Mediocre to Memorable: Engaging Your Hybrid Audience

                           Photo by Viridiana Rivera                                                                           

I regularly attend a hybrid meeting every week, and have had the opportunity to be both an in-person attendee and online attendee. This is a well-run meeting with lots of engagement for both audience types and very few stumbling blocks that disrupt the flow. I’m very fortunate to attend this type of meeting, but let’s be honest – getting hybrid meetings right can be a challenge for many people. If you’re the host, you don’t want to have the physical participants dominating the conversation nor do you want a situation where your online attendees start feeling like ghosts – they’re hardly participating and you wonder if they’re still there. In this new era, the key to a productive hybrid meeting is making both audiences feel equally engaged and valued. So, how do you pull that off? It all comes down to planning, smart use of technology, and a few best practices that can take your hybrid meetings from mediocre to memorable.

1. When you send the agenda and other meeting materials to all the attendees, remember to also send any special requirements up front to the people who will be attending online. For example, I have attended events where virtual participants were asked to keep their cameras on. I’ve also attended Zoom meetings where participants were informed ahead of time that they’d need to have the latest version of Zoom installed in order to access certain features that would be important for the meeting. Think about what is critical for your online attendees to know before the meeting, and give them the heads up. You don’t want them caught off guard.
2. Assign someone to be the “OM” or online master. This is the person who handles the needs of the online audience members, ensuring they feel engaged and included during the hybrid meeting. They can perform tasks such as: sending welcoming chat messages to the group as people are logging on, putting the agenda and other resources in the chat (even if some items were sent earlier via email), managing comments and questions, providing assistance with tech issues, and moderating the online etiquette of attendees such as muting yourself when not speaking. The in-person host and online master should meet early on to discuss responsibilities for a smooth experience for virtual attendees.
3. Be intentional about how you will engage your hybrid audience. It’s great if you can utilize interactive digital tools since it’ll be easy for both audience types to participate. Some of my favorite online tools are Piccles for icebreakers, Mentimeter for word clouds, and Quizizz for quizzes. I also like randomly picking virtual audience members to answer a question. We know it’s easier for our online attendees to get distracted by opening up other browser tabs, checking emails and text messages, looking at social media, and even doing laundry (yes, I once read a comment on Facebook where the person admitted that they like to do household chores during virtual meetings. Of course their camera is off.). Selecting random audience members will keep them on their toes and engaged, since they won’t know if you’ll call on them. They have to pay attention!
4. Balance your attention. Make sure you’re addressing both the in-person and virtual audiences. Look at the camera periodically to engage with remote viewers while also making eye contact with those physically present. Make sure you know where to look! I’ve been in hybrid meetings where the person at the lectern is speaking to a specific online audience member, but they are looking at the SCREEN with the virtual faces instead of looking into the camera. When you do the latter, the virtual audience feels as if you’re looking directly at them – which is exactly what you want! Speak to your tech person beforehand to get clear on where you should look. In addition, have more than one camera set up: one that allows online folks to have a view of the audience sitting in the physical room, and one camera that’s focused on the speaking area.
5. Be mindful of staying within the camera lens parameters. Stray too far from the speaking area and the virtual viewers will not be able to see you anymore. I did this once while giving a speech; I unknowingly stepped out of frame a couple of times, and was informed about it afterward. Marking off the speaking floor area with blue painter’s tape will be very helpful to the speakers, so that everyone stays within the camera boundaries. 

These are five best practices that you can immediately start with if you’re still getting comfortable with hosting hybrid meetings. It can seem like an intimidating endeavor at first, but having the right tech tools (camera, microphone, laptop etc), plan of action, and team will definitely make the process go smoother. Get to the meeting space in enough time to make sure everything is set up and  working properly. For my fellow experienced hybrid hosts, what else would you add?

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