Strategies and Best Practices for 

Leading Online Zoom Events 

Collated by S
​ ara Ness​ and J​ an Keck 
 
 

Pre-event 
Prep way before the call if possible 
Some things you might consider: 
● How many people do you imagine are coming? 
● Do you have breakout rooms enabled? 
● Do you want to lock the room once it starts? (Pros: participants can’t pop in 
and out, which can be disruptive and/or leave you with people in the main 
room waiting for a breakout. Cons: Late participants are locked out, and if 
participants’ technology fails, they can’t get back in.)  
● Is there a co-facilitator that's going to be running the technology? 
● Are some people just going to be watching, or does everyone expect to 
participate?  
 
Registration process 
Send reminders — send the link so everyone knows where to join. 
Set expectations for room locking, participation, recording, and video/audio 
requirements in your pre-event communication. 
 
Self-Prep 
● Fill up your water bottle 
● Go to the bathroom 
● Play some, some good, happy music for yourself  
 
Signs for the Camera 
You can draw slides by hand and just put the drawing up to the camera when you 
need it — refreshing change! 
 
In a group, people can make little signs that they can hold up E.g. 
● PROJECTION — if they think someone is projecting 
● BORED — if they're feeling bored 
● LOVE — if they love what you're saying 
● Real world e​ mojis​ can be extra fun 
 
 
Music 
Music can transition between pumping yourself up, to welcoming everyone as they 
arrive. If you want some intro songs, you can both use and add music to ​this 
playlist Jan Keck made. 
 
If you’re really not wanting to do the event 
● Dance and move to get the tension out 
● Have a transformation — wear something that’s just for your facilitator-self, 
or take time for a ritual. In this way you prime yourself to switch roles (could 
be shoes or a shirt or jewelry) 
● Can you reach out to a facilitator friend and share your emotions with them? 
● If you really need, can you ask them to be on the call with you just in case? 
 
 
 
 

Tech 
Try t​ urning off the video​ of yourself. This can create a sense of freedom. You might 
not have realised how much you look at your image. It can be magical to take 
yourself out of the way 
 
Pin yourself​ — eye gaze with yourself 
 
Pin someone else​ — Eye gaze with another person  
 
Mute and reveal your deepest secrets, ​to yourself or the person you have pinned 
 
Can use O ​ BS (Open Broadcaster studio)​ to like put instructions or whatever other 
information you want on your video. 
 
With sound or singing​ — turn off zoom’s ‘audio filtering’ in the settings 
● So things like clapping don’t get filtered. Everybody making sound needs to 
find the setting 
 
Deal with chat function  
If chat is distracting for you: 
● Set up some expectations or agreements of how people should be using the 
chat. 
 ○ Only use the chat for certain things  
○ Tell them that you won't be checking the chat until people are in 
breakout rooms, so they're not feeling ignored if they have a question 
○ Keep the chat box open but move to a corner of your screen, so you 
don't always get the red notification icon and the little preview 

Breakout Rooms 
 
Have Instructions Ready in a Doc 
If you have a number of instructions to send out to people in breakout rooms, you 
could make a document containing just those instructions, then easily cut and 
paste them into the chat when it’s time to. 
 
Timers  
If you have trouble tracking time, a countdown timer might be easier than a 
stopwatch or clock. 
When the timer gets to a certain number, send the message you have planned for 
that time. 
 
Breakout Rooms Groupings 
It can be helpful to think about what sorts of people you'd want to put together 
beforehand 
● Level of experience with the kind of event you’re leading 
● Ability to solve problems with the technology 
● In terms of creating deeper safety, if building towards something that might 
be a little uncomfortable for people, keep the same people in a breakout 
room for longer so they get comfortable with each other. 

At the Start 
Arrival breakout hack 
Get around that initial 5 minutes or so where everyone's arriving either early or 
late. Open a bunch of breakout rooms ahead of time named like 
● “By the water cooler” 
● “In the parking lot” 
 ● “In front of the building”...  
 
As 2-3 people come in say “Oh, Leanne, you just met Robert in the parking lot” and 
stick them in the breakout room. 
This is a cool way to force impromptu conversations that just don't happen in the 
same way over zoom. 
 
