In a time where technology is “zooming” further and further into our lives, it is clear that video conferencing would become essential to the successful functioning of a productive team. Moreover, since the outbreak of the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, millions of new users have been joining Zoom to hold their meetings and classes. Thus, they can stay connected in a safe environment.
Still, there are many things that we do not know about Zoom. How can we benefit from it? What are its features? What makes it so unique in comparison to other similar video conferencing apps? Well, this article should teach you how to use Zoom like a pro.
Contents
What Is Zoom?
Introducing the Zoom Meeting.
Going for the Zoom Room.
How to Get Started On Zoom.
1. Choose the Correct Business Subscription.
2. Download Zoom.
3. Synch Zoom.
4. Schedule Zoom Meetings.
Making a Zoom Meeting Private.
1. What Are Zoom Bombings?
2. How to Prevent Zoom Bombing.
Further Tips for Using Zoom.
Final Thoughts.
What Is Zoom?
Zoom is a video conferencing program set on a cloud base that you may use for video conferencing, webinars, meetings (or meeting recordings), live chats, online classes, and other similar activities. Zoom is seen as the perfect solution for companies that have around 500 employees or less. It is the second-most-popular option after Skype.
Zoom is becoming quite popular by the day, particularly since current circumstances are forcing more and more people to work from home. Forbes contributor Rebecca Bellan has also noted the increase in an article written by the platform:
“Zoom is currently the top free downloaded app in Apple’sApple’s app store. According to data gathered by Learnbonds.com, a financial publication, downloads for Zoom increased by 1,270% between February 22 and March 22. The report’s authors attribute the spike in downloads to many people working from home due to the coronavirus. That’s a total of nearly 17.2 million downloads on iOS and Android combined.” [1]
The beauty of Zoom is that it could be used for a variety of reasons. You may use it to chat with your family, friends, employees – or anyone that logged into a Zoom room. There is even a Zoom app for you to use it on a phone or a tablet if you are not in your computer’s vicinity.
Introducing the Zoom Meeting
Zoom has a special section called the Zoom Meeting. This is the foundation on which the app lies. This term refers to a video conference meeting on a platform that allows co-located and remote attendees to communicate without issues. If a face to face meeting cannot be held, Zoom can gather every team member on the same screen.
While it is possible to set a Zoom account, this is not necessary. This is why you may place a meeting with your clients or conduct an interview online, without the hassle of having to set up an account.
To put it simply, a “Zoom Meeting” allows the attendee to join the meeting through a video conferencing camera or webcam, or via phone. Zoom meetings have become essential, particularly concerning current circumstances. Monbi.com CEO Louie Ortiz also expressed his thoughts on how Zoom Meeting allowed businesses to stay alive.
“The pandemic was shutting everything down, with flight and travel restrictions no longer allowing people to get to their business. People were being forced into lockdown as a preventive measure, but this did not mean the world had to stop. Thankfully, we had Zoom meetings. Unlike other apps, this could show us all at the same time. We were in the comfort of our own homes, but it was like we were in a meeting in the same room. The business was conducted as close to normal as possible. This is how many companies managed to survive in these trying times.”
Together with other software that made working from home possible, Zoom meetings offered a sense of normality that allowed you to contact your team members and collaborators for safe briefings.
Going for the Zoom Room
For you to hold Zoom Meetings, you also need to learn how to handle Zoom Rooms. Zoom Rooms are physical hardware setups that allow companies to launch Zoom Meetings from the place that they send as their conference rooms. Steve John has explained zoom Rooms in a piece for Business Insider:
“A Zoom Room is effectively nothing more than a set of hardware with a Zoom app installed on it. This allows you to hold virtual meetings. With Zoom Room software, many of the web cameras, tablets, computers, phone systems, mics, speakers, displays, and smartboards that your organization already has can be synchronized to work together. This creates a visual and aural link between people spread far and wide.”[2]
A Zoom Room allows users to schedule and launch a Zoom meeting with just a button’s push. It will require an extra subscription fee. However, most people consider the price completely worth it, as it increases the team’s productivity.
Moreover, the advantage of using a Zoom Room is that you won’t have to make any new purchases. For the setup, you need the following items:
A desktop or laptop on which you may synchronize and run a Zoom meeting.
A tablet from which attendees can also launch their Zoom Meeting.
A camera, a microphone, and a speaker.
1-2 HDTV display monitors on which remote attendees may be displayed.
HDMI cable used to share the screen of your computer to your TV
A good Internet connection.
The basics of Zoom are quite easy to understand. Plus, even if you do not have all the pieces necessary yet, it’s easy to get them from a hardware store.
How to Get Started on Zoom
Now that you have all the pieces necessary, it is time to set up the Zoom meeting. It might involve a bit of “leg work” initially, but once you get used to it, the process should be smoother. Here is what you need to do to get yourself started with Zoom.
1. Choose the Correct Business Subscription
Zoom in, the US offers four price tags, depending on what you want to achieve with your team. Bear in mind that this does not include the Zoom room. Here is what you may try out.
Zoom US offers four price tags, depending on what you want to achieve with your team. Bear in mind that this does not include the Zoom room. Here is what you may try out.
Zoom Free
If you are not completely certain and want to do some testing before you log into Zoom, you should try out Zoom Free. It is also a good option when you are handling two or three projects for which you occasionally need a meeting. There is no limit on the number of meetings that you can hold, but the clock stops at 40 minutes. Then, the conversation is automatically closed.
