7 Zoom Tips You Should Know

Video conferencing software is one of the most vital tools for business and personal communication. In today’s world, many companies and individuals have realized the power of video communication platforms such as Zoom. Despite having several sophisticated capabilities that remote employees may find practical for increasing productivity, Zoom’s simplicity is one of its primary merits. This article describes how you can get the most out of Zoom.

Pro Zoom Tips to Enhance Your Experience

In this guide, you’ll learn to pick the appropriate privacy settings, use sophisticated screen sharing features, and several other Zoom tricks. But to ensure a successful meeting, ensure you follow all the standard virtual meeting etiquette guidelines.

Waiting Rooms and Breakout Rooms

Zoom offers waiting rooms as a safety and privacy measure. When you set up a waiting room, you essentially unlock a manual authentication mechanism. With this approach, the meeting host can only approve chosen participants to join the meeting.

Breakout rooms assist a host in dividing a sizable audience into smaller groups to facilitate better interaction. Additionally, Zoom allows theming these small rooms so that participants can distinguish them easily.

Zoom Privacy Configuration

When it comes to privacy features, Zoom takes supplementary caution measures. Nowadays, it is mandatory for every meeting to have either a passcode or a waiting room, or both. Apart from these, here is some more advice for better privacy. 

  • E2EE 

Enable end-to-end encryption in the app to prevent leaking information through live streaming or cloud recording. 

  • Private Meeting Rooms 

Zoom makes it very straightforward to create private meeting rooms. Use a separate ID for private spaces, and don’t use your personal meeting ID in public events. 

  • Proxy Servers 

Try proxies for Zoom to securely join a meeting so no one can see your actual IP and location. Also, a proxy can allow you to have an optimized video-calling experience by reducing lags and stutters. 

  • Link Sharing 

Only share links through secured communication mediums and avoid posting them publicly unless you plan to host a public event or webinar.

Zoom Backgrounds, Filters, and Noise-Reduction

Background noise is a pesky phenomenon that distracts participants during a meeting. Use third-party tools such as Krisp to automate muting background sounds such as chattering, barking, etc.

With the advanced Background & Filters feature, you can customize your background to reflect your personality or display your company’s brand.

The “Touch up my appearance” option is a boon for users. It helps you set filters or adjust for low-light conditions so you can be clearly visible on the video.

Advanced Screen Sharing With Mouse Spotlight

Advanced screen sharing options in Zoom let you display only a preferred part of the screen. It is also convenient when you want to use a second camera to share a video. Furthermore, you can optimize video clips and use PowerPoint presentation options to create high-quality video recordings and virtual backgrounds effortlessly.

Don’t forget to turn on the mouse spotlight while sharing the screen. This feature is handy for highlighting and referencing parts of the presentation when you use a whiteboard.

Most Common Keyboard Shortcuts in Zoom

Zoom supports a myriad of keyboard shortcuts. Although you may not need all of them, you should know at least the most useful ones to improve your Zoom experience. 

  • Alt: Toggles your meeting controls – shows or hides them
  • Alt+A: Mutes and unmutes the audio
  • Alt+Shift+T: Takes a screenshot
  • Alt+F: Enter or exit the full-screen mode
  • Alt+S: Start or stop screen sharing
  • Alt+C: Start or end cloud recording 

Zoom Chat

For business communication, an instant messaging channel is an absolute necessity. While Slack is a great option, Zoom Chat introduces a refined chatting experience. Now, you can keep up with your tasks, files, and updates without leaving the Zoom ecosystem. Use the Chat icon at the top of your screen to enter the chatting window. Zoom allows emojis, GIFs, polls, and also statuses.

Automatic Transcription

Obtaining clean and error-free meeting transcription doesn’t have to be a nuisance. With a third-party integration called Otter.ai, you can automatically transcribe your meetings and virtual presentations. This feature comes with paid enterprise, education, and business plans and allows you to transcribe recorded videos saved in the cloud. Apart from that, the Live Notes feature displays real-time captions without the need for human transcription, another great addition to the service.

Key Takeaways

Zoom’s feature-laden platform has a lot to offer. So, you must be earnest in utilizing the app to its full potential. Follow the above tips and combine them with the best video-conferencing practices to elevate your overall Zoom experience.