Top 20 Tips for Virtual Meetings from Home.

With so many of us working from home, we’ve decided to put together a list of tips and tricks to make your next virtual meeting your best one yet!

1. Aim high! 

So that we see your eyes and not up your nose.. .please make sure your camera is at eye-level or even slightly higher! Grab a couple of books and place them under your laptop if necessary. Get that webcam or laptop cam or phone camera up above your eyes, and you’ll notice a big improvement.

2. Children are to be seen…(or not?) 

Find a closet or a bathroom or a locked door for peace and quiet. Attempt to be background noise-free and scream-free when possible. Stay at home parents… we feel ya!

3. Is this thing on? 

Use a decent Microphone other than your computer mic if you have one. 

4. Luke, I am NOT your father...

Use headphones or a headset, however, don’t breathe heavily into your headset mic… #seriously no one wants to hear that! You are not Darth Vader, but may the force be with you, friend! 

5. You’ve got to have more power! 

Be sure you plug in your laptop and have the right power cord (and confirm that it’s actually plugged in)! 

6. Feeling a little wired? 

Dump the wifi and get yourself hard-wired, when possible.

7. Hot topic: hot-spot! 

Have your back-up hotspot readily available for when you start to see all your colleagues look like pixelated blobs frozen in time, and you hear the computer sound like a dial-up modem screeching and the program says “unstable internet.” This is your signal to swap to your hotspot since everyone else in your neighborhood is also on the Interwebs too. 

8. Upstream and downstream. 

Have a video you want to play and share? Have them on your computer system already downloaded in advance so you aren’t streaming up and downloading for playback all at the same time, sucking your brandwidth dry.

9. Who let the dogs out? 

Backlighting near a window is not great plus your neighbors’ dogs will bark loudly and we will hear them if you are near the window. And then everyone will need to talk to you about their pets working from home and how they are not great co-workers and then you’ll laugh and lose track of what the heck you were talking about, to begin with… do NOT sit next to a window! Just don’t do it! You will lose at least 12 minutes of your life comparing your dogs to each other… I promise.. Because I’m GUILTY!!! #pipershockpuppy! 

10. Stay LIT, like literally. 

Use some form of a camera light, even if it’s a lamp in front of you so you are not dark. Try different ways of lighting yourself, avoiding glare and washout, creating a nice smooth pleasing and clear image, no contrasting shadows and dark holes. Keep it, well you know “lit” people! #wordsfrommy14yearold. #thatssolit 

11. Staying put, while staying home. 

Staying stationary and not moving around a lot helps keep the signal strong.

12. “You’re bleeding me dry!” 

Make sure no one else in the household is sucking up bandwidth at the same time, say something like this, “Sorry kids (who are homeschooling)—go read a book, Mama’s on a zoom call with very important people!” No internet, no going outside, no hanging out with your friends, no watching Netflix, go put a puzzle together! Just stay off the internet!” And no you are not grounded… we are. All adults are grounded… we can’t see our friends or give hugs or go out to eat or go see our grandparents either… we are all grounded, no flights to Hawaii or Las Vegas because what happens in Vegas will not stay in Vegas…and it will spread faster than maple syrup on a dining room table. #seriously 

13. To stream, or not to stream...

Turn off all streaming music and all other internet sucking aps. Sorry #spotify #pandora #iheartradio #soundcloud #itunes #anyothersteamingplatformthatcarriesourPodcast! #marketingexpeditionpodcast

14. Give your laptop what it wants.

Restart your computer prior to your live-streaming session, when is the last time you actually restarted anyhow? #refresh #breath #andbegin

15. It’s okay to wine.

Keep your throat cleared. Have some water or a beverage of choice handy… wine or whiskey is now approved past 4 pm if you’re homeschooling kids too right now you no longer have to wait until #beerthirty and I hear wine and beer deliveries are being made locally… it’s true… it’s okay we get it! Drinking on the job from home is now acceptable and permissible at least by 4:30pm! It’s “Quarentini” time! And the only commute time you’ll have is from the closet to the kitchen to fetch yourself another cold one! It’s time to take a nice wine tour from your fridge, back to your couch! 

16. 2P or not 2P. 

Be sure to use the bathroom prior to the live-stream… hopefully, you’ll have enough TP!!! I just can’t help you out with this one! Good luck! Buy stock in Costco, Albertsons, and any other grocery store or place that sells TP! (I am not a financial advisor, buy TP at your own risk). If you’re a senior can you buy me some at your special early bird hours and I’ll pay ya back? #seriously May the odds be forever in your favor. 

17. Did everyone hear me say that? 

Know if your mic is hot or not, look to see if the mute button is crossed out or not, you may or may not be muted automatically upon entry into the “room” or video conference. Also it's proper etiquette to remain muted at all times, except to speak (you want to avoid surprise background noises!). Pro tip, if you press the spacebar and hold it down it will unmute you. Just release the spacebar after you have finished, and you’ll be muted again.

18. Day jammies, night jammies. 

Know if your camera is on or not, look to see, you may or may not have your camera on right off the bat. If you are going to turn your camera on and you haven’t showered in a few days and are still in your jammy bottoms and slippers… maybe at least put a hat on (or wear some pants)! Don’t worry, you are not alone! I don’t think the hoarders stocked up on deodorant so it’s a good thing we are practicing social distancing!

19. Proper linkage. 

Have links you want to share already copied and pasted in a doc so all you have to do is copy and paste them, no one needs to sit there and wait for you to Google search and find whatever it is you’re talking about. Even though sometimes this is unavoidable, do prepare what you can in advance. Find the links in advance where people can donate to you, buy gift cards from you, have your website URL handy and all your social media accounts links handy! Don’t make this any more boring than it needs to be.. most of us extroverts are already bored out of our minds! Don’t waste our time PLEASE?!

20. You can’t get pulled over in your living room. 

Just remember, this too shall pass, we are all in this together and in approximately 13 years and 9 months from now, we will have a bunch of QuaranTEENS (and some next-level baby showers in November!) Now go wash your hands (again), do not drink the hand-sanitizer, and #staycalm. We will be okay, because I think the liquor stores are still open (except in Pennsylvania! Sorry Penn State students you totally are getting ripped off! No Graduation for you either… Sad panda).

Bonus tip! 

Give thanks to all our first responders, essential workers and people keeping us all safe and sound in our homes, and please help support those restaurants and businesses that are doing curb-side or deliveries. Order from Door-dash here: https://drd.sh/f2tsY6/ and yes it’s my affiliate link and so be it. We all need to find ways to have little wins when we can. And if you don’t feel good, and most of us will get sick with one thing or another… call or use telehealth, do not go to the hospital to infect others. #STAYHOME

Thank you,

Rhea Allen, CEO & Co-President, Peppershock Media

P.S. If you need help with marketing your business or converting your event into a virtual event, Peppershock is here to help you with that, we can also help you promote your virtual event or produce videos for you to showcase on your virtual event. We can help you boost your online advertising and keep your business alive as best as we can. We have an experienced and nimble design team totally used to working from home already at least once a week before all this cra-cra… we have video producers, social media and copywriters, Zoom pros and Google Hangout, Skype or whatever your preferred platform… we got this! We are able and ready to help you from start to finish. Let’s get creative on how we can help you keep your business alive during this C-19 quarantine! Book a virtual 15-minute meeting with Rhea to discuss YOUR next potential pivotal project: www.peppershock.com/book-rhea