Zoom Tips to Help You Meet Like a Pro when working from home
With many businesses now encouraging or even mandating that employees work from home amid global health concerns over the coronavirus, millions of people can expect to have their daily routines and work styles impacted. But not everyone is accustomed to working from home, and getting into work mode from a space that’s not your regular one can be a huge adjustment.
One of the most popular ways to meet online is Zoom. Here are just a few essential tips to get started.
Getting the right license and software
Step 1: Create a Zoom account – it’s free to sign up! There’s a Pro version available, but if you need a quick solution to meet on video, the free version provides all the capabilities and features you need. Either way, it takes about 30 seconds to sign up for a Zoom account. Here are the main differences in a nutshell:
- Zoom Basic: This is the free version. Great for 1:1 unlimited video calling and group calls (40-minute time limit if you’re the meeting host). You also get unlimited direct and team messaging capabilities with Zoom Chat.
- Zoom Pro: For $14.99/month, you get all of Basic plus enhanced admin controls on your meetings, in addition to cloud recording.
Step 2: Download the Zoom Meetings software on your desktop and mobile. Now you are ready to go!
In-meeting tips and features
Holding the spacebar on my keyboard to temporarily unmute – I find most people like to stay on mute for long periods since you never know when a dog might start barking, or a baby might start crying at your home. If you need to unmute yourself quickly, hold the spacebar to unmute to make a quick, witty comment.
Enable “Touch Up My Appearance” for a subtle video enhancement - This capability can be enabled via your Zoom settings. It helps reduce under-eye baggage and mild skin blemishes, giving you a more polished look.
Leverage in-meeting chat to share files & resources - I use in-meeting chat to share links or resources that may be discussed in the meeting. For example, team members will share Google docs, URLs, or just quick comments in the chatbox, so the meeting isn’t disrupted.
Screen sharing - It’s easy to share your screen and collaborate with Zoom. The Zoom platform also supports multiple people sharing their screens at the same time. It’s great for highly collaborative teams like marketing or programmers.
Record the call as a video - Zoom lets you record your web conferencing calls as videos, a handy feature for sharing the meeting with people who may have missed it, or reviewing what was said. When you record, you must choose whether to use the local or Cloud option. Local means you store the video file yourself, whether locally on your computer or in another storage space that you provide. With Cloud, which is for paying members only, Zoom stores the video for you in cloud storage (different account types come with varying amounts of storage). One convenience of the cloud option is that people can stream the video in a web browser once it’s ready.
This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what Zoom can offer. Excel & Flourish can help you and your team become Zoom meeting experts.