9 tips to level up your video calls on Zoom
A methodology for amazing meetings. Say goodbye to boring, long, and unproductive meetings.
By now, youâre pretty good at running video meetingsâon Zoom or otherwise. But are you great?Â
Peek beneath the surface of Zoomâs user-friendly interface, and youâll be surprised at how much you still donât know.
Looking to save time on admin tasks? Avoid embarrassment? Secure yourself against hackers? With a bevy of powerful features and integration potential you havenât fully tapped, Zoom can help you do all that and more.Â
In this post, weâll unveil nine of our favorite tips thatâll have you running video meetings like a pro.
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Remote work has made it easy to skip your morning routine and roll out of bed and into work. But Zoom has you covered with a feature that softens your features, giving you a polished look, even if youâre wearing sweatpants.Â
To enable this during a meeting, click the carrot next to the Stop/Start Video button, then click Video Settings and check the box next to âTouch up my appearance.â
Alternatively, from the Zoom desktop client, click your profile picture, then Settings > Video, and check the box next to âTouch up my appearance.â
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If youâre not careful, embarrassing or disruptive desktop notifications can easily pop up while youâre sharing your screen. How you prevent this depends on your operating system.Â
For example, Windows 10 comes with a feature called Focus Assist, which can silence notifications while youâre sharing your screen. Windows users can enable this feature manually on the bottom right of their taskbar.Â
Or you can head to Settings > System > Focus Assist and switch âWhen Iâm duplicating my display to On.â
For Mac users, Wirecutter writer Ben Keough recommends a third-party app called Muzzle. This app essentially does the same thing as Focus Assist by switching on Macâs Do Not Disturb mode whenever you share your screen.
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To successfully run a large video meeting, you need to know how to make sure everyone who isnât speaking is muted and stays muted.Â
To make all attendees muted by default, you can turn on the âMute participants upon entryâ switch. Youâll see the option to do this when you schedule a meeting in your meeting options.Â
Of course, people can still unmute themselves. And since they can, they will. And theyâll inevitably forget to mute themselves when theyâve finished speaking.Â
For that, you can click on Manage Participants and mute anyone who no longer needs to be unmuted.Â
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Anything you can do to shorten the time it takes to send invite links to stragglers, mute disruptive participants, and share your screen will improve the quality of your meetings. So it pays to learn a few keyboard shortcuts.â
To bring up Zoomâs invite window during a meeting, press Alt + I (for Windows) or Cmd + I (for Mac). From here, click âCopy Invite Linkâ or âCopy Inviteâ which you can then paste in an email or Slack.â
To mute everyone else in the meeting when youâre the host, press Alt + M (Windows) or Cmd + Ctrl + M (for Mac).â
To share your screen, press Alt + S (Windows) or Cmd + Shift + S (Mac).
And finally, to avoid those awkward goodbyes while you all search for the Leave Meeting button, press Alt + Q (Windows) or Cmd + W (Mac). This will bring up the prompt to end or leave the meeting.
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If youâre running video meetings on any platform, youâll want to be aware of their security features. While Zoom was in hot water earlier this year for its lax security practices, theyâve rolled out several new features that make your meeting more secure.Â
You can use the following features to control who is in your meeting and who can control the screen:Â
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Merely sharing your screen helps people follow along in collaborative meetings. But you can unleash even greater collaboration with Zoomâs annotation and whiteboard features.
To access the annotation feature, share your screen (or have someone else share theirs) and click the âAnnotateâ button. And to use a whiteboard, click on the share screen button and then click the whiteboard option.Â
These features lend themselves well to collaboration, but you can also use the Spotlight annotation tool as a digital laser pointer for presentations.Â
For larger groups, breakout rooms are another smart collaboration tool. This feature enables you to break a larger meeting into smaller ârooms.âÂ
If you want to use breakout rooms, there is some configuration required, so read Zoomâs documentation on enabling and managing breakout rooms.
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Unless youâre scheduling your meetings via fax, you can integrate your email, calendar, and Zoom to ensure your meeting details automatically get to the right people at the right time.
For example, with Calendly, you can integrate Zoom so that anytime a meeting is scheduled via Calendly, three things happen:
If you use different scheduling software, thereâs probably an integration for it on Zapier. Youâll just have to create an automationâor find a premade oneâto connect your scheduling software to Zoom to your calendar.Â
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If youâre running webinars or digital conferences, you can use Zoom to collect attendee information. You can then view and export this information with Zoomâs webinar reporting tool. â
Of course, if youâre doing a webinar to collect leads, youâll likely have registrations coming from your website, social media, and more.Â
Fortunately, Zapier has several pre-made automations that can grab registration data from whatever apps you use to collect it and consolidate it in your Zoom webinar report.Â
The way to do this is to connect each of your form apps to Zoom so that all the data from the forms appear on your meeting registrant list. Here are a few pre-made Zaps that can make this easier for you:
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Team-building meetings can be challenging when you have to do them remotely. But there are options. Virtual escape rooms are now a thing.Â
You can also get creative with party games. With apps like Jackbox Games, you can download a game, start a meeting, and share your screen. Meeting participants can access the game interface from their phones.Â
Just remember, if youâre the host, make sure to turn the game volume down, so the trash talk isnât drowned out.
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