How To Host A BYU MS Virtual Networking Event? Our Top Tips

The BYU Management Society (BYU MS) in the Asia Pacific encourages our chapters to do some Virtual Networking Events. Virtual Networking is quickly becoming the new way to host networking events because they are easy for people to attend, low cost, and highly effective.

The BYU Management Society Virtual Networking events are exactly as the name implies; they are networking events that are 100% online. The purpose of the networking event is to help people connect. Running a Virtual networking event for your BYU MS chapter is quite straightforward and similar to hosting a networking event in person.

Thank you to Leighton Bascom from the BYU MS Global Steering Committee in Europe for his write-up on conducting BYU MS virtual networking events; his area has conducted many successful virtual networking events throughout the United Kingdom.

What is a Virtual Networking Event?

A virtual networking evening is a networking event that takes place 100% online. This is similar to a networking event that may take place in person, except this event would take place on Zoom: Google Hangout or another online platform.

People attend networking events for a variety of reasons. But some of the major reasons are for businesses to connect together, younger people to find a mentor to help them, or for those who are seeking to find connections to find a job.

An advantage to hosting a Virtual Networking Event is that they are low cost yet effective. In addition, you do not need to have a venue like traditional networking events; many people are willing to attend online if they do not have to travel a long distance to attend an event.

Virtual Networking Events Requirements

Anyone to sign up for the BYU MS virtual networking event must also be a member of the BYU MS chapter. Membership requirements may differ between each chapter, so it is best to contact your local chapter to find out their membership requirements.

If you are interested in starting or joining a BYU Management Society chapter in your area, you can contact us by clicking here, and we will help get you to the right person.

Sign Up For The Event – BYU MS members can sign up for the events they want to attend. To find out if there are any events in the Asia Pacific Area you can attend, you can check out our events page by clicking here.

Introductions – When you sign up for a Virtual Networking Event, you will receive an email with the email addresses of all who have signed up for that particular event. Everyone that signs up needs to understand their email address will share their email addresses with others. If for some reason, you can not or do not want to share your email address, you need to let the organizers know this.

Networking Event Preparation – Good networking requires preparation, and the BYU MS Virtual Networking Event is no exception. Participants are encouraged to go on the internet and find out about who will be attending.

Proper preparation will help the event attendees to know who they want to talk to and why. This kind of preparation will help to make the event more fruitful for all the attendees.

Sign Up Survey – One way you can determine to know people’s particular interests is to do a sign-up or pre-event survey. This can help you know if people have a similar interest and should be in the same breakout room to network or get to know each other.

Steps To Hosting A Virtual Networking Event

We have found that certain things work best with virtual networking events. Therefore the networking event is broken down into 3 main steps as listed below:

Step 1 – The General Networking Session

The first session is the general session where everyone can introduce themselves for 1 minute. We try to keep this to 1 minute and tell everyone so that there is enough time for everyone to introduce themselves properly.

If we find too many people at an event, we will also eliminate the full introductions and break people up into groups or breakout rooms. This has been popular as the smaller groups allow people to have more personal interactions.

Step 2 – Breakout Room Sessions

We will then break people out into breakout rooms of about 6 to 8 people per room. We give each room about 10 – 12 minutes for them to get to know each other.

If someone really wants to get to know someone else for a particular reason, we encourage them to tell us ahead of time so we can try to make sure they get into a breakout room together.

Here is what we found has worked well in our breakout rooms:

Breakout Room Lead Person – We will pre-assign or ask someone to lead in the breakout room. The lead person will be in charge of the running of the session in their breakout room.
Lead Person Directs The Room – The lead person will then direct the breakout room as this is a more informal time for people to get to know each other, but the following should happen.
- Everyone should have some interaction in the breakout room. However, one or two people should not dominate the room discussion. The idea is that everyone has a chance to interact.
- We can tailor discussions to the needs and interests of the breakout room.

Once this breakout room session is completed, then we will go on to the next breakout room. Again, you can split up people according to how much time you have and the interests of individual people.

Step 3 – Post Session Informal Networking

After the breakout rooms, we will have the general session be “hostless” to help allow for a more informal kind of networking for those who want to stay online and continue to network.

We will also copy the chat and send the chat to all participants to have a chat copy for future reference.

New BYU MS Chapter Recruitment

One of the virtual networking functions is to find people interested in starting a BYU MS Chapter in their area. After the event, we get their names to follow up with them to discuss how they can set up their own BYU MS Chapter in their area and run their own Virtual Networking Events.

Virtual networking events are cost and time-effective, but they also have an impact by helping people to be able to network. Many people do not mind joining a virtual event for a few hours one evening during the weekday or weekend, especially when they can meet some new and interesting contacts.

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The Launching Leaders Program is a faith-based program that helps individuals make improvements in some of the most important areas of their lives. The course consists of 5 core classes, and students will participate in course instruction and have assignments they must complete each week.

You can learn more by reading What Is The Launching Leaders Leadership Program? by clicking here.

What Is The BYU Management Society?

The BYU Management Society is a business, professional network, and career development program whose main focus is to help grow moral and ethical leadership around the world. It also helps support the local communities in the areas the BYU Management is organized and operating. The organization is open to all.

You can discover more by reading What is the BYU Management Society? by clicking here.