13 Zoom Best Practices For Better Collaboration

If you’ve been looking for the Zoom best practices to help you become a better Zoomer, you sure are in luck.

We’ve already pointed out the general do’s and don’ts of Zoom before, so in this post, we’ll dig into 13 Zoom tips, techniques, and tools that will help you create quality and safe virtual meetings with your colleagues/co-workers.

Let’s start with the basics and work our way up to some administrative and technical best practices for Zoom.

If you’re already Zooming like a pro, use this menu to skip ahead:

1. How do I get the best sound and video quality on Zoom?
2. How do I make Zoom meetings better?
3. What is proper Zoom etiquette?
4. What is Zoom Team Chat?
5. How to overcome Zoom fatigue
6. How do I make my zoom screen share less laggy?
7. How to record Zoom calls
8. What are the things to do before a meeting on Zoom?
9. How can I manage participants on Zoom?
10. What are Zoom security best practices?
11. What apps work with Zoom?
12. How do I connect Zoom to Slack?
13. How do I connect Zoom to Microsoft Teams?

1 – How do I get the best quality Zoom?

If you’re working at home, the first thing you want to do is to clear out your messy background. Having piles of clothes or toys in your background can be distracting to your audience.

So if you have any of those hanging around, ensure that they’re out of sight before you jump on a call.

As well as clearing out a messy background, you can always add interesting details like artworks, flowers, or plants in your background to liven this up a bit. And if you don’t have any of that, you can opt for professional virtual backgrounds that suit you.

Having a less distracting Zoom background makes it easier for your listeners to focus on you, and not what’s going on behind or around you.

Not only do you want to look good, but you’ll want to sound good too.

“While there are many Zoom settings that can affect the quality of your video meetings, I’ve found that the biggest factor is often your internet connection. 9 out of 10 times that I experience a lower quality call, it turns out that the person with issues is on a bad WiFi connection. Switching to a better WiFi signal, or better yet, plugging in a physical internet cable, can dramatically improve a weaker experience, even on older devices.” David Maldow, Founder of Let’s Do Video.

Using high-quality headphones will help to reduce any background noise and eliminate audio feedback too.

2 – How do I make Zoom meetings better?

Looking your best on Zoom cannot be overstated. But it’s not just about physical appearance.

You’ll want to convince other attendees you know what you are doing or at least appear like you do.

To do this, try these tricks:

Set up natural lighting

Many Zoomers make the mistake of facing direct sunlight during meeting sessions. This puts the video contrast in disarray.

You should always aim for soft lighting to achieve natural highlights and shadow effects. Try facing the window where the sun hits the most. Then move back about three to four feet.

Adjust your position

You don’t want to be looking down on other participants. And you certainly don’t want them to be looking up your nose either.

Instead, you’ll want them to look you in the face while you’re bringing your points home.

So your eye level should be in alignment with theirs, not too high and not too low.  You can turn on the self-view feature to see how you look during the video call.

Place your devices appropriately

A laptop tripod stand is your best bet for achieving stable positioning for your laptop or a desk for your laptop.

Use gestures

Sitting in a rigid position makes you look robotic. The right look to aim for is an animated one.

Gestures express confidence and help to complement your words, which in turn, capture the interest of your listeners.

Just like in a face-to-face meeting, your hands say loads!

Now that we’ve sorted through these steps, let’s talk about Zoom etiquette.

3 – What is proper Zoom etiquette?

Even before a meeting, you can ensure proper Zoom etiquette by using the built-in chat tool to discover when the best time is to schedule a meeting at short notice.

Or you could use Zoom Team Chat to meet asynchronously – reducing Zoom fatigue and increasing productivity. You can also set up a waiting room to control the flow of members into the meeting and prevent Zoom-bombing.

