As virtual gatherings become more commonplace, here are some tips and considerations for using Zoom for hosting these virtual events
Deciding on which type of Zoom license to use should be one of your first decisions. There are a couple of factors that if required or desired, would necessitate the use of a webinar license.
As with any event, there are roles that need to be established for certain participants in your meeting. It’s important to make sure everyone knows how to execute their role both practically and technically. Depending of the size and scope of your event, one person may do multiple roles.
The Zoom assignment is listed in parenthesis.
The success of playing back videos through screen share is highly dependent on the network speed of the person sharing the content. If you are hosting the event from home, we recommend using a wired ethernet connection for the person doing the video sharing and they should have 100mb+ upload speed. Note, playing back media directly from the host computer is the only way to guarantee great results. Re-streaming media will work, but not to a high level of quality.
Examples of pre-recorded content you might want to consider producing for your event:
It’s important to set up a method for all the production people to speak during your event. Using the Zoom chat does not work well because all the chatting appears in one Window. We’ve had great success setting up a Team chat or slack. If that is not possible, then using phone texting would be an alternate method of discussion.
Zoom provides two different ways to record your event. We recommend a dedicated computer to do local recording if you plan to edit the event later. Cloud recording makes it easier to immediately publish your event but it will have to be downloaded before edits could be made. The person that initiates the cloud recording cannot also record locally. That must be done by a different person that the host or co-host allows to record.
While cloud recording can be configured in your personal Zoom settings to record separate files for active speaker view, gallery view and shared screen – local recording will allow generate active speaker view, with a thumbnail of the active speaker overlayed on a shared screen.
It’s important to remember that chats are saved with the recording so if you want to save the public chats (private chats are not saved), you must record your event.
Zoom offers direct integration with Facebook Live and YouTube. If you have a large number of attendees that only wish to watch the event but not participate, this is an easy way to reach them. The URL can be pre-created and can be made public or “unlisted” which means people searching on YouTube will not be able to find the event – they will need the URL
While we always encourage anyone to reach out to us for tech-related questions, we do have a few articles we recommend for those who are interested in hosting their own Zoom Event.