Kia Ora, welcome to this short tutorial on how to Zoom more effectively and more professionally, especially when you go to a networking event on Zoom with people that you don’t know.
We’re going to talk about five things: camera, eye lines, we’re going to talk about backgrounds, lighting and audio.
Five simple things that you can do to improve the effectiveness of your Zoom.
Now I know when you’re on Zoom, it’s our natural instinct is to look at that person’s photo when you’re talking to them. But when you don’t know somebody, or you’re meeting them for the first time on a Zoom networking event, you just need to try and practise looking at the camera because that’s where they are.
You know, it’s a bit like if you meet someone for the first time, you would shake their hand and look them in the eye and you give them a smile and say “Pleased to meet you.” But if you looked somewhere else when you meet them, you would look a bit weird. You’d be a bit weird.
And I know it just takes practise by looking at the camera. That’s where your audience is. I’m looking at you right now, and I’m connecting with you. So that’s a bit of practise for you.
For those of you who use a webcam, you want the camera at eye line level. If you are using a phone, you can prop the phone up, but you want to have the camera at the same level as your eyes. We don’t want the camera down here where we get to look up your nostrils, and we don’t want it up here, either, where you’re looking down on me as if you’re ‘Mother Superior’ about to give me the strap at school. We want the camera at eye line level right here.
The next thing is lighting, and how you can use lighting so we can actually see your face. Now, the way that John has set up his camera and his workstation, is so that the light is on him. He’s facing the window.
He’s facing the light so the light’s hitting his face. You want to think about where your workstation is and is the light behind you, because then you could be silhouetted. So, you want that light to be on your face, not the other way around.
The second thing around lighting is to use lighting in the background as it provides some depth to the shot. So, as you can see, John has his kitchen lights on, and that just provides some depth in that shot.
So, try flicking on a light behind you and make sure the light is on you. You can invest in a little ring light. You can order them, and you can pop those in front of you, and that can put some light on your face.
And the last thing we want to talk about is audio. As you can see, John has a broadcast quality microphone. It’s a USB microphone that plugs straight into his computer. Obviously, it makes him sound pretty damn good.
And he highly recommends that you invest in a Blue Yeti or an AT2020, he has an Audio-Technica. They’re around about $300 to $400, and it just plugs straight into your laptop, into your computer, and it just makes you sound so much more professional.
You don’t perhaps need the radio arm, certainly having a good broadcast quality microphone is a great investment in you and your business.
Well, hopefully you found that useful. Those five things to improve your professionalism and your effectiveness on Zoom. We probably need to mention wardrobe.
John says the key thing is to just wear what you feel comfortable wearing, but also wear what you would usually wear to a business meeting. So, there we have it. That is our Zoom tutorial.
And lastly ….. be careful of what’s on your bottom half in case you do need to stand up or move for any reason!
