Last updated - December 6, 2022
Many of us in both professional and informal roles now believe that the video communications platform Zoom is an important digital tool. Despite having a number of sophisticated capabilities that remote employees may find beneficial for increasing productivity, Zoom’s simplicity is one of its primary merits.
With the help of the cloud-based video conferencing service Zoom, you can simply hold virtual one-on-one or team meetings. This remote communication solution links remote team members with one another using strong audio, video, and collaboration features.
Zoom’s key attributes are:
- HD video conferencing and chat.
- VoIP for audio conferencing (Voice over Internet Protocol).
- Texting immediately.
- Video conversations, and virtual backdrops.
- Whiteboards for collaboration and screen sharing.
- Holding video webinars.
Anyone can set up and hold a virtual face-to-face meeting with Zoom, but if you’ve never used the program before, it might be challenging.
Here is a beginner’s guide on how to set up Zoom Meetings easily for your convenience. If you prefer a video demonstration, check out the video below.
Get Started
Visit Zoom’s website and click the “SIGN UP” button in the top-right corner of the page to get started. Once you arrive at the signup terminal, you will have to enter your date of birth. Keep in mind that if you are under the age of 16, you will not be allowed to sign up with the exclusion of educational accounts such as those offered by schools and universities.
Once that is done, you will be provided with a field in which you may enter your email address and click Sign Up. Zoom requests their users to provide a work email address, but a personal one works as well.
You also have the option to sign up using Facebook, Apple ID, and Google. If you use your email address to sign up, you will have to approve the verification email sent to that email ID by clicking Activate Account or copy and paste the activation URL in your browser.
Account Information
Once you complete the activation, you will be required to enter your name and password. Click Continue, once you are done.
The next step allows you to invite friends or references by providing their email addresses. This step is not important and can be skipped if you wish to.
Now, your account is set up with your provided information. You may verify if the setup is running smoothly by clicking Start Meeting Now or copying and pasting the provided URL in your browser.
Once you have completed this process, you may go ahead and download the desktop version of Zoom by clicking the “Download Now” button.
Access Zoom
Once the desktop app has been downloaded and installed, you will be prompted with two options when you open the app.
The options are Join meeting and Sign in. We will go ahead and click Sign in to access the Zoom dashboard. You may choose the former option to join a meeting by entering a code provided by the meeting host.
Once you click Sign In, you will have to enter your email ID/ username and password. If you have used Facebook or any other account to sign up, you can sign in using those respective buttons.
How to Start a Meeting
Once you enter the application, you may go ahead and start a meeting by clicking New Meeting. This will open a pop-up window that provides you with Two buttons, namely:
- Join with computer audio
- Test microphone and speaker
Before you join the meeting, it is advisable to test your audio by clicking the Test microphone and speaker option so as to not have any issues during the meeting.
If you wish to skip the previous step, you may do so by directly clicking, Join with computer audio.
How to Invite people to the Meeting
The dashboard includes a bunch of buttons that are simple to figure out. You may invite people to the meeting by clicking Participants and then Invite.
This will direct you to a pop-up where you can email someone with an invitation link and/or an invitation. Click Copy Invite Link and Copy Invitation to do the same. You will also find the meeting passcode on the bottom right of the panel
Once you have completed selecting the contacts, click Invite on the bottom right.
Pricing Packages
The free version of Zoom only permits up to 40 minutes per meeting. In order to increase the time, you will have to choose from one of the following pricing plans:
- Pro: This plan costs $149 yearly per user. You will be permitted up to 100 participants, 3 whiteboards, and 5 GB of cloud storage along with all the features in the free plan.
- Business: This plan costs $199 yearly per user. You will be permitted up to 300 participants, unlimited whiteboards, and 5 GB of cloud storage along with all the features in the previous plans.
Schedule Meetings
In order to schedule a meeting, click Schedule on the home screen. This will open a pop-up with options to customize the topic, time, and date of the meeting, enable/disable the passcode, choice of calendar and enable/disable video and/or audio of the participants.
Customize these fields according to your preferences. Click Save, once done.
At the bottom of the popup window, you will find Advanced Options. You can enable or disable the following options:
- Allow participants to join before the host.
- Mute the participants upon entry.
- Automatically record the session on a local computer.
- Approve or Block entries for users from specific countries/regions.
Record Meetings
In order to record a meeting, start the meeting as usual and click the Record button on the bottom panel. You can pause the recording as well as share it on social media.
Now that we have gone through the process of setting up Zoom meetings, we can see how easy and effortless it is to do so. Nonetheless, for those of you who prefer a plugin that can handle the entire process in a matter of a few clicks, check out the plugin provided below.
Video Conferencing with Zoom
You can manage your Zoom Meetings, Webinars, Recordings, Users, and Reports right from your WordPress Dashboard with the help of the Zoom plugin for video conferencing. The plugin is a fantastic solution for organizing your Zoom meetings on-the-fly without switching between different platforms. With the help of this plugin, you can manage your online meetings and webinars without any bother or wasted time.
The plugin provides a large collection of features, such as:
- Your Zoom Meetings and Zoom Webinars may be managed.
- Manage the Reports and Zoom users.
- Utilizing template override, you may alter frontend layouts to suit your needs.
- Join straight from your computer without the Zoom App.
- Based on the Zoom Account, display User recordings.
- Significant Developer Friendly
- Shortcodes.
- With only one click, import your Zoom Meetings into your WordPress dashboard.
- Supports Elementor
- Supports Gutenberg Block Editor.
Conclusion
Without the appropriate tools, the majority of in-office and remote teams find it difficult to interact successfully. However, if you use the correct video conferencing software, like Zoom, you can effectively close most of the gaps.
You may easily set up your meetings by just following the directions in this Zoom tutorial.