Get Present 
● At the start, say “Take two minutes for anything you need to do to get 
present. If you need to go get some water, if you need to close your eyes, if 
you need to go to the bathroom, do it.” 
● Set a two minute timer.  
● This also helps y ​ ou​ to settle. Then, if you still don't feel settled, you could put 
people into breakout rooms for a game. Just make sure that nobody stays in 
the main room except people you feel super safe with. 
 
“Get Comfortable” 
Beyond “do what you need to do to get present”, you can go to “​Do what you need 
to do to be comfortable.​” Everybody can actually take that moment of “Oh, I don't 
have to be like this. We can sink into comfort together.” 
 
Suggest “Do the stretch that your body needs right now,​” the one that will feel 
really good for you. Everybody does their own thing. This is great for people 
spending all day at their computers! 
 
Say A Word, Sound or Movement On Arrival 
Have people share one word, or a sound or movement that reflects their experience 
at the moment, as they come in. This can help you to get a pulse of the group. 
Optionally, after each share everyone can mirror it back. 
 
Acknowledge Feelings 
If something big is happening in the world (for instance, a scary geo-political event) 
it can feel important just to ​name and acknowledge how you’re all feeling and how 
you might be showing up​.  
 
Interruption Game 
One common problem on Zoom is people being too polite, not willing to talk when 
they thought someone else was going to talk, not willing to interrupt, and not 
willing to keep talking if someone else interrupted them. 
 
Early on you can play games involving interrupting other people. For example, 
there's a game where someone tells a personal story that’s alive for them. 
With agreement, other people are encouraged to interrupt them at some point. Can 
be both really hard for people and really freeing once they're willing to do it.  
 
In some cultures you might need to do the opposite and play a game with no 
interrupting! 

Group Engagement 
Keeping yourself engaged and excited  
You’re leading the dance. If it gets mundane to the leader from doing the same 
things over and over, there are solutions.  
Take one thing out of your procedure or add one thing to shake things up. Anytime 
you break a habit, you have to relate to something in a new way.  
 
Micro engagements 
Online, body language is missing so reading people is hard! 
You can ask for a lot of feedback with “give me a thumbs up if this resonated” and 
“type a yes in the chat if you're ready to go” .  
You can do it every couple of minutes after every section to get that feedback.  
● Doing from the start can lead to more courage or vulnerability at the end. 
 
Imagine a scenario 
If you’re doing a webinar, you can ask attendees to imagine a scenario that they 
have in their life where they are struggling with the same sort of principles. This 
helps with visualization. Participants can use the same scenario throughout the 
call. 
 
Simultaneous Environment change 
● During a section, especially something like a dance, ask everyone to get 
something of the same color, e.g. green, hold it in front of their cameras and 
do the activity with the whole screen turned to that color.  
 
If you’re facilitating​ very dry material,​ jokes, humor and small class sizes can be 
helpful. 
 
 
Activity Ideas 
Virtual Hug 
Many of us are self-isolating and touch deprived.  
 
● Bring some objects to illustrate a good hug (your kids teddy bear, a blanket, 
a pillow etc. Or just for fun, a stack of toilet paper rolls) 
● Everyone finds an object for hugging (cereal, box of cereal, blanket, T shirt 
with sentimental value) 
● Play an motional song (e.g. Truly, Madly Deeply by Savage Garden, super 
cheesy song, but also one that seems to really hit people's emotions really 
quickly) 
● Close your eyes and hug yourself for the length of song 
● Debrief afterwards. 
 
Virtual Cuddle 
Lead people through touching their faces. Can be an exquisite example of how we 
can experience touch online that forever changes your perception of what's possible 
across time and space. 
 
Describe a Hug 
Describe a hug from beginning to end from ‘May I hug you’ to pulling away and 
what it was like. It’s a real joy to be able to describe that for a group.  
People say how nurturing that is and how they almost experience it for real. 
 
Tones 
Have everyone make a single, long tone sound. They don't have to start at the same 
time. Everybody tones as long as they can and make some beautiful harmonies. 
Cool way to get people connected because everyone can unmute and do it. 
 
Facial Emotion Focus 
Ask participants one at a time to move close to their camera and look directly at it. 
Pin that person. Then let some sort of positive emotion that was alive for them 
come up into their face. Pipe music on in the background and have everyone else 
gaze at the pinned person. Really sweet and connecting experience as though you 
were sitting there with someone who cared about you. 
 
