I want to share few ideas that I have from previous meetups that helped me manage online meetups and engage the community:
Using a virtual board (miro, jamboard or even trello) where participants can contribute (introduction question, picture, or questions related to the meetup topic)
Poll during or before the meetup
Special Hashtag related to the meetup (or the community) in social media where people share their desk, coffee or anything from where attending
Do you have other ideas that helped you to engage the audience in remote mode ?
Maybe @simon_tomes have other useful ideas or tips while hosting a meetup ?
We always have multiple rooms available and use a drawing board to put post-its on.
To engage the audience we often do “open-space” meetups where the people themselves decide the topics of the evening, so nothing is really prepped.
Maybe if you got some sponsors to have some quiz or a similar competition followed by a giweaway? I’ve seen a few meetups doing this for online meetups, they would use quiz apps like Kahoot.
Good point! Thanks for the suggestion
The only challenge to find the right sponsor
I’m a bit afraid of sponsors that wants 10 minutes to promote their product, while we planned just for 1 Hour meetup duration.
Could look at how to vary the format of meetups or the sessions in the meetup. For example could have a 15-20 mins sessions mixed in with 5 minute lightning talks. Breakout rooms or lean coffee could work if you want a more group discussion session.
True Lean coffee are really great, I tried them once but without having a main speaker, just us organizers host the event (cc @ahopkins180 & @antonella )
