🧙‍♂️ Top 20 Zoom Tips & Tricks

hi everyone Kevin here today I want to show you my favorite top 20 tips and tricks in Zoom video conferencing you might know some of these but I'm sure they're going to be a lot of good new ones that you'll love if you want to jump around this video feel free to use the timestamps Down Below in the description otherwise let's jump in and see what these are tip number one you can create your very own custom virtual background so let's say that you want to include maybe your company logo or maybe you want to include your name you can design your own background and then you can place that in back of you today we're going to use PowerPoint the reason I like using that is well it's broadly available it's very easy to use and the slide Dimensions match most webcams it's 16x9 here I am now in PowerPoint and I've already designed a background for the Kevin Cookie Company here I have my logo on top and I have a nice background once you're all done designing your custom virtual background go to file save when you go to save your logo you have to make sure that you save it as a JPEG a PNG or a BMP those are the formats that Zoom accepts today I'm going to save this as a PNG and I'll simply place it on my desktop back within Zoom now I want to use my new custom virtual background let's go to the bottom left hand corner and click on the up Arrow by the video and then click on choose virtual background here now I see all of the standard and default Zoom virtual backgrounds now I want to add the one that I just created so I'll click on this plus icon right here and we created an image so I'm going to click on ADD image here I see my new background that I created on the desktop I'll click on open check that out now I'm in front of my company background tip number two you can now use a PowerPoint presentation as a virtual background so this way as I'm navigating through the slides all of them appear behind me how do we do this well let's go down to the meeting controls on the bottom and click on share screen within share screen let's click on the advanced Tab and then and select the new Option PowerPoint as virtual background next click on share this opens up the Windows File picker navigate to where you have your PowerPoint presentation on your computer then click on open this opens up my PowerPoint slide presentation and here I am sitting on top of the slide in the bottom right hand corner I can click on myself here on the slide and I can reposition myself along with repositioning myself I can also make myself larger whoa that's really big or I can make myself smaller just like with any PowerPoint presentation here I can navigate through the slides and I stay on top of the slide presentation when I click on the ellipse over here I have a few controls I can resize my video or I can split myself from the video when I click on split myself from the video that returns to the more traditional way of seeing PowerPoint slides if I want to get back on I simply click right back on the ellipse again and then I can merge my video onto the PowerPoint and here I am again this is a pretty nice new feature tip number three you can get get a much cleaner virtual background if you use a green screen how do we do this well once again let's go down to the bottom left hand corner and then click on choose virtual background I'm now in the virtual backgrounds and here I have the San Francisco virtual background turned on there's a check box right down here that says I have a green screen I currently have that toggled off now look at all of the detail around me it really Smooths out all of the different edges also if I bring my hand up you notice it doesn't really do the best job it's hard for the software to process all of that now let's check on I have his green screen to see how it Compares I've now turned on I have a green screen and look at this you see a lot more detail around my head and also when I hold my hand up you don't get that weird artifact between my fingers because all the software needs to do is look for green and remove the background when you don't have a solid green background it's pretty computationally intensive for your computer to identify the background and remove it so especially with fine details it just doesn't do as good of a job so if you want the best possible virtual background where you can see all the details use a green screen tips four five and six all have to do with video to access the video settings let's go down to the bottom left hand corner click on this up Arrow next to the video camera and then click on video settings this opens up video settings and tip number four I can touch up my appearance right here under my video here's the touch up my appearance option let me check this box when I check this box you'll probably notice almost immediately that my skin looks a little bit smoother to the right of this I also have a slider where I can set the degree of smoothness that I want on my face so here is the least amount of touch up and here is the most amount of touch up on my face I kind of look like a puppet now my face is so smooth tip number five you can have zoom automatically adjust for low light here my face is currently being illuminated by my computer screen and it doesn't really look that flattering and