Top 15 tips to enhance your Zoom meetings
Zoom has quickly become the most popular tool to keep us
connected during Covid-19, especially in a professional capacity. We have adapted
well to running and joining meetings at home even with the worry of invasion from
the kids, the cat sitting on your laptop or the dog deciding it’s a good time
to pee on the carpet. Even when we finally go back to offices, the popularity
of Zoom meetings will continue, as we realise that there is no longer the need
to bring everyone together for a meeting in an office environment and can just
as easily be done remotely. More and more people will also be given the
opportunity to continue to work from home. So, Zoom is here to stay! Here are some great
tips to help you when running or attending meetings.
1.
Add a background – Zoom offers a
selection of backgrounds to use or upload one of your own. Just go into settings
and get creative. If you don’t want to use a background then have a plain wall
behind you.
2.
Light up- Being in a well-lit area or
having a light facing you will highlight your face. You can easily use a lamp
or with a small investment, buy an LED ring light.
3.
Level up – Have your camera at the
correct level. You don’t want to be looking down or up at your screen. If you
need to sit your laptop on a pile of books to get the correct level then that’s
fine. No one can see what you are using. Your picture will be a lot more
flattering and clearer to anyone watching.
4.
Mute and unmute quickly – It can be very distracting
if everyone is off mute throughout a meeting. Having everyone mute other than
the speaker is wise. If you need to unmute quickly, simply hold the space bar
down while you talk and release it when you have finished.
5.
No need to add video when you join a meeting –
When you join a meeting, generally there is a period of time when you are
waiting for others to join. There is no need to activate video straight away.
Wait until the meeting is about to begin before opening the video option.
6.
Change up the screen – Use Gallery View so
you can see everyone in the meeting.
7.
Sending invites – Send well ahead of time
with a follow up reminder. Often Zoom meetings fail purely because they are
badly organised.
8.
Share Screen – This enables you to do
presentations or demonstrations to everyone at the same time. Both the
co-ordinator of the meeting and the attendees are able to share their screen.
9.
Zoom App Market Place – Through these
apps which integrates with Microsoft Teams and your google or outlook calendar,
making the whole experience with Zoom a lot more seamless.
10.
Recording your meetings – There are two levels
of being able to record your meetings. Zooms free level enables you to record
your meeting locally onto your hard drive, whereas the paid Zoom level will allow
you to save to the cloud.
11. Enhance
your look – Zoom offers you the chance to soften your features
. (
Settings ->
Video -> turn on Touch up my appearance)
12. Audio
Transcript – The paid version of Zoom lets gives you the option to have an
audio transcript of your meetings, found under advanced cloud recording
settings.
13. Waiting
Room –
It is a good idea to enable this feature as hackers or strangers could be
attending your meeting without permission or an invite. Using waiting room lets
you see exactly who is in attendance and who shouldn’t be. This can avoid an embarrassing
situation during a meeting.
14. Break
out rooms – If you have a large number of attendees you can set up to 50
break out rooms for workshops or mini meetings.
15. Practice
–
Arrange with a friend or colleague a dummy meeting to test out the Zoom
features and to get the level and lighting right.
