The COVID pandemic accelerated the digitalization of many business and educational institutions. We should feel blessed that we are living in a technological time, where we have a way to prevent our economy and education from completely falling apart. Video conferencing and virtual meetings are here to save the day. Either it is a business meeting and you have to deal with a client, or it’s a class where teachers have to teach their students, it is all going on remotely, over the internet. This way, the economy, and education are running in an efficient way.

Video conferencing and the virtual meeting is just an efficient way to deal with situations like these. If you don’t know the benefits of video conferencing and virtual meetings, then read along to find out.

Here’s a list of ten benefits of Video-conferencing and Virtual Meetings

Increase engagement among participants
Improves communication
Optimizes attendance
Saves time and money
Increase productivity
Streamline collaboration
Creates accurate records
Scheduling a meeting
Enable life events
Convenient for employees

Now, let’s study it in detail:

10 Benefits of Video Conferencing and Virtual Meetings

You currently use some kind of technology—software or a phone app—to visually connect with someone living at distance every day. It is more than just a series of phone calls. We live in a futuristic, online world. We’ve all had social or personal interactions with people and colleagues through online meetings and virtual calls. And admit it has always been convenient.

Let’s look at these benefits closely. That will tell you if virtual meetings are effective?

Increase Engagement among participants

Video calls and virtual meetings necessitate a higher degree of concentration than a voice call as attendees can see each other. Throughout an audio call, you won’t be able to space out or multitask, even if you will be tempted to do so. Since everything you will be doing will be clear to the other members that is why you must have to stay alert and vigilant during a video conference. Throughout a video call, you must maintain “virtual eye contact,” which encourages participants to interact more.

And between people who have never met, the communication and interaction that occurs during a video call will encourage participants to establish better relationships. Video conferencing gives the impression that everybody is in the same place. This ensures that when and where you do meet, it won’t be as if you’re meeting for the first time. You’ve all met each other and know who each other is.

Improves Communication

Participants in the meeting can see vital visual signals such as face and body language exchanged with other members, rather than coping with the annoyance of long email chains where the context and purpose can be lost. Visual signals suggesting awareness, concern, or annoyance can be answered right away rather than being lost in a sea of voicemails, instant messages, and emails. Video conferencing feels like one is actually attending the meeting in one room with all the other members.

In addition, video calls usually have set start and end times. This ensures that attendees are less likely to participate in small talk and are more likely to stay alert and concentrate on the meeting’s objectives.

Optimizes Attendance

Participants that are divided by distance can attend meetings more easily using video calls. Furthermore, video recording technologies enable anyone who requires the content to have it at their fingertips. They should revisit it if they were unable to participate or if they need some further clarification. It’s a video, after all, which lets you pull it up and listen to it again.

Saves Time and Money

It becomes exceedingly challenging to get all team members available at conferences as companies develop and businesses expand, particularly when distance is involved. Video calls are an efficient alternative as they allow team members to communicate and hold meetings as though they were in the same room, even if they are continents apart, saving time and money on travel.

Being able to address customer concerns and issues without having to fly allows both the company and its customers to be more productive. Interviews and the hiring process can also be done over video conference making it convenient. Managers may also assess potential workers via a recorded video call if they are unable to participate in the live interview process.

Increase Productivity

Many of the benefits of video conferencing, such as saving time and money, increasing personal interaction, and avoiding travel, add up to improved performance and productivity. You will ensure that everyone has a voice, that all feedback is integrated, and that questions are answered quickly by getting the ability to jump on a call and communicate in real-time. Before leaving the meeting, you can easily discuss as a team to ensure that everyone understands the idea. Furthermore, since video conferences remove the need for travel, your team will have more time to dedicate to their tasks, including on days when they have to attend conferences.

After all, it stands to reason that if attendees spend the majority of their time actively engaging in a meeting rather than planning for it, commuting to it, or waiting for other members to arrive, performance and productivity would increase.

Streamline Collaboration

Video conferencing technology lets us do more than just interacting with other attendees through video and audio chat. It includes communication tools such as screen sharing and real-time document editing, making it simple for all to review and add to the conversation.

Creates Accurate Records

When you hold an in-person meeting or an audio-only call, someone on your team is normally in charge of taking notes. Information can quickly slip through the cracks due to the quick speed of interactions and our frailty. You will keep all the information preserved with video conferencing technology that also allows you to record and transcribe discussions. You may also turn to them when questions are raised and discuss the session with others who were unable to participate, making it simple to keep everyone on the same page.