then in back of me I have some backlighting here under my video there's the option to adjust for low light when I select this you'll notice that the illumination on my face looks a little bit better it's currently set to Auto when I click on this drop down I could also manually adjust the level of Illumination so here I can make it a lot brighter on my face or I can make it a little darker I thought Auto did a good job so I'll Select Auto here we can see without Auto and with auto you can see a slight difference and I personally think Auto looks a little bit better tip number six if you want to have a little bit of fun with zoom you can apply different video filters and video effects how do we access that well go down to the video camera in the bottom left hand corner click on this up arrow and then let's choose video filters this drops me in video filters and let's take a look at what we can do first off we can adjust the color of our video along with adjusting the color I can also adjust the theme so here you're watching me on TV it's always been a dream of mine to be on TV also if you've ever wanted to see me as a bunny rabbit or some type of animal you got your wish here I am as an animal so these are some of the fun video filters that I can apply along with video filters there's a new option in the bottom right hand corner called Studio Effects let's click on this here we can apply different eyebrows so my eyebrows now are even thicker than they were before I could also give myself some facial hair yes I did not shave this morning and down at the bottom if you've ever wanted to see me in red lipstick I don't know why you ever would now you got your wish check that out tip number seven you can drastically improve your audio quality now when you speak into your microphone on zoom zoom compresses it and by the time it makes it to the other party it's been compressed quite heavily and it has a little bit more of a robotic sound if you want a higher Fidelity sound well you can turn on the original microphone sound let's go down to the bottom left hand corner and buy your microphone click on the up Arrow next let's click on audio settings within audio settings let's go down and click on Advanced within Advance there is an option to show in meeting option to enable original sound for microphone let's check this box here when original sound is enabled we can turn off Echo cancellation we could turn on High Fidelity music mode and we could also turn on stereo audio now why wouldn't you just do this for every meeting well when you use the original sound it requires more computational power it requires more bandwidth and resources from your computer so use it when maybe you're playing music or maybe when you're talking to Mom and she you want her to hear your voice really clearly back on the main screen here now I have a button for turn original sound on let's do a quick test to hear what the difference is right now I have standard Zoom audio turned on it probably sounds a little bit more robotic now I've turned on original sound can you hear a difference does this sound any better now I'm going to turn off original sound and here I am now back on the standard Zoom audio tip number eight you very easily get a transcription of your meeting maybe you're sitting in a long Zoom meeting and you don't want to pay attention for the entire thing get a transcript and you could simply read up on everything that happened later to get a transcript first off you need to record the meeting so let's click on the record button now I need to record some text to transcribe so if you haven't yet already please consider subscribing to the Kevin Stratford YouTube channel you get more great videos like this once your recording is all done let's go down and click on stop recording once the meeting's over we'll get the output of the recording let's end the meeting once you finish your meeting head to the website otter.ai within otter.ai you get 600 free minutes of transcription every 31 days you can also transcribe up to three different files on otter.ai let's click on the button that says import here now we can drag and drop our Zoom audio file into here you could also drag and drop the video in but that's going to take a little bit longer here I have file explorer open and here I see the audio only file I'm going to select this and then drop it into otter.ai it's now successfully imported it next let's click on done now that I've imported my file to see the transcript over on the left hand side I'll click on my conversations here I can see the audio file that I imported let's click on that here I can now read a transcript of the entire meeting and I can even play back the audio along with the text by clicking down here click on the record button tip number nine and this is one of my favorite shortcut keys right now I'm muted in this meeting now typically what will happen is you might be in a larger meeting someone asks you a question and then you have to unmute for a moment and then you mute yourself again when you're done with your response it's a pain to have to go down here click mute and then unmute instead you could simply press your space bar to temporarily unmute yourself then you can provide your response and once you're all done let go of the spacebar and then