Have little assignments,​ like go and say something to a plant that’s in your living 
space, or find a book you really like and touch it. 
 
Chat Anonymously 
Everyone can rename themselves as just the period symbol.  
Then you can ask questions and everybody can type their answers anonymously.  
This can be advantageous sometimes and afterward everyone can use their real 
names again. 
 
Saying Sorry 
Imagine a situation where you didn't say sorry but wish you had. 
 
Talk participants through a brief guided meditation including a model of an 
apology process (different ways to think through what saying sorry might be like) 
then, in breakout rooms, people imagine that they are facing whoever they want to 
apologize to. See what comes up. Very moving. 
 
Silence 
If you get tired of talking when leading a group you could just put a question out 
there. If nobody jumps to answer, you can sit in silence. Can be kind of cool. Not 
every moment must be full. 

Event-Specific Ideas 
Friend's birthday party  
 
Just having everyone show up and share a story of the person that you love is good 
but can create a lack of engagement in the whole group, 
 
Party spinners​ — name each of the categories with something different. e.g Friend 
is a dancer and really sex positive —> tags like give a “spanking to someone close 
to you” or “flash the camera” or “say something nice to the birthday girl” or “put on 
a hat and do a dance move”. 
 
On the call, a person shares a story then spins the spinner and does what comes 
up. This can also bring people in from your immediate vicinity.  
 
Zoom Wedding 
Have everybody buy a little bottle of soap bubbles. At a point in the wedding 
everybody blows bubbles at the screen, the couple and wedding producers on the 
screen blow bubbles, and everyone gets to see the couple dancing in a cloud of 
bubbles. Almost seems like the bubbles are coming from everybody's screen to 
them. 
 
Dinner with friends 
Organise a Zoom dinner with a couple of wonderful people in your lives. Do some 
authentic relating games​ together and it feels like you’re much closer than these 
little boxes. We can connect from everywhere. 
 
Big Family Gathering (long event) 
Host an annual family gathering of wider family (can be done with 100s of people). 
Talk and let each person share a little story. This can go for many hours and still be 
fulfilling.  
 
Two Hour Reflective Practice 
This can include some poetry, guided meditation, activities like guided journaling.  
Creates a space for people to reflect, recharge and connect. 

Closing 
Same Time 
Everybody goes around and shares one thing they're taking away. Then to say 
goodbye, everybody tries to leave at the exact same time! This removes the 
awkward leaving time at the end. 
 
Music to close out a meeting​. Play a song and tell everyone to get inspired by the 
music to leave in any way they would like (Mission Impossible theme or Jurassic 
Park are good ones) 
 
Sound Cacophony  
Open up all the mics and invite everybody to say farewell before they sign off — 
especially with a larger group! Get a cacophony of videos and sound. 
 
Leave with a Mission 
This works well in a smaller call, especially at the end of a course or series. Leaders 
one by one acknowledge each person, give them an ongoing mission, and then kick 
them out of the call. 
 
Self Love and Intentions 
Have everybody hug themselves and thank themself for taking this time together. 
● Cosy up to the camera for a “group hug.” Close your eyes and make hug 
sounds. Feel the shared energy 
 ● Everyone imagine that you're sending out to anyone or anything that could 
use a little extra love. 
 
Have everybody put their​ hands on their hearts​ and send an intention from 
whatever wonderful feelings we've generated tonight to whomever would benefit. 
 
Takeaways in the Chat 
Ask people to write something in the chat. This is a great way as the facilitator to 
have testimonials and things that you can like read through afterwards. 
 
If there isn’t enough time for everyone, sometimes the ones who take a little bit 
longer or don't have something right away won’t send anything. You can have 
people write their responses but wait to hit enter, then all hit enter at the same 
time.  
 
You can send these shares out as a follow up to people after the call, if you want. 
 
Appreciation Shower 
Each person gets one minute where their video is pinned. The facilitator should set 
a timer and leave their screen unmuted so everyone can hear when it goes off, or 
ring chimes at the one-minute mark. 
For that minute, the person pinned gets showered with compliments and 
appreciation. All they can do is receive and say thank you. 
 
Step In for a Thank You 
On Zoom everyone turns off their camera except the person receiving. One at a 
time people turn on their camera to kind of “step into the room” with that person, 
share something, and then step back out.  
 
Everybody else is invisible. This can be quite an emotional “last call.”