Ten tips for better Zoom meetings

Use these Zoom features to save time and improve your virtual meeting experience.

1. Use the Desktop App

Go to Zoom.umn.edu and download the Desktop App for the best experience with Zoom. This goes for your participants too if you plan to use the polling feature. While it is possible to join a Zoom meeting from a web browser, the web client has limited features. Bonus tip: pin the Zoom Desktop app to your taskbar so it’s always available!

2. Upload a photo to your Zoom profile

Log into Zoom and click Profile from the left menu. Add a photo that will display to other participants when your camera is off during a meeting

3. Customize your personal meeting ID (PMI)

Your Personal Meeting Room is a virtual meeting room that is reserved for you to use at any time (scheduled or unscheduled). The PMI and Personal Link are two ways to access this room. I use my PMI to meet with someone on the fly - my personal URL never changes! You can go into your account Profile and customize your PMI to something easy to remember. Remember to also check “Use Personal Meeting ID for instant meetings.” Guidelines for setting up your PMI and personal link.

4. Connect your Google Calendar

If you want to add a Zoom meeting to your Google calendar invitations, go into your account Profile and click to allow Zoom to get calendar events under the Calendar and Contact Integration section.

5. Test your speakers and microphone

Before your meeting starts, open the desktop app and click the “Settings” wheel in the upper right-hand corner.

6. Look good on camera

Under your video settings, choose the “touch up my appearance” feature to add a softer focus to your video display. The appearance of your skin tone may be enhanced and fine lines or blemishes will be less noticeable.

7. Create polls before your meeting

You can create single choice or multiple choice polls to any scheduled meeting. Edit your meeting and scroll to the bottom to find the Poll option. Add up to 25 polls for a single meeting. Learn more.

8. Add an alternate host

If you can’t attend a meeting that you have set up, add someone as an alternate host in the meeting scheduler to run the meeting in your absence. Alternate hosts must have a UMN Zoom account.

9. Share like a pro

Before your meeting starts, open the files, websites, etc that you want to share in the meeting. During your screenshare, you can click Pause to freeze your screen so your participants don’t have to watch you fumble through menus to add an annotation or transition to another document. The pause button can be found on the host controls menu while sharing.

Sharing a video? Click the Share computer sound AND Optimize for full-screen video clip buttons before you click Share

10. Spotlight the presenter video for all participants

If you have a primary/keynote presenter, the meeting host can set them as the primary active speaker for all participants. For this to work, you must have 3 or more participants with video on. To Spotlight a video, hover over the video of the participant you want to spotlight and click … (the three dots). From the menu, choose Spotlight Video.

Most of these tips were included in my presentation at Extension Program Conference. Feel free to share your Zoom tips in the comments below!