you're automatically muted again this is by far one of my favorite shortcut keys in Zoom tip number 10 there are a lot more shortcut keys than just the space bar to access your shortcut keys let's go down to the microphone click on the up arrow and then click on audio settings this opens up the settings dialog and at the very bottom there's the option for keyboard shortcuts let's click on that this opens up all of the keyboard shortcuts and two of my favorite shortcut keys right down here you can start and stop your video by pressing alt and V or you can can mute unmute your audio by pressing alt a if you want to change any of these shortcuts you could simply click on it so maybe instead of having this be F6 I can click on that and then press F5 and that'll update the shortcut key let's say I make a whole bunch of changes and I want to restore the defaults I can click down here I also have the option of making a shortcut key a global shortcut what does this mean well when I have zoom minimized these shortcut keys still take effect this is a very quick way to interact and use zoom tip number 11 you can share your phone screen in Zoom you're not just limited to your desktop or a specific window to share your phone go down to share screen on the bottom and right here there's an option for iPhone and iPad let's click on that and then click on share this opens up some instructions on how we'll share I'll open up my iPhone and now connect to zoom here now on my iPhone let's swipe down from the top right hand corner and then click on the screen mirroring option right here this opens up screen mirroring and I see an option for Zoom Dash Kevin let's click on this here now I can see my phone screen being shared and one of the neat things is I can use all of the same sharing capabilities that I could use for my desktop or for Windows here I'll go up above and here I have all of my annotation tools here for example I can draw on my phone screen using these tools I could also Spotlight to help people follow along so I have all the same tools and what's really nice as well is I can also record my Mobile screen as part of the recording within Zoom so this is a nice way to get your phone onto your PC so a larger audience can see it tip number 12 you can share multiple windows within Zoom how do you do that well down on the bottom once again let's click on share screen this opens up the sharing tray and in the past if I wanted to share a window I would simply click on the window if I want to share multiple windows here I see a helpful hint telling me to press the control key so here I can press control and I can select another window or hear another window and another window so I can share any number of Windows I'll select these two windows for now and then let's click on share here now I can see the two windows on my desktop both of them have a green border around them indicating that they're currently being shared so I can now share any number of windows so this way I don't have to resort back to sharing my entire desktop if I want to switch back and forth between various windows I could simply share all the windows that I want to share it gives me a little bit of extra privacy tip number 13 you can use a white board to help with brainstorming or to help with your discussion and this is a pretty easy one to find when you move your mouse simply click on share screen and there is an option for a whiteboard forward let's click on this this opens up a whiteboard and it truly is just a white background and here by default it opens up all of these Zoom annotation tools so here I can draw on this white background once I'm all done I can save the image although I don't think this is worth saving I just doodled a little bit here once I'm all done I'll simply click on stop share tip number 14 when I'm sharing my screen in Zoom or maybe I'm sharing a window if I want to make it easier for my audience to follow along I can highlight my mouse cursor how do we do that well up above let's open up all of the sharing tools and then click on annotate within annotate there's the option to Spotlight let's click on Spotlight here now you'll see that there's a red circle that appears around my mouse making it more obvious as to where my mouse is tip number 15 when you're sharing in Zoom you have some amazing annotation tools to help your audience follow along and understand the points that you're making when you're sharing your screen green go up to the share controls on top and over on the right hand side there are annotation tools when you click on this this exposes a whole bunch of different tools you can insert text on your screen you can also draw on your screen you could insert different stamps you could Spotlight you can erase and you could format the different colors the line widths also the size once you're all done you can simply clear it or you could save a copy of it so you have some amazingly powerful annotation tools tip number 16 when your attendees join your meeting you can make them wait in a waiting room you as the host have to admit everyone who joins your meeting this way you can't have random people Zoom bomb your meeting within the zoom profile section click on settings over on the left hand side within settings this is the very first option under security and its