Louie Ortiz of Monbi.com also has advice on when you should use Free Zoom meetings:
“Some companies have long meetings that are held almost every day, where they discuss everything but the fate of the world. These people would be talking once or twice a week, for at least an hour. Indeed, at that point, Zoom Free would not cut it. However, if you only need to do a short briefing now and again, perhaps getting the full plan wouldn’t be worth it. The visual and audio quality of Zoom Free is very high, perhaps better than Skype anyway, which is why it is convenient if you need to arrange a quick meeting with someone.”
In the end, Zoom is the kind of program that offers convenience and high quality, even if you are not particularly keen on going for a full subscription.
Zoom Pro
If you are using Zoom for a smaller team, with just one or a few members working remotely, then Zoom Pro might be what you need. This option allows you to hold meetings up to 24 hours, set recurring meetings, and even record meetings in the device’s cloud. At $14.99 per month, people that hold regular meetings consider this is worth it.
Zoom Business
Small to medium-sized companies that have more than one team could benefit from Zoom Business. For $19.99 a month, people would create and record multiple meetings without worrying about the time frame. Plus, you get various cool features such as company branding and vanity URLs, Zoom meeting transcripts, and dedicated customer support.
Zoom Enterprise
If you have a company with more than 1,000 people working remotely, you might want to consider Zoom Enterprise. This plan provides unlimited cloud storage for you to keep your previous Zoom meetings, discounts on Zoom Rooms and webinars, and a dedicated customer success manager. Like Zoom Business, this also costs $19.99 per month.
2. Download Zoom
After you have determined what Zoom plan you want to use, the next step would be a Zoom download. Once you download Zoom on your computer, tablet, phone, or whatever you plan in using, you should sign up or do a Zoom login if you already have an account. If you want to set up a Zoom Room, you might also want to download Zoom Rooms for Conference Rooms.
3. Synch Zoom
The next step would be to synchronize Zoom to your calendar. This way, you will be able to schedule meetings over multiple devices – adding a Zoom meeting link each day that you want the participants to join in. Just go into the Zoom app’s settings and select for the calendars to be in synch constantly.
4. Schedule Zoom Meetings
At this point, you are completely ready to use Zoom. There is only one thing that is missing: the actual meeting. You may either start a new meeting that should begin right away or select to schedule a meeting later. Once you are in the meeting, you can choose whether you want the video turned on or turned off. You can also select if you want to mute or unmute the microphone, or if you want to share the screen or record the meeting.
Making a Zoom Meeting Private
you are in a legal Zoom meeting, you do not have the benefits of having security around the door. Aside from the main door to the building, you also have the door of the meeting room – and unless the intruder somehow gets past security, they won’t be able to hijack your meeting.
Zoom does not have those physical doors that will keep intruders out. Through certain means, an uninvited guest may gain access to your meeting, disrupting your productivity flow, and intentionally putting the meeting to a halt.
1. What Are Zoom Bombings?
With the increasing popularity of Zoom throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, incidents were bound to happen. This aspect was further reviewed by Forbes senior contributor and cyber-security Kate O” Flaherty.
“It is no surprise that Zoom’s seen such a massive surge in users. But with this rise, the video chat app has also become a target for Zoom bombers, privacy issues have come to the foreground, and security researchers have unveiled some pretty serious vulnerabilities. During this time, Zoom has become a bit like marmite: you either love it as it’s a great feature-rich service that is trying to improve under huge strain, or you hate it because you think its security faults are intentional and unfixable. “Zoom is malware,” some security industry experts say. It’s fair to say this situation has been a nightmare for Zoom.” [3]
A variety of unfortunate incidents occurred because of the Zoom bombings. So, eventually, the issue has to be addressed. For example, an incident in May involved a church conference being hijacked by a hacker – and here, the uninvited guest began streaming child pornography in the meeting. The church ended up suing CEO Eric Yuan, after which it became clear that the problem could no longer be left by itself. This is why certain extra security measures were put in check.
2. How to Prevent Zoom Bombing
A Zoom stock meeting (or any kind of Zoom conference) could be more secure with the right measures by following the right steps. Here is what you can do to ensure your meeting is not hijack.
Create a Password: When you set up a new Zoom meeting, you might want to come up with a password. This way, only people that have the password can enter – keeping uninvited guests out.
Use Waiting Rooms: Zoom has a feature that allows the meeting host to review the participants one by one. If there is anyone they do not know in the waiting room, they will not gain access to the conference.
Limit the Screen Sharing Permission: When you start a Zoom conference, everyone can share the screen. However, to avoid any unwanted guests, the admin can set it so that they are the only ones that can share the screen.
Lock the Meeting: If you see that you already have pretty much every meeting attendee logged in, you can choose to lock the meeting. This way, no one should log in anymore – even if they know the password.
Once you follow these steps, you should be able to have a safe Zoom meeting.
Further Tips for Using Zoom
Do you want to become a professional at using Zoom and reap all the benefits it provides? Here are a few tips that you might want to follow:
Customize your preferences, as they will apply to every Zoom meeting. For example, you may adjust video preferences and add a filter. This way, you won’t have to put on makeup or shower before a meeting (we don’t judge, it happens).
Record Zoom meetings that are higher in importance. This way, you and your team may review them later to maintain productivity.
You can also sync Zoom with Slack. If your team already uses it and finds it difficult to keep up via text, a remote member may use Slack to find out what is happening in a meeting.
When you are not speaking, you should mute yourself. You may think you are silent, but background noise always occurs. So, by muting yourself, you will keep distractions at a minimum.
As you will find out, Zoom is very intuitive to use. So, as long as you know your way around a computer or smartphone, you should use the app immediately.
Final Thoughts
Zoom is a useful tool when there is no possibility to use face to face meetings. Its popularity will only grow. So, no matter if you are using Zoom for Mac or your phone, you should be able to remain easily connected to your team. All you have to do is download the app and get started!
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