Many of us have not had as many video conferences in our lives as we have in the past two years. During the first Covid-19 lockdowns, virtual meetings became the new normal for workers and businesses around the world, with 200 million people using Zoom daily in early 2020, up from 10 million in December 2019.

Why virtual meetings?

With virtual meetings, the workload for meeting planning and logistics is often significantly less than in person. You don't have to think about reserving a room or worry about whether your meeting room is big enough for all your invitees if they show up. You don't have to consider whether some employees are in the office that day.

Practically getting to the meeting room can easily take 10 or 15 minutes as people try to finish what they are doing, rush to the bathroom or grab a drink before leaving the table. It all goes away when you call at the appointed time.

Zoom as a tool for virtual business meetings

Zoom is a cloud-based video conferencing platform that can be used for video conferencing, audio conferencing, webinars, meeting recording, and live chat. Zoom is the most popular video conferencing solution for businesses with 500 or fewer employees, and the second most popular solution for businesses with more than 500 employees, behind Skype for Business.

Is Zoom free?

Zoom operates a set of plans/packages which users are free to choose from:

1. Zoom free:

This is the best option if you're testing zoom or working alone or with one or two people in the same location as you and organizing and coordinating meetings first. With the free version of Zoom, users can host an unlimited number of meetings, but multi-person group meetings are limited to 40 minutes.

2. Zoom pro:

This is the best option if you're using Zoom with a small team with at least one member working remotely, full-time or part-time, so you can collaborate effectively wherever the meeting takes place. Zoom Pro costs $14.99 per month per host, and this tier allows hosts to create personal meeting IDs for recurring Zoom meetings, lets you record meetings in the cloud or on users' devices, and limits group meetings to 24 hours.

3. Zoom business:

Zoom Business is best for small and medium businesses with multiple teams that regularly schedule Zoom meetings. This tier costs $19.99 per month per host and provides businesses with great options to support Zoom sessions with vanity URLs and business branding, dedicated customer support, and cloud-recorded Zoom meeting transcripts.

4. Zoom enterprise:

For businesses with 1,000 or more employees, this Zoom tier offers unlimited cloud storage for recording, a dedicated customer success manager, and discounts on webinars and Zoom meeting rooms. Zoom at this level costs $19.99 per month per meeting host.

How do I use Zoom to hold virtual meetings?

Following these steps will help you set up your Zoom app to hold a virtual meeting:

1. Once you've chosen a Zoom plan to get started, you can sign up and download Zoom to your computer to start using it. If a user signs up for a personal free account or your system administrator signs up for a Pro, Business, or Enterprise account, the user can sign up using their work email and you'll be prompted to sign up for Zoom hosting for your business.

2. Next, sync Zoom with your calendar so you can schedule Zoom meetings that appear on your calendar, or you can simply add a Zoom meeting link to an event on your calendar so remote participants can join.

3. Now you're ready to start zooming. You can schedule a meeting using the calendar client, or you can schedule a meeting using the Zoom app. To do this, you can immediately start a new meeting by clicking "New Meeting" or clicking "Schedule Meeting" to book your next Zoom meeting and fill in the meeting details.

4. When you join a Zoom meeting, you can use features like turning video and microphone settings on and off, inviting other meeting participants, chatting with other meeting participants, recording meetings, and sharing your screen.

Prevent Zoom bombing in your meetings

Zoom bombing occurs when individuals who are not invited to the Zoom meeting gain access to the meeting room. This could be because they have the link to the Zoom meeting. You can manage this problem using Zoom’s privacy settings.

You can prevent Zoombombing by:

1. Using the ‘waiting room’ feature. Turning on this feature keeps the participants joining the meeting in a waiting room until allowed into the meeting room by the host.

2. Use of a password for the meeting so that only individuals with the password have access to the meeting room.

3. Locking the meeting. This prevents any new participants from joining the meeting even if they have the password.

Zoom may be such a popular video conferencing software option because it's so easy to use. Once set up, you can start talking to your colleagues in just a few clicks. For a great experience with remote Zoom participants, choose a video conferencing camera for your Zoom room to ensure participants feel included and part of the conversation.

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