you'll easily find one that benefits your time, effort, and business. 

1. Ease of Use

Despite the abundance of conference apps currently available, many of them simply aren't that easy to use. As someone setting up the meetings, you should have taken the time to learn how to use the app properly, but you can't expect all of your attendees to do the same. By choosing an app that is easy to use for all, you'll avoid lengthy startup times and confusion, allowing your meeting to be ready to go as soon as attendees join. 

2. Number of Attendees

You'll want to be aware of how many attendees you expect to have at your meetings. Some individuals only require an app that allows you to connect with less than ten attendees, while others enable you to connect with thousands. Some apps, such as UberConference, offer you multiple levels of usage so that you can choose the one that best suits your needs. This might be useful because even though you may only plan on having small online meetings and conferences, you never know if you might need to connect with more people in the future. Using an app that allows you all options means you don't suddenly have to find and learn another app. 

3. Screen Sharing

You might not think a conference app that offers a screen sharing function is important, as you want your attendees to be focused on the meeting and not on other things on their PC. However, studies have shown that many attendees of meetings often multi-task and perform other actions such as checking email, reading documents, and browsing the Internet. That means that interactivity suffers, and your message doesn't get across as clearly as you might like it to. 

However, with screen sharing, users can keep their focus on the meeting and on their other tasks at the same time, which helps to improve interaction. UberConference allows easy Screen Sharing, and is also very easy to use from the start, which makes it a popular choice amongst those who regularly attend or set up online meetings. 

4. Information

Some conference apps allow you to connect with attendees easily but don’t provide you with any useful information about each attendee. A useful feature to have in a conference app is one that displays contact information for each attendee. Others even go so far as to provide you with links to LinkedIn profiles and additional info. Being able to display information about each attendee as you are talking to them can be very useful, especially in meetings with a large group of people. 

5. Functionality

There are plenty of bare bones conference apps available, but wouldn't it be more useful to have an app that includes various features to improve productivity both during and after the meeting? Some useful functions and features include the ability to record the meeting for later playback, or the ability to display and share documents and other files with all the attendees. Look for a conference app that offers you the features you will find most useful. 

Following the above guidelines will ensure that you choose the best conference app currently available for your meeting and conference needs. After all, meetings are supposed to be productive, and making sure you have the right app ensures productivity rather than being a mere time waster. 

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