After much scientific research it is found that face-to-face communication is always more effective than any other form of communication. But after Covid-19 took over the world, conducting a face-to-face meeting was difficult and a no-go. We have all been working digitally. We have also adopted this method of working in our day-to-day lives. With this scenario coming in, many businesses have shifted to virtual conferences and meetings that cater to seeing other people’s facial expressions while maintaining social distance. Many of us are not familiar with the term Virtual Meeting. Let us put some light on that.
What is a Virtual Meeting?
A virtual meeting is when people from varied locations connect over a virtual space at a particular time to accomplish a shared goal. As the internet, technology and artificial intelligence will take over the world it becomes more affordable, and people become more tech savvy, the human to human interaction will become more remote. A virtual conference is easy to set up and less time consuming. It can be used for team meetings, for client interactions and for many other reasons.
For conducting a meeting on a virtual platform you must be aware of what a Virtual meeting platform is. A virtual meeting platform is a platform that helps you conduct a conference online and has the following standard features:
- Recording meetings
- Conducting online chat
- Syncing meeting invitation with calendar
- Screen sharing options
- Engagement features for those who attend the meeting
We have enlisted a few user-friendly virtual meeting platforms that may help you out in conducting a conference online in a swift way.
DREAMCAST:
Dreamcast is an immersive virtual platform that enables you to conduct conferences, meetings and events. It provides a secure, engaging & interactive 3D virtual environment that transforms a physical meeting into an immersive virtual meeting. It is one of the best virtual meeting platforms that has standard features like live audio and video, live polls, live QnAs, group chat etc along with some amazing UI/UX features like dynamic lobbies, dynamic banners, custom avatars to advanced audience engagement and networking features. It helps the you to connect seamlessly with other attendees using its high-end and easy to use audience networking features which are as follows:
- Networking Tables & Lounges
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) Matchmaking
- B2B Meeting scheduler
- Engagement with the audience via emoticons, hoot, clap etc.
- 1:1 Meetings
- Group Chats
- Text/Audio/Video Chats
- 2-Way Virtual Interaction Feature & much more.
The platform also offer amazing features like:
- Custom 3D Avatars
- Dynamic Lobbies with Music
- Dynamic Banners
- Gamification (100+ Ready To Use Games and Custom Games Can Be Built)
- DIY Exhibition Booths
- Document Downloader/Presenter
- 3D Teleportation
- Detailed Analytics
- Multichannel Communication
- Access Control
- No Audience Capping (Best for All Small/Mid/Large Organizations)
- Digital Footprinting & the list goes on..!
Dreamcast Virtual Meeting Platform is a browser based solution and it does not require software download. Its price range varies according to your needs. Now you know which platform you need to choose if you want to organise an impactful virtual or hybrid meeting!
AVENTRI
Aventri is a digital meeting platform that is built to offer virtual conferences. Its web development is done in such a way that it can manage to build events as small as a five- person compact meeting to a large multi-meeting conference. It has a spectrum of options. It also offers a feature that is ideal for profit generation, that is it helps you to promote digital conferences virtually if any company needs it. Other features that this conference domain has is as follows:
- It helps you to share user training videos
- It has a team that has 24/7 customer support
- It can bear up to five thousand attendees
- Standard Live streaming workshops
- You can create an online meeting lobby
You can choose Aventri when you want to launch a small meeting and if you are at a low budget.
BIG MARKER:
Big Marker is an innovative video conferencing and virtual meeting platform. It comes with powerful marketing services. Big marker helps you to organise webinars, live streams, and promotional campaigns and virtual conferencing. Big Marker allows up to a thousand attendees. It also helps you organise nine simultaneous live streams. It is a high-end compatible resource that works with most browsers, windows and mac devices. It enables you to fully customise your platform according to your meeting needs and integrate with other applications. One thing that makes it out of the box is the team that works. They help you prepare, execute and troubleshoot!
One drawback, if it is considered to be one, BigMarker does not offer free subscription. Its price ranges from $79 – $299 per month.
ON24:
ON24 is an interactive webcasting platform and is built for tailor-made conference meetings. ON24 is built in such a way that provides both webcam webcasts and live webcasts. It has versatile features which includes:
- Breakout rooms for your team members
- Chat box feature
- A button that helps you in screen sharing any other website or social media platforms.
- An option that helps you to connect to Salesforce.
The feature that makes ON24 one of its kind is that its 24/7 customer support team helps you to edit post-meeting recordings before you save it and you can keep that intact for one year. One flaw that ON24 has is that, it does not allow two webcam featuring on one screen, but it is a user-friendly platform
PEXIP
Pexip is a virtual meeting platform that is mainly used by large Multinational organisations. Pexip is used by industries like healthcare, government and other educational alliances. Its setup is a bit complicated. But large organizations find this video conferencing software the best as they serve their large domain demands. It has all the standard features like:
- Organise group meetings
- Easy to use conference tools
- Automatic customisable scheduling for meetings
- Free hand joining from any devices
It is also a web-based portal and does not require any software or plugins. It is a comprehensive tool with advanced features that is accessible by multiple devices. It empowers the organisation with un-interrupted face-to-face communications and brings people of huge organisations together, with its AI-powered technology.
OVER TO YOU:
The internet is flooded with a lot of virtual meeting platforms. However, to make a choice between these spectrum of options is your choice. It is difficult to choose, but there are a few tips that we will provide you with that will help you determine which platform will be ideal for you. They are:
Keep a check on your budget: Choosing the correct platform needs to comply with your spending. Check all the plans of respective platforms and then go for the one which best suits you.
Free trial or Demo: Check which platforms are providing you with free trial or demo. Dream cast provides you with a demo. Choose according to this.
Number of people: Number of people in a meeting depends upon company to company. Track how many people you want to have a meeting with, and you can choose the platform accordingly.
Consider the above mentioned points and you are good to go!