Blog and video tutorial on how to use Zoom (for hosts and participants)
Blog and video tutorial on how to use Zoom (for hosts and participants)
How to reach out/educate/train in a virtual environment
Oh, how I wish I had bought share in Zoom, it’s the video conferencing tool on everyone’s lips these days. Everyone who up until 2 weeks ago was delivering face to face training/mentoring/ teaching skills now realises the only way to survive for the time being (and perhaps also in the long term) is to deliver content virtually.
This blog covers the essential of the tool Zoom which has become a lifeline for many people and can be used for Video Conferencing/ Web Conferencing/ Webinars/Screen Sharing
I’m not any kind of affiliate seller for Zoom (I unfortunately don’t think such a thing exists) but I have used it as a host to organise committee meetings and virtual team progress meetings. On the other side I’ve also used it as a participant within online business networking meetings, webinars and even during an interview for the best PA network in the UK!
Zoom who is it good for:
-Any kind of business owner with regular client contact
-Trainers
-Coaches
-Podcasters
-Online business networks
-HR recruiters
-Chairperson / Secretary of any kind of Committee with regular meetings
-Virtual teams who need regular progress meetings
-Ministers/Priests-anyone who wants to deliver a sermon or engage with a large audience
-Family members wanting to stay in contact and share screen with loved ones
Zoom benefits
-Much more efficient use of your time as it cuts out travelling and you can fit more meetings in
-Potentially much more productive meeting if you have less time than a face to face
-Much faster to set up meetings with others as its easier to set a meeting time with several people if they don’t have to factor in travel time
-Saves money as you don’t have to find/hire a meeting room
-Much better for environment as you don’t have to travel
-Much better for your health. In current climate with Coronavirus reduces risk of infection
Zoom features
-You can record meetings (with everyone’s permission) if people can’t attend which is very useful for business/committee meetings. Zoom downloads audio recording to whatever folder you want on computer (as full video and audio files)
-You can use chat function to everyone or individually if you need to ask questions
-You can attach documents or links during the call in the chat function
-You can share your full computer screen or just an application which is useful when you need to explain something
-You can get audio recordings transcribed which is useful for coaching sessions or those creating podcasts
-You can set break up rooms with different people which is useful for online business meetings (if you want different people to be introduced to each other or discuss a specific topic)
-In paid version, you can integrate with Facebook and stream content in 2 places at once
-Very easy to set up meeting and invite people in
-Higher pricing plans allow you to conduct webinars for up to
Zoom has a good list of keyboard shortcuts (depending on what type of device you are viewing it from) available on its support page
If you are a host organising a call via Zoom for the first time, please have a look at my video showing how to set up a Zoom call /meeting invitation
If you are a first-time participant to a Zoom call, please have a look at my video showing you how to download and interact
Written Instructions on how to schedule a Zoom meeting
For the host
1. Login into your Zoom account
https://zoom.us/
2. Go into meetings
3. Click on schedule a new meeting
4. Create title/select date/time (be careful to choose GMT)
5. Choose video option (on or off for host as you prefer)
6. Select audio to both
7. Enable waiting room (so if you are late people are in a virtual meeting room)
8. If you have everyone’s permission to record the meeting tick box -Record the meeting automatically on the local computer
9. * Don’t enable waiting room and record automatically at the same time as an invitee may login to test zoom and then the meeting will start to automatically record from time they click in
10. Zoom will then create a join url
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/(9 digits)
and this is what people need when they login Zoom to open the meeting.
Zoom lets you add meeting to a google//outlook or yahoo if you have everyone’s email addresses create a calendar invitation, copy invitation in and send (good way to make sure it is in everyone’s diary).
If you communicate with a group via Facebook group/WhatsApp group/Slack channel you simply copy the Zoom url in and people need only the last 9 digits to enter meeting.
(I’m going to make this a separate doc people can download , brand with own logos and send to their own participants)
Written Instructions on how to conduct a Zoom meeting
For the host
1. Welcome everyone and allow everyone a few minutes to join and settle
2. Ask some questions in the chat box to let people get to know each other or let them introduce themselves
3. Explain the agenda for the meeting
4. Tell everyone you are going to put them on mute if that is relevant
5. Ask people’s permission to record the meeting and to share file afterwards if appropriate
https://zoom.us/
6. Intersperse whatever content of your meeting with questions to keep people engaged (if you have a large webinar you can ask a virtual assistant to manage answering the messages)
7. Inform people at the start if you want them to ask questions at end or throughout your presentation (depending on nature of meeting)
8. Share your screen or any relevant documents with them in chat box or afterwards (If you are sharing a file remember to close everything else down in the background so invitees don’t see anything confidential)
9. Allow Q&A time
10. Thank everyone for their participation and inform them what next action/workshop/training date is
If you are hosting a meeting and want to send guidelines to your meeting participants who are first time Zoom users, which you can copy and paste to your own email/group etc please send me an email Alison@virtuali.uk with Zoom Download in the Title
If you have any questions
and/or you want to set up a test Zoom call practice
and/or you need some virtual support on a meeting or conference you are hosting
please don’t hesitate to contact me alison@virtuali.uk
Happy Zooming!