Scheduling a Meeting gets easier

Meetings can be difficult to schedule if members of the team move often. However, through video conferencing, they can participate from a variety of locations. It doesn’t matter if they are traveling in a taxi, or car, they are in some hotel room or airports, or even in the home office. It’s much easier than scheduling a face-to-face meeting and keeping everyone up to date because now they can do it virtually on any laptop and from anywhere. from the comfort of their room and anywhere in the world, it won’t be a problem at all.

Enable Life Events

Video conferencing software will help you collaborate with your entire staff, your entire client group, or the general public. With the ability to visually communicate your message, these resources allow you to host roundtable discussions, webinars, product releases, and other events for audiences in your office or across the world.

Convenient for Employees

In today’s market environment, employees value versatility, efficiency, and modern means of communication over the privacy of office space. Video conferencing connects remote staff and in-office staff, increasing efficiency and reducing travel expenses for both. Workers can produce a better work/life balance by reducing travel. And also if we talk about the current situation of the pandemic, everyone prefers to work from home to keep themselves safe.

How Video Conferencing and Virtual Meetings Are Helpful in Education

As every teacher knows, immersive teaching is the most effective way to gain students’ attention. And the more engaging a lesson is, the better it is for all participants. Technology is the key to creating a fully immersive teaching/learning atmosphere, as well as allowing teachers to create a more involved, friendly environment.

Kids these days are so much into gadgets, that schools look boring to them. but when it comes to virtual learning, it’s a new thing and that’s the reason it gets their attention. Learning from across the screen through visuals is not only interesting but also keeps them involved in the lecture.

Let’s study some of the benefits of virtual meetings and video conferencing.

Cost-Effective

Video conferencing saves time and resources for schools and universities. It suggests that students can learn from several school trips without needing to spend money or travel. As everything is available over the internet, watching a documentary or even reading about a place will be enough. And the school won’t have to take the children anywhere, they would just learn about a place remotely.

Creates a Global Village

Video conferencing is regardless of where you come from, or where you belong. It brings the students from different backgrounds and different societies. And that is what makes video conferencing quite effective. It’s beyond classroom premises and way more than what they learn in the four walls of a classroom. They get to know more things, they learn interesting facts about life, and there is so much more to that.

Effective Learning

Enrichment is taken to new heights with video conferencing. As they are studying over the internet, and you can’t name a thing that is not available there, and that makes the lessons more enhanced by the interactions it brings to the classroom, allowing students a more complete view of the world around them. They get more involved in it, they gain interest in what they are learning, it intrigues them, they search for them more, and hence their learning spectrum gets broadened.

Etiquettes of Video Conferencing and Virtual Meetings

For some time now, video conferencing has become a trend. The number of video conferencing applications and tools has steadily increased. This is unsurprising given that it lowers travel costs, speeds up and simplifies project completion, and increases team coordination. In this case, you must know some etiquette of attending a video conference or virtual meeting.

Make sure that your mic is mute when you’re not speaking.
When you’re attending a company-wide meeting, and you’re just an attendee there and not presenting anything, you should have your video turned off too.
Punctuality is very necessary, entering a meeting late will leave a really bad impression on everyone. Make sure to come on time.
Make sure that your camera and video are working, before entering a virtual meeting, otherwise, it can cause disturbance in the meeting when you will be struggling with your camera during an ongoing call.
When you set yourself in front of your laptop before a meeting, make sure there won’t be anything inappropriate in the background.
Look into the camera instead of looking here and there, otherwise, you won’t look attentive towards the meeting.
Sit somewhere where there will be no interruption, sitting in your room or studying with closed doors will be great.
At the end of the meeting do not ask inappropriate or vague questions, get to the point and ask concise and only related questions.

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Bottom Line

It’s amazing how beneficial virtual meetings and video conferencing are. Technology has made life so much easier than you can attend meetings, deal with the clients over a video call.

The collaborative approach takes on a whole new dimension with video conferencing. Communication is greatly improved when you can hear and see your colleagues. Body language and facial expressions are important aspects of effective communication.

Attendees are often more alert and active in the conversation; with fewer distractions such as emails or outside factors. As a result, morale rises, things move more quickly, and participants feel more connected to one another and the organization.