Media training 101 for small businesses

-
Image
Great news: you just scored a big press interview to promote your business. The story will expose your brand to the perfect new audience and drive meaningful traffic to your website. So…don't blow it. Yes, just as quickly as the excitement for the opportunity arrived, the realization that you now have to do an interview sets in. I get it—press interviews can absolutely be intimidating. The resulting coverage represents a significant opportunity to acquire new customers, drive sales, or raise awareness, and you want to be sure to represent your brand well and really compel the audience to check out your company. On top of that, you have to contend with adrenaline and nerves in the moment. You may be thinking, "So many other business owners are so polished and articulate in their interviews. How am I going to pull that off?" Deep breath. A successful interview is usually the result of good media training: preparation and practice in advance of an interview. I've tr...
1 comment

How to quickly find links to your Zoom meetings

-

Admit it: you've been late to a meeting because you couldn't find the Zoom link.

It's a terrible feeling, knowing that everyone else is already in the call while you're fumbling through your calendar. Here are a few ways to surface Zoom links from your calendar, so you aren't always the person desperately DMing every single one of your coworkers asking how to get into the meeting.

Want more Zoom knowledge? Check out our top ten tricks and tips for Zoom, or learn when you should mute yourself during a video call.

Connect the Zoom app to your calendar

The Zoom desktop app can show your upcoming meetings, but only if the meetings are created using the app. You can change this by connecting Zoom to your calendar—that way, all appointments will show up in the Meetings tab in Zoom, complete with a helpful Join button.

The Meetings tab in Zoom

To set this up, sign in to Zoom in your browser, and head to the profile page in the settings. Look for the Connect to Calendar and Contact Service button.

Connect your calendar to Zoom

Click this, and you will be asked to sign in to your calendar. Google, Exchange, and Office 365 are all supported.

Calendar services supported by Zoom

You can then choose whether to grant access to your calendar, contacts, or both (I recommend only granting access to your calendar). Next you will be asked to sign in to your calendar service of choice and grant permissions. Head back to the Zoom app, and, assuming you're signed in to the same account in your browser as the app, you'll see your appointments in the Meetings tab (as shown above).

Note that all appointments will show up, not just those with a Zoom link. It's a lot to sort through, sure, but that's ok: you mostly only care about the meeting that's happening right now.

See upcoming meetings in your Mac's menu bar

Meeter is a free app for macOS and iOS that shows all upcoming appointments with an associated meeting link. It offers a nice big Join button for all of them.

Meeter on macOS gives quick access to any meeting

Click the button to join the meeting. That's it. Notably this works with more than just Zoom: Google Meet, join.me, Webex, and all of the best video conferencing apps. This means you can quickly join any meeting, no matter what platform it happens to be on, in just one click. There's also support for push notifications.

Note that Meeter pulls appointment information from your system calendar, meaning you'll need to add your calendar accounts to your Mac in order to use it.

I really wanted to find a Windows equivalent to this app. I couldn't. Please let me know if you find one.

Get Slack notifications with Zoom meeting links

I basically live in Slack, and I'm not alone. If you want Zoom links sent to you as a DM, you can set that up with Zapier.

Zapier connects web apps using custom automations we call Zaps. Here's a Zap that can send you the Zoom link for any meeting. Click Use this Zap to get started.

You'll need a Zapier account, if you don't already have one, and you'll need to connect your Google Calendar and Slack accounts. Follow the steps, turn on the Zap, and you'll get a Slack DM with all appointment details ten minutes before every Zoom meeting.

Zoom Meeting Bot in action

This means the Zoom link will be handy just when you need it.

Concerned about privacy? Check out our list of essential Zoom security settings.



from The Zapier Blog https://ift.tt/2UCEm8g

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

If Time-Tracking Apps Don't Work for You, Try a Productivity Journal

-
Image
Monitoring how you spend your time leads to a wealth of useful information: It can tell you what time of day you're most productive , help you create better estimates for how long tasks will take, and show you what activities you'd have to cut to focus your energy on a new idea or project. The most precise way to monitor how you spend your time is to use a time-tracking app . But these apps require a lot of overhead. You have to diligently log your hours (or make sure your app is logging them correctly) and sort your tracked time into categories. You have to pause after every task—no matter how brief—to capture time spent accurately. If tracking your time at such a granular level sounds like a punishment, but you still want insight into how and where you spend your time, consider the less menacing sibling of time-tracking apps: a productivity journal. What Is a Productivity Journal? I kept a journal as a preteen, though in those days I called it a diary. Snoopy and Woods...
Read more

The 25 Best Productivity Apps for iPhone in 2018

-
Image
The best productivity apps for iPhone make possible something that would otherwise be impossible, or they make something you need to do simpler and faster. Imagine being asked, unexpectedly, for a copy of a tax form from last year as proof of address during an important appointment that you traveled many miles to attend. In fact, it happened to me, and thankfully I had a copy of the document I needed saved to a file syncing application, which meant I could pull it up on my phone and show it to the gracious Customs and Border Protection officer who demanded to see it. If that's not productivity by way of efficiency, I don't know what is. Perhaps a more routine example is keeping track of time spent in an off-site meeting so that you can claim it as an expense later. If you have the right time-tracking mobile app, you can record the time on the spot rather than having to estimate it and remember to record it later. The use cases for productivity apps are infinite, and sometimes...
Read more

What's the difference between the Wiki and OneNote tabs in Microsoft Teams?

-
Image
It's easy, in a team chat app, for key points to get lost in the ongoing flow of conversation. That's why every channel in Microsoft Teams has a Wiki page, where you can store things like meeting notes or outline the current state of a project. You can also add a OneNote tab to every channel for similar purposes. The Wiki and OneNote tab are pretty overlapping features, so you might be wondering which one you should use. My answer, unhelpfully, is "it depends." Here's a quick overview: The Wiki is fast and simple but only works inside Teams. OneNote offers more features and can be used outside Teams. My advice: if the Wiki works for you, that's great. Use it. If you want more out of your note-taking, and the ability to reference notes outside of Teams, use OneNote. Let's go over both features with more detail, so you can choose the tool that works for you. The Wiki is fast and functional—but only exists in Teams You can probably find the Wiki in ...
Read more