Tips for How to Use Zoom Like a Pro

(bright violin music) – [Woman] (low voice)Okay, is my video working? Hey, can you guys hear me? – [Man] I'm sharing my screen right now.

Can everyone see that? Great.

– [Man] Is everybody here? Can we get started? – With the way that Zoom works, whenever there's a speaker speaking, it puts them on the big screen, so you don't wanna be on the big screen if you're not supposedto be on the big screen.

So mute your microphones.

Go to the audio preferences, and then from there, youcheck the box that says, “Mute my microphonewhen I join a meeting.

” – Spouses working fromhome, babies crying, kids home from school, we're all dealing with it.

If you're the one in controlof the meeting, good news.

You have the power to muteall your attendees upon entry.

Just go into the Preferences menu, and under meetings, select Advanced Settings.

Toggle the button that saysmute participants upon entry.

That will automatically mute everyone who joins your meeting.

If they do need to talk, theycan always unmute themselves.

– Turning off your video, when you join a meeting will save you some major hassle.

Go into your Zoom preferences, and then click on the video section of it.

Then when you're there, you check the box that says turn off my video when I join a meeting.

Collect yourself, make sureyour environment looks nice, looks presentable, nothingembarrassing is happening.

Then you can join the meeting, and everyone can see your lovely face.

(bright acoustic guitar) – When you're working fromhome, especially on Zoom, it's important to keep as muchprofessionalism as possible.

The best way you can do this is to turn off any notifications that might go off during a meeting.

You want to go to the upperright hand corner of your screen where there are those three little dots.

If you scroll up, there'sa Do Not Disturb button.

You wanna turn that from off to on.

That will stop any what'sup pings, Facebook chats.

You don't really want those going off.

Otherwise mostly you justdon't want to look distracted.

So another tip I have is toclear off anything on your desk so you can stay focused, and sort of keep your hands on your lap or use them to talk as I seem to need to.

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm sort of constantly doing this.

My biggest work tip is one of these, available at pharmaciesacross the country.

Take a bobby pin, tuck these guys away, and minus a coupleflyaways, you're good to go.

Looks good.

(bouncy jazz music) – You can also check a box that has Zoom touch up your appearance.

Now I won't tell youif that's on right now, but I will say it's saved me many a day that my hair was unwashed and my circles were dark under my eyes.

– So yes, vanity, very important.

Knowing your angles.

So I kind of hate this view of myself.

I think I sort of look like a thumb.

I find a way to prop my computer up.

So what I use is my bound volume from when I was an editorat my student newspaper.

I sort of just pick mylaptop up, put it down, and then fix my screen, and then here I am.

Slightly better view, and Ifeel like I'm just looking more dead on instead of any of these double chin sort of angles.

– Another appearance tip, if you want to avoid looking a little bit like a witnessprotection silhouette, a desk lamp and a whitewall behind your camera (bell ringing) lights ya up, so all yourfriends can see your face.

Or have your desk face a window with a good amount of natural light.

– I have a tendency tosort of nervously sweat.

I'm not afraid to say it.

It's my body cooling itself down, but one thing to think aboutis temperature regulation.

in New York, we don'treally control our heat, so I have propped up a windowjust to let a cool breeze in, kind of keeps me activated.

I think the best thing youcan do to look professional is to feel it, sort of look good.

(lively acoustic guitar) – Zoom's whiteboard feature, usually used for things like brainstorming or ideasharing on screen shares, is actually really usefulfor blowing off some steam on our Friday game nights.

What that meant for the teamsthat I was on at Wirecutter, it's mostly Pictionary, which is bad news for me, because with my drawingskills, I lose a lot.

– In order to use virtual backgrounds, you need to have a solidcolor backdrop like this.

Go to the video settings in Zoom, and you'll see a virtualbackground option.

Click on that, and there's all your photo options.

Whether it's to tell yourco-workers, hey, this is fine, or you wanna convince everyone that you're in thecoffee shop, when in fact you're hanging out atChalmun's Mos Eisley Cantina, a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

Or maybe you need totake a little quick break and you want to step away for a moment, but you don't want anyone to notice that you're not on the screen, so you just walk awayand leave it like that.

(bright acoustic guitar) – Please mute your microphone.

– Don't forget to mute your microphone.

– Remember to mute your microphone.

– Please mute your microphone.

– Please mute your microphone.

– Please mute your microphone.

Please mute your microphone.

Please mute your microphone.

Please, mute your microphone.

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