waiting room right here I can toggle waiting room on or I could toggle it off I'm going to turn it on when someone attempts to join my meeting now they'll get a message saying please wait the meeting host will let you in soon as the meeting host I see a message on top of my screen telling me that someone is waiting in the waiting room I could admit them or I could view let's try View and see what that looks like here now I can see every single person who's in my waiting room and I think I'd like to chat with Diego so I'll go ahead and admit him let's click on this button here Diego is in the meeting now tip number 17 in Zoom you can turn on breakout rooms and this works even with a free Zoom account what are breakout rooms well in Zoom you might have a larger meeting and then you can break out into smaller rooms once you're done with brainstorming or whatever you are doing you can then all rejoin the larger session within your Zoom profile on the left hand side click on settings within settings let's search for breakout rooms right here you can see breakout rooms and we can toggle it on down below you have the option to assign participants when you're scheduling your meeting for now I'm simply going to turn it on and let's join a meeting back within Zoom down on my meeting controls at the bottom I now have an option for breakout rooms when I click on this this opens up a prompt and I could Define how many breakout rooms I want I could also assign all of my attendees automatically I could pick what rooms everyone goes in or I could let my participants choose once I'm ready to go I simply click on create tip number 18 you can get non-verbal feedback from your attendees within your Zoom profile on the left hand side click into settings within settings let's search for non-verbal and that brings us down to non-verbal feedback you can toggle it off or you could toggle it on I'm going to turn it on I'm now in zoom in a meeting and when you click on participants on the bottom you'll now see the addition of all of these different buttons on the bottom let's say that the host asks a question and you want all of your attendees to respond everyone can click on yes they could click on no go slower go faster and you have many other options as well so now you have lots of ways to get non-verbal feedback from your audience tip number 19 you can integrate Gmail with zoom here for instance I have an email that says we need to chat when I click into this email over on the right hand side I have an icon for Zoom when I click on this I can start an immediate meeting or I can also schedule a meeting to add Zoom to your Gmail at the very bottom there's a plus icon where you can get add-ins when I click on this this opens up all of the different Gmail add-ins and the very first two options are for Zoom I see Zoom for G Suite which is if you have a worker education account with Google alternatively if you have a free Gmail account you can click on this and then you can install zoom and this way you can easily create meetings from your emails tip number 20 and this is the last tip of the day early on Zoom got a lot of criticism for not being secure so Zoom has invested heavily into various security features and you can now use end-to-end encryption for your meetings within settings in security at the bottom there's now the option to use end-to-end encryption let's turn this on here now I can choose what the default encryption type is I could use enhanced encryption which is the default or now I could turn on end to end encryption once I'm all set let's jump in a zoom meeting I'm now in a zoom meeting and I have end-to-end encryption turned on if I go up to the top left hand corner I see this security badge when we click on that down here I can see end-to-end encryption is on if I want to verify it I can click on this text that says verify and I can read these numbers to my other participants if they have the same numbers that verifies that end-to-end encryption is enabled now the only caveat with using this feature is every one of your attendees also has to go into settings and they too have to turn on end-to-end encryption so there's a little bit of legwork to get it going but if you're going to be sharing something top secret it's a good thing to turn on alright well those were my favorite top 20 tips and tricks if you learned some new ones please give this video a thumbs up to see more video like this in the future hit that subscribe button if you want to see me cover any other video topics leave a note down below alright well that's all I had for you today I hope you enjoyed and I hope to see you next time bye [Music]

Channel: Kevin Stratvert

Views: 1,230,897

Keywords: kevin stratvert, zoom, zoom video conferencing, zoom meeting, meeting, meet, zoom tutorial, zoom tips and tricks, tips, tricks, tips and tricks, tips & tricks, tips and tricks zoom, zoom tips, zoom tricks, 2020, how to use zoom, zoom new features, features, new zoom features, all the top new features, advanced, advanced features, backgrounds, green screen, virtual background, background, appearance, filters, effects, whiteboard, low light, transcribe, spolight, encryption, breakout, waiting, room

Id: UEABW3ddZkc

Length: 20min 10sec (1210 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 13 2020