Want an Engaging Zoom Meeting? Do These 7 Things

With remote work, having at least one Zoom meeting per day is normal, and while people may have been excited to meet virtually at first, it can feel a bit tedious.

For one, many teams meet up more than they should, and even if a meeting is necessary, it can go off-track and people's minds may wander when a meeting is not engaging.

So how do you make a Zoom meeting more interesting? Let's take a look at a few Zoom meeting ideas to motivate your team to engage in the upcoming meetings.

➕ You might want first to check out this comprehensive guide on how to create a Zoom meeting: from basics to latest features.

1. Share an agenda with the attendees before the meeting

A meeting agenda is the ultimate roadmap for any meeting. It helps to keep your get-together with the team organized and manageable as each talking point will be divided into sections.

Each section is time-bound to ensure an efficient meeting without wasting the team's valuable time.

Make sure to send the meeting agenda at least two days before the meeting and ask your team to suggest any ideas to add to the agenda.

Knowing what will be discussed in the Zoom meeting will give your team a chance to prepare themselves and write down any questions or suggestions they share in the meeting. You can use these suggestions to figure out how to have an interactive Zoom meeting.

Check out the following meeting agenda templates for different meeting scenarios to run your next Zoom meeting smoothly:

1. Team meeting agenda template

2. Board team meeting agenda template

3. Quarterly planning meeting agenda template

4. Standup meeting agenda template

5. Status meeting agenda template

6. First meeting with new team agenda template

7. Brainstorming meeting agenda template

8. Skip-level meeting agenda template

9. Kick off meeting agenda template

10. Sales team meeting agenda template

11. Retrospective meeting agenda template

12. Sprint planning meeting agenda template

2. Start your Zoom meeting with a few ice breakers

Make some time for introductions to allow the team to get to know each other. This is especially useful with new members or with teams that don't communicate on a regular basis.

For interactive Zoom calls, start with a couple of ice breakers in the next Zoom meeting and allow your team to share a little bit about themselves. This will help the attendees loosen up and encourage them to engage more in the meeting.

Check out these amusing team meeting ideas to increase engagement on Zoom.

3. Divide a big meeting with Zoom's breakout rooms

A Zoom meeting with more than 5 attendees can make it difficult for each person to participate.

Let's say you have a staff meeting with two or three teams including 10 to 20 people, and at least half of those are bound to drift off during the meeting. A great idea on how to make Zoom calls more interactive is using the breakout rooms in a big Zoom meeting.

You can propose a question or challenge for the team and divide the team into smaller groups to ask them to collaborate to find a solution, and then, you can all gather again to discuss what each group came up with. This gives a chance for each member to engage more, which creates more interesting Zoom meetings.

4. Ask people to write their suggestions in the group chat

Sometimes, there may not be time for ice breakers or breaking the team into smaller groups. However, you can briefly discuss fun ideas for Zoom meetings with coworkers using Zoom interactive features like the group chat.

Make sure to acknowledge their suggestions on interactive Zoom meeting ideas or answer any questions during the meeting to make them feel heard and appreciated.

A person may want to ask a question in the middle of the meeting without interrupting the speaker or they may be taking the meeting in a noisy background and can't use the mic.

Even when you can't speak in a Zoom meeting, you can make Zoom calls interactive by using the chat box to send a question either privately or publicly.

5. Use the whiteboard feature in a Zoom meeting

One of the fun Zoom features is the whiteboard feature that allows attendees to doodle their thoughts on a digital board simulating a physical meeting.

People are more likely to engage in a Zoom meeting when there are visual aids involved. A great idea on how to make Zoom meeting fun is having a white canvas where everyone can share their input, which enhances creativity and gets people excited to participate.

6. Assign a different meeting coordinator for every meeting

A great way to engage your team in a Zoom meeting is to let a different person host the meeting every time.

This is a great way for them to explore their leadership skills and get them excited to host the next meeting.

It's also a chance for each team member to come up with interactive Zoom presentation ideas on how to create a Zoom session and how to improve Zoom meetings in general.

You can write the names of the team members on pieces of paper and place them in a box and pick a name randomly to host the next meeting.

Try this out at the end of each meeting so the person has time to prepare to lead the upcoming Zoom meeting.

7. Take notes and create action items

To ensure an efficient meeting, make sure to take notes of important decisions made during the meeting. These notes will help you make decisions and create effective action items for your team to perform until the next Zoom meeting.

This is the final step of any meeting and should be included in the wrap-up section to ensure everyone's aligned with the meeting objectives.

💡Pro Tip. Use an all-in-one meeting management software, like adam.ai, where you can integrate with Zoom, Google Calendar, Jira, and other tools to have all your favorite apps under one platform and avoid jumping from one app to another.

You can also take private notes of important discussions in the meeting, write down decisions and allow team members to vote on them, create action items, and automatically generate meeting minutes, in addition to many useful features that will help you learn how to make a Zoom meeting more interactive.

The bottom line

Making a Zoom meeting more engaging is not an easy task because you can't see which team member is dozing off or losing interest in the meeting. That's why we highly recommend you try the aforementioned ways to make a Zoom meeting fun and increase Zoom engagement in your upcoming meetings.

Don't forget to ask your team members for feedback after the meeting or send a quick survey in the follow-up email to find out if the meeting was engaging.

Take notes of their suggestions and try to incorporate their ideas in the upcoming meetings to make them feel their opinions matter. When everyone puts their heads together, the team will come up with ways on how to interact on Zoom and how to make Zoom meetings more engaging.

We recommend using all-in-one meeting management software to integrate with Zoom and collaborative tools that increase engagement in meetings and enhance productivity.

And while there may be multiple meeting management solutions available, here is why adam.ai is the all-in-one meeting management platform you can trust:

• adam.ai is one of Atlassian Ventures' portfolio companies.
• In the meeting management software category on G2, adam.ai has been ranked a leader and a high performer for successive quarters in the past years.
• adam.ai has been included in the Forrester Report in the AI-enabled meeting technology landscape.
• adam.ai is trusted and used by powerful teams and organizations worldwide for all types of critical meetings, like board, committee, project management, and business development meetings.
• And most importantly, adam.ai integrates with your existing workflow, is SOC2 compliant, provides dedicated support and success, and has a free trial option.