With an average of 300 million daily meeting participants, Zoom—like other video conferencing software—has exploded in popularity. At this point, many of us have mastered the basics of the “Zoom call”, but how well do you really know the platform?
In this article, we’ll take a look at 6 ways you can upgrade your Zoom skills to make the best use of the software and take your virtual calls to the next level.
Zoom meeting tips and tricks for better video meetings
Know when to speak (and when to mute)
Whether hosting a meeting in person or virtually, an essential skill to have is the ability to manage conversation. This helps make sure that everyone has a chance to participate and that the meeting stays on track, and can require you to know when to speak and when to stay silent.
In video meetings, another factor comes into play: the mute button!
Connecting via our devices can lead to static, varying volume levels when speaking, background noise, and more. In these instances, muting yourself (as a participant) or asking others to mute themselves (as a host) can be a valuable skill to put into practice.
But, when to mute and when not to mute?
A 2020 blog post from Zapier concluded that the answer to that question lies in the number of participants on your call. Namely: “If there are five or fewer people on the call, don't mute yourself. If there are six or more, mute unless you're the person currently talking.”
The logic here is that while there are few enough participants to view everyone on your screen, managing conversation is doable without utilizing the mute button. Beyond that, things get a bit more challenging, and it could be a good time to implement a rule around muting unless speaking.
If you’re looking for a shortcut to hitting the mute button, you can use:
- Command + Shift + A (on Mac)
- Alt + A (on Windows)
Plus, if you’re hosting, you can mute certain (or all!) participants by selecting Participants and then Mute.
To further control the flow of conversation and encourage engagement on Zoom, you might want to consider using the following additional features:
- Virtual hand raise (creates a virtual queue of participants wanting to speak)
- Polling (allows participants to vote on a matter)
- Breakout rooms (facilitate small-group discussion)
- Whiteboard (enables visual collaboration through annotating a shared screen)
Control who can access your Zoom meeting
As the number of people using Zoom continues to grow, an unfortunate trend called “Zoombombing” is on the rise. Analogous to photobombing, Zooombombing is when users jump into your Zoom meeting uninvited using a link or ID and put themselves on camera—definitely not something you want to happen during your next sales pitch. So, how do you prevent this?
You can follow the following best practices to gain control over your meeting environment:
- Not making your meeting ID publicly available for everyone
- Using the waiting room feature to manually admit participants into the call, ensuring that only people you know can enter
- Not allowing participants to join before the host
- Locking meetings after a short window of time from the start time to prevent new attendees from entering
- Preventing attendees from screen sharing
- Enabling end-to-end encryption
By being proactive and implementing these security measures, you can create a more secure and productive virtual meeting experience for everyone involved and minimize disruptions well ahead of time.
Upgrade your screen-sharing
Many of us have likely used Zoom’s screen-sharing feature while giving presentations—as the name implies, the option allows users to share the content on their screen during a meeting.
Screen-sharing is a great way to offer your participants visuals, share media, or hand over the reins to a coworker to present their work. However, Zoom has a series of advanced screen-sharing features that you can use to take the interactivity of your virtual meetings to another level.
For instance, the “Portion of Screen” option allows users to share just a part of their screen, or a single window, instead of everything visible. When activated, the presenter can see a green rectangle which they can move around to share just the portion of the screen that is captured.
The “Powerpoint as Virtual Background” option allows hosts to share their PowerPoint slides as virtual backgrounds for an immersive sharing experience. The twist? Your headshot is still displayed during the meeting so your audience can see both the slides and you instead of just seeing the slides and hearing your voice coming from the background.
You can check out Zoom’s full range of advanced screen-sharing options here.
Get professional with Zoom overlays
Green screens have been in use for nearly a century, providing producers with the ability to add backgrounds or effects to movies, TV shows, and more.
Zoom overlays function similarly, allowing you to superimpose an image or background into your video feed. All you have to do is browse through Zoom’s library of virtual backgrounds, make your selection, and enjoy your custom backdrop! These overlays range anywhere from plain backgrounds to dynamic images, and you can also upload your own image or branded background from your computer.
This feature can not only help hide any distractions from your physical environment, but allow you to express your creativity, maintain a professional look while working at home, or even raise awareness of your brand.
Make (appropriate) use of breakout rooms
When there are too many participants in a meeting, it can be difficult to manage and allow everyone to have a chance to speak. Breakout rooms allow hosts to divide large groups into smaller, manageable groups to promote better collaboration and sharing of ideas
This is very useful when you need department-specific discussions. Say that you want a summary from each department in your company regarding a product proposal. You can use the breakout rooms feature to allocate participants to their respective departments and proceed with the discussions.
You can activate breakout rooms by doing the following:
- Start an instant or scheduled meeting
- Click Breakout Rooms
- Select the number of rooms you would like to create, and how you would like to assign your participants to those rooms from the given options
- Click Create
Stay on script with a virtual teleprompter
It isn’t uncommon to use a script that contains all the key points during a virtual meeting, whether this is on paper or in a word document open on a split screen or dual monitor set-up.
However, the problem with either of these two options is that it doesn’t allow you to maintain eye contact, because it requires you to constantly shift focus between the video screen and your notes. Poor eye contact can result in those in your meeting being less engaged, and it can also come across as stilted if you’re constantly glancing to the side to read your notes.
So, what’s the solution?
Virtual teleprompter software like VODIUM can solve this issue by placing your notes as an overlay just below the camera. This way, you’ll see both your video screen and notes at the same time, allowing you to read with ease, maintain eye contact with your audience, and focus on presenting with confidence!
An in-built transparency option means you can adjust the transparency of your notes to avoid obscuring your view of the participants on your Zoom call, and an automatic scroll feature allows you to set your notes to scroll at the speed that suits you. What’s not to love?
Take your Zoom skills to the next level with VODIUM
In an increasingly digitized world, the efficacy of our meetings is highly dependent on our ability to adapt, learn new skills, and leverage the technology at our disposal. To learn more about how you can take your videoconferencing skills to the next level, or to start your free trial of VODIUM’s teleprompter, check out VODIUM today!
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