How businesses have successfully entered the virtual world

How businesses have successfully entered the virtual world

Business seminars, conferences and meetings have gone virtual in order to succeed.

Flexibility and adapting to change leads to greater success

The coronavirus pandemic forced businesses in all industries to make a major shift in how they operated in order to remain successful. Face-to-face, in-person interactions have become a thing of the past. This dramatic and sudden change required new innovations and “thinking outside of the box” mentality for businesses to function and remain intact.

How does a motivational speaker like Tony Robbins, who gained his momentous popularity by filling packed auditoriums for his seminars, continue to engage with his followers after COVID-19 hit the country? As it turns out, he has had remarkable success this year by hosting virtual events. This required a lot of technology, but he made the shift into the virtual videoconferencing space and has inspired others to do the same.

The discovery and expansion of the virtual world

Most people with corporate jobs were familiar with videoconferencing and screensharing tools before 2020. But now, we have seen a huge shift in that videoconference meetings and sharing a computer screen have become an every-day way of conducting business for all types of working employees and for some, it is how they do their job all day long. This requires a more advanced technology setup than what was used prior to the 2020 pandemic.

In addition, videoconferencing and virtual meetings have reached beyond the corporate world and into people’s personal lives and the lives of their children. Weddings and award ceremonies, family reunions, and even elementary school classrooms and children’s birthday parties have all gone virtual.

What are the five requirements to host a virtual conference for an optimal experience?

Now that videoconferencing is a new requirement for meeting clients and connecting with others, people have found that they needed to upgrade their technology. Here are five requirements for success in the virtual space:

  1. A videoconferencing platform that can handle multiple guests at once and for hours at a time
  2. High-resolution camera with good lighting
  3. High-definition audio: microphone and speaker
  4. A monitor, or monitors, to view all attendees and see shared content
  5. The ability to record meetings

There are a lot of free apps and videoconferencing platforms available, but you get what you pay for. These free options also come with a lot of limitations, such as time limits, guest limits, and the quality can be very poor. You don’t want your service to crash or freeze while in the middle of a virtual event. That is why these requirements are so important if you want to prevent a very frustrating experience for all attendees.

What are the Top 3 recommended video conferencing apps?

Video conference apps like:

  1. Zoom (Pro, Business, and Enterprise)
  2. Microsoft Teams
  3. Cisco WebEx

These are all great options to consider. Zoom Pro lets users set meetings without a time limit and will work for smaller businesses, but larger companies will probably need a more enhanced plan that can host more participants. They will more than likely want to consider Zoom’s Business or Enterprise plans, Microsoft Teams or Cisco WebEx.

Microsoft Teams is convenient since it integrates so well with Outlook 365 and people are already familiar with Microsoft. Cisco WebEx is great for large corporations and hosts who want to have up to 3,000 participants joining in a virtual conference.

The future is going virtual

Now that people have had over six months to adapt to virtual meetings, the virtual space has grown in popularity and it’s not going away. People enjoy working from home, not having to drive, having more time with family, dressing comfortably, etc. World-famous speakers like Tony Robbins have found that more people might be interested in attending his events if they no longer have to travel and pay hotel fees.

We have found that we have the potential to reach out to more people when we can do it virtually. Robbins made the wise decision to invest in his technology and adapt quickly to the new normal. This has enabled him to continue to achieve success through his new virtual connections.

If you need assistance with upgrading your videoconferencing technology to find your own success in the virtual world, call an expert BCS Consultant at 949-333-1020 and we’ll be happy to help!