Your Guide to a Great Video Call

Video Call Etiquette

You may have seen tons of articles on how to participate in a Zoom Meeting, Google Hangouts meetup, or another type of video call for work, but what about when you’re just hanging out with friends and family? As much as you would like to believe your friends and family wouldn’t be bothered by video chat etiquette mistakes, certain things can really hinder the call quality – and since this is the best opportunity to spend time with your friends, we wanted to show you how to make the most of it!

• Mute yourself when you’re not talking – this is universal across all video chat services, and universal for whatever reason you may be having the chat. Not muting yourself can cause a lot of static and background noise (even if you think your room is quiet), causing other people to get cut off! Just don’t forget to unmute yourself when its your turn to chat. The habit of doing this is pretty easy to get in to, and what better opportunity to practice than now!
• Look into the camera instead of looking at your computer screen. This gives the appearance of making eye contact which can make you feel closer to your friends!
• Make sure your surroundings and attire is what you want to present – people will be looking at you for the duration of the call!
• Experiment with your camera angle and fix your hair before joining the call – constantly fidgeting with your hair or camera angle can be distracting and disorienting for the people you’re on a call with, so make sure you’re completely ready before you join up!
• Only join the call with one device – if you and your partner are both joining the same call, pick just one person’s phone or computer to use. This will prevent your sound from echoing and distorting.

Have Fun with it!

My friends and I use video chat to play beer pong (with non-alcoholic beer, of course), video games, and card games! If you can dream it, you can do it! A lot of video chat clients also offer filters, so you can spend hours messing with your friends by putting them in funny filters or exaggerate your own reactions by applying a filter to yourself.

Insider Tip

A fun game to play with your friends or family over a Zoom meeting is JackBox TV – all you have to do is have the person hosting the game share their screen, and then up to 8 of your friends can join from their phone at home!

Partake in a Successful Call

There are tons of fun opportunities to get creative and connect with your friends and family! Hopefully following this guide makes your next video chat go smoothly. Let us know in the comments how you make your video calls special!