7 Ways to Maximize Your Zoom Meetings

Zoom gives you the capability to hold face-to-face meetings, show what’s on your screen to everyone else on the call, pass control from one person to another and record the call as a video.

But did you know Zoom is capable of even more than that?

Here I’ve created a list of 7 things you can do on Zoom to get you started.

Create recurring meetings with saved settings and one URL

Okay, you knew about this one, right? When you schedule a meeting, tell Zoom if the meeting is weekly, monthly, etc. You can lock in the settings to have them in place every time the meeting takes place.

But what if your group regularly meets but not at regular times? Choose the option called “No Fixed Time.” You’ll be able to use the same settings and same URL with the same group, no matter when you get together.

Automatically schedule meetings and let people know about them.

You can connect your scheduling app (such as Zapier) with Zoom and your calendar.

Then when someone books an appointment in your scheduling app, it automatically creates a new Zoom meeting and adds it to your calendar.

Do you have a team? Use a chat app like Slack to share the meeting details with your team via the chat app.

Know who attended

To get a report after the meeting is finished listing everyone who attended, go to Zoom Account Management > Reports Section > Usage Reports > Meeting and then select the report type and date range.

This only works is you’re the meeting host, you’ve enabled Usage Reports, or you’re an account administrator or owner. And you also need a paid plan.

Record the call as a video

Did some people miss the call? Or would you like a record of the meeting?

To record, choose if you want to use local (store yourself) or cloud option. The cloud option is for paying members only and allows people to stream the video in their web browser when it’s ready.

To record, it pays to optimize your settings beforehand. If you’re doing broadcast-style where only the host appears, set Zoom to record only the host’s audio and video. If it’s a collaborative meeting, be sure Zoom is recording everyone.

Screen share with collaborative annotation

Screen sharing allows the host to display what’s on their screen to everyone else on the call, and annotation tools let anyone or everyone on the call draw and highlight what’s on the screen.

If you’re not the host and you want to annotate, select ‘view option’ from the top of the Zoom window and then choose ‘annotate.’ A toolbar will appear with your options for texting, drawing, making arrows, and so forth.

The host can click ‘save’ on the toolbar to capture the completed image with annotations as a screenshot.

Keyboard shortcuts

“I” is invite. Press Alt + I (Windows) or Cmd + I (macOS) to jump to the invite window. Grab the link to the meeting or send invites to others via email.

“M” is mute everyone but you. Press Alt + M (Windows) or Cmd + Ctrl + M (macOS) when you’re the meeting host and want to mute everyone else.

“S” is share. Press Alt + Shift + S (Windows) or Cmd + Shift + S (macOS) to share your screen.

“R” is record. Press Alt + R (Windows) or Cmd + Shift + R (macOS) to record, and Press Alt + P (Windows) or Cmd + Shift + P (macOS) to pause or resume recording.

“A” is to mute and un/mute your audio. Press Alt + A (Windows) or Cmd + Shift + A (macOS).

“V” is to turn the video off and on. Press Alt + V (Windows) or Cmd + Shift + V (macOS).

To enable shortcuts outside of Zoom, go to Settings > Keyboard Shortcuts and select ‘enable global shortcut.’ This will allow you to use the keyboard shortcuts regardless of what window you’re in.

Touch Up Your Appearance

If you want to improve your appearance, go to settings > video and check ‘touch up my appearance.’ Zoom will soften the focus on your camera, making you look ten years younger. Okay, maybe not ten years, but it’s worth trying.

And while you’re at it, you can also change your background. If you don’t want others to see your messy house, or maybe you’d like to pretend you’re on a tropical island, just go to settings > virtual background and choose your background.

One note about backgrounds – if you make sudden moves, have a pet race into the frame, or something else of a sudden nature, the background may break for just a moment. It will resolve shortly, but the point is don’t count of the fake background always being there to cover your real background.