How to Host a Zoom Meeting?

Scheduling the Meeting

In knowing how to host a zoom meeting is make it simple. Sometimes people make scheduling a meeting far too complicated. I find the easiest way is to copy and paste the meeting invitation that's created by Zoom into your email. I also use the desktop version of WhatsApp. This is particularly handy should I want to sent my Zoom meeting invite via my mobile. If you are going to send via WhatsApp, text message or any otherway that might mean the recipient will receive their message on a device that they won't be using for Zoom. It might be an idea to send them the password along with the meeting ID.

As the meeting host, you need to make your Zoom meeting attendees as comfortable as possible. To some, it may be their first time attending an online meeting. Whatever you can do to make it easier for them the better.

Creating Polls in Zoom

In today's world everyone likes to give their opinion, so why not let them. By creating polls you can let your users interact with the training session. Knowing how to host a Zoom meeting involves best practice. It's best practice to create your polls beforehand. This way you won't be wasting time writing long complicated questions, this takes the pressure off you. That being the case, you can concentrate on hosting your Zoom meeting.

Then during the Zoom meeting you can launch your poll and your participants will have loads of fun answering questions. At least you'll know if they're asleep or not.

Letting in your Zoom Participants

Now that you're in the Zoom meeting, your first time as host, you will need to admit your participants. You can either do this one at a time or all at once. If you want you can mute your participants on entry, this way you won't get a noisy rabble entering your meeting. After they have entered the meeting you can allow them to unmute themselves by selecting the Allow Participants to unmute themselves.

Obviously, before the meeting, your participants would be in the waiting room, waiting for you as the host to admit them. Simply, click the admit all button on the participants window to do this. Depending on peoples internet connection and computer speed they will eventually be admitted to your Zoom meeting.

Using Breakout Rooms in Zoom

Breakout rooms are a great way of keeping participants in the same meeting but putting them in a separate room. Think of a conference centre with one main auditorium and other smaller auditoriums. That's basically what Zoom breakout rooms are.

Breakout rooms afford the opportunity to create smaller groups. This way, your meeting attendees will be more likely to participate in the meeting. I mean, who likes speaking up in a room of 40 or more people. So, knowing how to host a Zoom meeting professionally involves setting up these breakout rooms.

If you are a hosting a Zoom meeting, it's a good idea to create extra breakout rooms just in case someone comes late to the meeting. The reason being that as of writing this you can't create extra breakout rooms after you have opened all the breakout rooms.

Being the Zoom Host - Sharing your Screen

In Zoom, when you're hosting a Zoom meeting, you will want to share your screen. This will allow your meeting participants to see your screen. Before we continue, jJust a couple of things in knowing how to host a Zoom meeting if you want to share the screen. First, if you are showing a video as part of your Zoom presentation, then ensure to check the Share computer sound and Optimize Screen Sharing for Video Clip checkbox. Not doing so will result in below par video quality and perhaps your participants not hearing anything at all.

Annotations in Zoom when Sharing the Sreen

You can also use annotations to draw on the screen you are sharing. In knowing how to host a Zoom meeting, knowing how to draw on your screen or on the screen of your meeting participants. That is provided that they have shared their screen in the first place.

So there you have it! That is how you host a Zoom meeting. As I mentioned before, I don't feel Zoom comes close to being there in real life. As a trainer you just can't get the feedback you need from the people you train.

But if you create a relaxed atmosphere and use polls for that little extra bit of interactions for those who are shy, you will hopefully get your participants to turn on their cameras and microphone and really wade in.

Please take the time to check out our other Zoom Tutorials.

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