The popularity of digital videos has spiked in recent years, even before COVID-19. Now, with most people working from home worldwide, video has become much more important to stay connected with your coworkers, employees, clients, and even family or friends.
In this blog, I will show you three ways that you can improve your video use to stay connected from home.
Invest in a Webcam
While most laptops come with a built-in webcam, standard desktop computers do not. You’d be surprised at the value these bring to a video conference. Being able to see who you’re talking to increases the engagement in the conversation and helps everyone focus in.
It doesn’t have to be a 4k webcam – most webcams today are good enough for a quick online chat or meeting.
Get a Headset or a Microphone
Again, with a laptop, you might be ahead of the game with a built-in microphone, but how good is it? Nothing, and I mean nothing, will make a meeting end faster than a feedback loop and the “oh so lovely” screeching that comes with it. Get a good mic and some earbuds to solve this problem, as it will help isolate the sound and you won’t sound like your vocal chords were installed.
Great sound makes or breaks recorded video. You best believe it does the same thing in a live meeting. The only thing worse is if you can’t stop watching the meeting like you could a video on YouTube.
Find a Quiet Space in Your House to Talk
Have you ever tried to have a conversation on the phone in a crowded place? Having to talk over people to have yourself heard? Yeah, this noise doesn’t go away when you turn the video on. Just because they can see you, doesn’t mean they can’t hear everything going on around you. Find a quiet place to have yourr meetings and calls. This will improve the overall quality of the call and conversation, but also help you focus on why you’re meeting in the first place. Instead of trying to fight to be the loudest, you can have your meeting in peace. If you have kids at home or if multiple people in your household are working from home, placing yourself on “mute” when you are not talking can help with the background noise for the other participants.
I hope this brought you some value…
These are some basic ideas to really up your video quality and experience. Each one of these suggetions will help you have better calls, meetings, and conversations. Make sure you are doing everything you can to move forward, and give us your feedback on how these three simple tips helped your workday video chats.