When that’s done with, abide by the following rules:

• Always inform participants before recording the call
• Mute all your phones to avoid interruptions
• Don’t halt the meeting to answer a call or do chores
• Don’t do all the talking – let someone else take the reins every now and then

Andra Zaharia, a content marketer for cybersecurity says she’s “a big believer in preparing for meetings, whether it’s an agenda or a list of ideas and questions.”

She also suggests that “to keep yourself on mute when you’re not speaking and avoid interrupting the conversation with background noises.”

Lastly, Andra recommends avoiding “multitasking, as it’ll create notification overload and keep you from making the most of that interaction.”

4 – What is Zoom Team Chat?

Zoom Team Chat is a business chat tool within the Zoom video call platform.

It allows you to seamlessly communicate with your team members from anywhere in the world without needing video calls.

Zoom Team Chat takes the values and technology skills of Zoom and brings it into the enterprise messaging space.

As email becomes less relied upon, in favor of real-time messaging solutions, Zoom Team Chat offers users a way to collaborate when voice or video is not needed or not appropriate.

Accessible via mobile app and desktop, Zoom Team Chat adds to a complete portfolio that already stands out as the most popular solution for companies with 500 employees or less.

Much like other social media platforms, you can share voice notes and pictures. Emojis, GIFs, message edits and deletions are supported here too.

Those will come in handy when you need to quickly communicate with everyone who’s unavailable for a video call.

Zoom Team Chat is available on both the free and paid versions of Zoom.

5 –  How to overcome Zoom fatigue

Excessive video calls can be draining. So if you’re always hopping from one Zoom meeting to another, it’s essential to dial it down a notch for your health’s sake.

Avoid overloading your brain and inducing stress

Try shortening meeting time durations and cutting back on in-meeting messaging.

Not all information will be conveyed during the period allotted for the virtual meeting so consider sharing anything that was missed in Zoom Team Chat.

Ensure all meetings have agendas that were created beforehand and stick to them.

Rest your eyes

It’s important to follow the 20-20-20 rule to avoid straining your eyes.

It will also stop you from obsessively staring at yourself on Zoom calls, which slowly triggers anxiety. If you’re finding it hard to take a break, then consider disabling self-view.

For more ideas, read our guide on 6 Ways to Combat Zoom Fatigue.

Fadeke Adegbuyi, Senior Marketing Content Manager at Doist, says they combat “Zoom fatigue by defaulting to asynchronous communication.” She continues:

“We can collaborate more effectively across timezones with teammates around the world, instead of trying to have meetings when it’s 10 AM in Toronto and 10 PM in Taipei.”

She also suggests recording meetings for people who cannot attend live.

6 –  How do I make my Zoom screen share less laggy?

If you experience lag in your Zoom meetings while using the screen share feature, here’s what you need to do:

1. In the Zoom Settings menu, navigate to Screen Share > Advanced > Screen Capture Mode.

2. Limit your screen share to 8 frames-per-second.

3. Then select Previous operating systems, under the Screen capture mode.

That should do the trick.

If that doesn’t work, then poor internet connection could be the cause.

You can try repositioning your router or moving to a different position.

Also, you can try speeding up your connection by:

• Disconnecting or restricting other devices connected to your router
• Plug into your router instead of connecting via wireless
• Use cache clearing extensions for Chrome

If all else fails, then try rebooting your router. If that fails and you’re sure it’s your connection, it’s time to upgrade your internet package.

7 – How to record Zoom calls

Recording Zoom calls locally is simple and doesn’t require a subscription.

You can also do it with Zoom’s cloud service, however, only paid users are eligible for it.

Before recording

Let’s tune up some settings first.

Head to Settings > Recording menu and configure the following to your preferences:

The location where you want recorded videos to save on your PC or choose the location after you’re through recording.

You may also choose to add timestamps to your recordings, enable permission for recording during video sharing, and so on.

During and after recording

When you’re through with the settings, start the Zoom meeting and tap on the recording icon.

You can then control the recording using the pause and stop buttons below the screen.

