Web conferencing will continue to evolve in 2017 and it's important to keep abreast of these trends. Here are six web conferencing developments your business will need to adopt to stay on top of its game when making plans for the future.
1. Video marketing will become an even more crucial part of business communication
Video marketing has proven to be an effective way to get quality, authoritative content to potential clients and customers, says Top Advisor. Webinars, video conferences and webcasts continue to rise in popularity as marketing follows a consumer-focused trajectory and organisations try to provide value-driven information to consumers. Therefore, web conferencing will continue to be a crucial focus for marketing and communications departments in 2017 and the coming years.
2. Content management will become more important for businesses
Because content shared in web conferences is so valuable, businesses need a way to make that content easily accessible, easily understood by consumers and easily searchable by potential buyers, says web conference expert Chris Lee. Cloud computing, says Lee, will make this happen. Businesses will be better able to manage their audio and web files, as well as collaborative work spaces, to make the information gleaned from them more accessible.
3. Web conferences will become closer to real-life conferences
Though virtual reality hasn’t found a way to simulate the coffee and sandwiches available at brick-and-mortar conferences, its ability to simulate a real-world environment will continue to grow. According to Top Advisor, conference participants can just don a headset to be transported to a virtual world in which they feel like they’re in the same room as the other participants, though they might be half a world away.
This technology’s ability to reduce costs (not just the coffee and sandwiches, but the airline tickets and hotel bills incurred at traditional conferences), while increasing productivity (no time wasted standing in line waiting to catch a flight or a taxi), will cause web conferencing’s popularity to rise at an even more rapid rate in the future.
4. Collaboration opportunities will continue to expand
The Australian video conferencing market is expected to be worth over A$700 million by 2018. With the latest developments in this conferencing technology, participants can share documents and screens with the other participants. With this ability, participants can collaborate efficiently on projects even when separated by thousands of kilometres.
5. Interviewing ability will diversify into the virtual sphere
When you need to interview quality candidates who live hours away, you want a way to interview them which enables you to assess their body language and facial expressions to see if they would be a good fit for your company’s culture. A video interview is the perfect way to see how the candidate interacts on a personal level. An interview conducted via web conference gives your company the immediacy of a face-to-face interview without the expense of bringing the candidate to your location.
6. Web conferences will become more user-friendly
Unless they are in the technology sector, most professionals don’t want to waste time they could spend on their own work learning to use web conferencing technology. To solve this challenge, software firms have created more user-friendly web conferencing applications that even novice users can grasp on their first try. Furthermore, makers continue to tweak their user interface to look less like the control panel for the U.S.S. Enterprise and more like a relaxed environment in which to conduct business.
The future looks bright for web conferencing
As web conferencing continues to evolve to become more user-friendly and closer to a real-life scenario, its popularity will continue to grow among business professionals. If your business needs a solution for long-distance communication challenges, consider web conferencing as a way to bridge the distance. Choose Express Virtual Meetings as your conference provider and receive your first 7 days for free.
