In 2020, we now live in a world of video conferencing. There are few hours in the day where the light on my webcam isn’t on. I have learnt a huge amount over the last few months by hosting video calls with clients rather than having face-to-face meetings.
Last week, I wrote about the 12 keyboard shortcuts that every Solutions Consultant should be using. To follow on, here is a list of 10 more advanced tips for GoToMeeting to help create better video meetings with your colleagues and clients.
1 Lock Your Meeting
If you are still setting up, checking your demo environment, ensuring you are sharing the correct screen, locking the meeting. This means if attendees try to join, they will be placed into a ‘Waiting Room’ until you are ready to let them in.
Nevertheless, I still like to ‘unlock’ the meeting about 5 minutes before the start time you can have some all-important small talk if some attendees join a little early.
You’ll find the icon in the top left corner of the desktop version of GoToMeeting.
2 Share Application Only
If you are just presenting either your product or just slides, try sharing only the single application. This is one of the options that pops up when you start sharing something. This prevents anything unwanted from being shared or any notifications appearing to your audience.
3 ‘Clean Screen’ Options
If you do need to show multiple applications (e.g. ppt slides as well as your product) then you can’t share just a single application. GoToMeeting has the option to share a ‘Clean Screen’. This option shares your screen but also hides your background, taskbar and desktop icons. It will also show a single block of colour rather than your actual desktop.
4 Add a Profile Picture
I often choose to stop sharing my webcam when I am demonstrating part of the tool (but then turn it back on to answer a question). When you are not sharing your camera, by default it shows your initials. Instead, you can upload a profile picture so people can still see the link between your face and your name.
You can do this by clicking on the GoToMeeting logo in the top left corner and turning on Profile Pictures from the Labs menu. This will then allow you to drag and drop a profile picture onto your name.
5 Co-Organisers
If you are presenting with colleagues, make them co-organisers in the meeting. This means they don’t have to ask for your permission to present their screen. This avoids the situation during a presentation where you have to ask your colleague to make you a presenter.
As well as being able to share their screen, as a co-organiser they can enter the meeting even if you have locked it to help you prep.
You can do this when setting up the meeting or you can edit a meeting via the GoToMeeting Hub.
6 Live Drawings
You can use a laser pointer, an arrow, as well as drawing and highlighting anywhere on your screen in real-time. I listed a list of useful drawing shortcuts in this article.
As well as using keyboard shortcuts, you can access these tools in the top toolbar when you are sharing your screen.
7 List of Attendees
It can be useful to know who attended your meeting, especially if one of your stakeholders forwarded the meeting to a colleague and you didn’t catch their full name.
You can see these via the history tab on the GoToMeeting Hub. You can even see the time at which each attendee joined and left.
8 Create a Personal Meeting Room
By creating a personal meeting room in the GoToMeeting Hub, you no longer have to create a new invite for every meeting. You can allow people to join the session required and then lock the session so unintended attendees cannot join. In the settings menu, you can add a profile picture, as well as your title and location. When participants are waiting for your session to start (or for you to unlock the meeting) they will see your image and details.
9 Recordings
Did you know GoToMeeting can transcribe your meetings? Once you hit record in the top left corner of a meeting, it will save the meeting to the cloud in the GoToMeeting Hub. When you access this recording, it will use speech-to-text technology to transcribe your meeting. You can share this link to the recording and transcription to anyone as well as searching for keywords in your recording.
10 Learn all the Keyboard Shortcuts
Finally, to become really proficient at using GoToMeeting for your web conferences, it’s good to learn all of the keyboard shortcuts so you can access tools and features without even moving your cursor. I listed the top 12 shortcuts I use in this article.