7 Ways to Maximize Zoom Meetings

Maximise the use of this great tool.

 Zoom gives you the capability to hold face-to-face meetings, show what’s on your screen to everyone else on the call, pass control from one person to another and record the call as a video.

While people are getting better at Zoom meetings, there are still a few things we can do to improve the experience for everyone:

There are probably a lot more than 7 ways to maximize zoom meetings, but hey this list is a good place to start.

Here are the 7 Ways to Maximize Zoom Meetings

1. Know who attended

To get a report after the meeting is finished listing everyone who attended, go to Zoom Account Management > Reports Section > Usage Reports > Meeting and then select the report type and date range.

This only works is you’re the meeting host, you’ve enabled Usage Reports or you’re an account administrator or owner. And you also need a paid plan.

2. Record the call as a video

Did some people miss the call? Or would you like a record of the meeting?

To record, choose if you want to use local (store yourself) or cloud option. Cloud option is for paying members only and allows people to stream the video in their web browser when it’s ready.

To record, it pays to optimize your settings beforehand. If you’re doing broadcast-style where only the host appears, set Zoom to record only the host’s audio and video. If it’s a collaborative meeting, be sure Zoom is recording everyone.

Zoom gives you the capability to hold face-to-face meetings, show what’s on your screen to everyone else on the call, pass control from one person to another and record the call as a video.

But did you know Zoom is capable of even more than that?

Here I’ve created a list of 7 things you can do on Zoom to get you started.

3. Create recurring meetings with saved settings and one URL

Okay, you knew about this one, right? When you schedule a meeting, tell Zoom if the meeting is weekly, monthly, etc. You can lock in the settings to have them in place every time the meeting takes place.

But what if your group regularly meets but not at regular times? Choose the option called “No Fixed Time.” You’ll be able to use the same settings and same URL with the same group, no matter when you get together.

4. Automatically schedule meetings and let people know about them

You can connect your scheduling app (such as Zapier) with Zoom and your calendar.

Then when someone books an appointment in your scheduling app, it automatically creates a new Zoom meeting and adds it to your calendar.

Do you have a team? Use a chat app like Slack to share the meeting details with your team via the chat app.

5. Screen share with collaborative annotation

Screen sharing allows the host to display what’s on their screen to everyone else on the call, and annotation tools let anyone or everyone on the call draw and highlight what’s on the screen.

If you’re not the host and you want to annotate, select ‘view option’ from the top of the Zoom window and then choose ‘annotate.’ A toolbar will appear with your options for texting, drawing, making arrows and so forth.

The host can click ‘save’ on the toolbar to capture the completed image with annotations as a screenshot.

6. Keyboard shortcuts

“I” is invite. Press Alt + I (Windows) or Cmd + I (macOS) to jump to the invite window. Grab the link to the meeting or send invites to others via email.

“M” is mute everyone but you. Press Alt + M (Windows) or Cmd + Ctrl + M (macOS) when you’re the meeting host and want to mute everyone else.

“S” is share. Press Alt + Shift + S (Windows) or Cmd + Shift + S (macOS) to share your screen.

“R” is record. Press Alt + R (Windows) or Cmd + Shift + R (macOS) to record, and Press Alt + P (Windows) or Cmd + Shift + P (macOS) to pause or resume recording.

“A” is to mute and un/mute your own audio. Press Alt + A (Windows) or Cmd + Shift + A (macOS).

“V” is to turn video off and on. Press Alt + V (Windows) or Cmd + Shift + V (macOS).

To enable shortcuts outside of Zoom, go to Settings > Keyboard Shortcuts and select ‘enable global shortcut.’ This will allow you to use the keyboard shortcuts regardless of what window you’re in.

7. Touch Up Your Appearance

If you want to improve your appearance, go to settings > video and check ‘touch up my appearance.’ Zoom will soften the focus on your camera, making you look 10 years younger. Okay, maybe not 10 years but it’s worth trying.

And while you’re at it, you can also change your background. If you don’t want others to see your messy house, or maybe you’d like to pretend you’re on a tropical island, just go to settings > virtual background and choose your background.

We hope you liked the 7 Ways to Maximize Zoom Meetings. Just for good measure here are three extra Zoom meeting tips. Think of any more let me know and I will add to the list!

1. Don’t use your built-in microphone and speaker.

They’re designed to pick up as much information as they can, which will include background noises and voices. Instead, use a wired headset, preferably with a boom mic, because it will pick up just what is in front of the mic.

2. When you are speaking, look a little to the side of your screen.

When we look directly at the screen or camera, we get easily distracted by the faces and find it more difficult to formulate what we’re trying to say.

3. Be a little more dramatic and expressive.

Theater actors are aware that they have to play to the back row seats, meaning they need bigger facial expressions and gestures to get their point across than if they were playing to an audience of one.

When we’re on Zoom, things like subtle eye cues, nods and chuckles might not be noticed. To give feedback to the speaker that they can see and hear, you’ll want to grin instead of smile, give a thumbs up instead of nodding and laugh instead of chuckling.

Subtlety does not come across well in online meetings, so play things up a bit and become a little more dramatic and expressive to let others know you’re paying attention and not checking your email or zoning out.