You can stop recording at any time, but the video will only convert to MP4 once you tap the End meeting button.

Depending on your earlier configurations, the video could save automatically into the assigned location or you’ll have to manually save it.

8 – What are the things to do before a meeting on Zoom?

Check your internet connection

The minimum internet speed to cover every type of Zoom call is 4Mbps upload and download.

If you don’t know what your internet speed is, you can always run a speed test.

This will help know whether to speed up your connection beforehand or not.

Charge your batteries

Ensure both your phone and your laptop batteries are fully charged. Also, be sure to install Zoom on both devices.

So that if one fails, you can quickly switch to the other.

If possible, keep your charger close by or plugged into a reliable power source.

It’d be embarrassing for your laptop to go off on you, especially when you’re the meeting’s host.

Boost your privacy

If you live in a loud house, then you’ll need to take extra measures to prevent noise from a little child or loud neighbors slipping into your meeting session.

Use a noise-canceling tool like Krisp.ai to remove background noise.

It’d be best to secure a private corner of your home, if possible.

9 – How can I manage participants on Zoom?

In a Zoom meeting, try to maintain order.

While the meeting is in session, you can eliminate any element of distraction by taking the necessary actions like:

• Turning off videos of distracting members
• Muting selected members
• Remove distracting members
• Temporarily disabling file transfers & in-meeting chats

10 – What are Zoom security best practices?

Set up waiting rooms

The waiting room is like a holding cell for participants. It allows you as the host to review who to let in or remove from the meeting.

You can choose to admit all participants at once, or selectively approve them.

Avoid sharing PMI in public spaces

The personal meeting ID is your unique virtual meeting space. People can always access it using your personal invite link, except when you lock it.

To avoid unwanted individuals holding on to your link, avoid sharing it on public sites.

Enable passcodes

A passcode is essential, especially when you feel you may have compromised your PMI.

If that’s the case, a unique passcode will only allow users to share it to get into your meeting.

If other people log in from your organizations approval single sign-on (SSO), they won’t need to enter a passcode every time.

11- What apps work with Zoom?

The Zoom marketplace lists over 800 apps that now integrate with Zoom, out of which we’ve reviewed our favorite Zoom integrations.

Next up, we’ll run through three ways to connect Zoom to your favorite team collaboration tools.

12 – How do I connect Zoom to Slack?

Launch Zoom meetings from Slack

Now that Zoom integrates with Slack, you can now launch Zoom meetings right from within the Slack app.

To connect Zoom to Slack, here are a few things to get in order:

• Ensure both accounts are linked through the same email address.
• Get any of the Zoom paid plans. E.g., Pro, Business, Education, or API.

Then:

Step 1: Pre-approve Slack

1. Go to the Zoom marketplace and search for Slack.
2. Tap the Sign in to install option.
3. After successfully signing in, agree to the terms and conditions, then hit the Pre-approve option.
4. Once an Admin approves the installation of Zoom to Slack, you can then proceed to the Slack directory.

Step 2: Connect Zoom to Slack

5. In the Slack directory, go to the Zoom page and tap Add to Slack.
6. Click Allow to grant access to Zoom to access Slack.

You’ve successfully connected Zoom to Slack!

Connecting Zoom Team Chat and Slack

Mio is the only native, bi-directional interoperability tool to bridge messages from Zoom Team Chat to Slack.

Learn more abut Zoom Team Chat interop here.

13 – How do I connect Zoom to Microsoft Teams?

There are several ways to connect Zoom and Microsoft Teams.

For meetings, you have options like the Zoom meetings bot.

To join a Microsoft Teams meeting from a Zoom Room, it’s possible to configure by enabling Support 3rd party conferencing dial-in if you have the right paid tier.

For Zoom Team Chat users, Mio makes the Zoom and Teams chat experience interoperable.

Learn more about Zoom Team Chat interop here.

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