Corporate town hall meetings provide a critical platform for two-way communication: leaders communicating company direction to employees and employees having the opportunity to interface with company leaders and feel more connected to the mission and goals.

A town hall meeting requires more than speakers with presentations; to really be effective, town halls must create an engaging experience for attendees. The challenge given current world events is how to make a town hall engaging when all attendees are virtual, while also ensuring a seamless technological experience.

Five key things to keep in mind while designing your virtual town hall meeting are:

1. Agenda design. Your agenda should be defined by 2-3 high-level objectives to provide a clear focus. All speakers should present content that directly relates to one of the objectives.
2. Content design. The types of content that energize and engage people in a large meeting room do not always translate the same way in a virtual setting. Careful thought and planning towards what will be on the attendee screen during each second of the town hall will be a critical component of planning.
3. Attendee engagement. Keeping attendees engaged virtually is different than keeping them engaged in a meeting room. Tools that allow frequent audience interaction, like an online submission for Q&A, real-time chat, or brief surveys to measure information retention, will be important elements of your engagement plan.
4. Run of show. Town hall meetings typically involve multiple presenters and many different types of content, and require a detailed run-of-show document or show flow to ensure the event runs smoothly and on-time. A virtual town hall meeting will require that same detailed run-of-show along with a designated person to manage it.
5. Technology experience. A typical video conference experience may work well for some meetings, but it may not strike the right tone for a corporate town hall meeting. Streaming and webcasting solutions may be a better fit and also provide the engagement opportunities you need.

Keeping your team informed during these challenging times is critical and IMS has designed solutions for effective virtual town hall meetings:

Multiple Set Options for Live Broadcasts

1. IMS Professional Studio Set: we have built a customizable set in our facility near Philadelphia, PA where your key presenters can deliver the event. We adhere to the highest level of cleanliness standards in our industry and we disinfect our microphones, monitors, keyboards, and all other equipment after use by each speaker. The studio is also designed to be compliant with social distancing guidelines and has a glass wall that separates your presenters from our highly-trained technical staff.
2. Client Office: if you opt to deliver the broadcast from your corporate office, our technicians will maintain the same standards for cleaning and sanitizing equipment after each speaker, and work with your team to ensure that everyone is adhering to all health, safety, cleanliness, and distancing standards.
3. Virtual Production: if you prefer to keep all presenters in their home locations, our technicians will work remotely with presenters to test their lighting, background, and audio settings before recording on-camera presentations that will be edited with slides and videos for a final broadcast presentation.

Creative Content Design and Production

The world of content creation is bound only by your imagination and we have the skills and experience to develop, design, and deliver content that will keep your attendees visually engaged.

Speaker and Content Management

The IMS Content Concierge is a single tool that will help you efficiently manage all of your event content before, during, and after your event. Our system helps you easily collect presentations and allows the content to live beyond the session screen on social media or a digital archive for future use.

Audience Engagement

Our technology-driven solutions help you build engagement through content development, social networking, live Q&A sessions, an audience response system, real-time chats, post-session surveys, and more.

Experienced Production and Technical Direction

IMS is not just a webcast platform provider. Just like our technical crew would be on-site at a live event to run the entire show, our crew will be with you every step of the way while designing and delivering your virtual event. You can focus on your executives, attendees and the overall experience while we focus on making sure the entire virtual event runs smoothly.

Learn more about our virtual town hall solutions

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