5 Mistakes on Zoom, Are You Making Them?

If you’re making these common mistakes on Zoom, you’re making a bad first impression.

… and it’s time to fix it before you do it again.

A bad first impression can blow the deal before you get started. When you meet people face-to-face, you manage the impression you make. So why not on Zoom? 

Within seconds of meeting you, people make all kinds of assumptions about you. From whether you’re extroverted or confident to how smart you are. Even whether they like or trust you.

Psychology

Psychologists try to understand how people make these snap judgments.

Often, they’ll use “thin slices” of behavior or appearance as factors to try to figure out what drives the decision. Research shows some of these perceptions depend on things that are out of your control, like the shape of your face.

Many others, though, depend on factors you CAN control. 

Everyone knows this to a point. Every day, we use our appearance and behavior to manage the impressions we make. 

  • Our clothes
  • Hairstyle
  • Shaving (or not)
  • Smiling
  • Eye contact
  • Posture

So what first impression do you want to give that prospect on the video call? Have you ever thought about how the medium affects the message you’re sending? If not, you’re probably making mistakes on Zoom calls that hurt the impression you make and the effectiveness of your communication.

The Wrong Path

Most people approach video calls on platforms like Zoom or Microsoft Teams like they’re using their computer. They set it on their desk and stare at the screen. Then they end up looking bad and sounding worse and they blame the videoconference. They say “it’s exhausting.” “I’ve got Zoom fatigue.” “It’s harder to understand people,” or “there’s no personal connection.”

You’re doing it wrong.

Nobody ever says watching TV is exhausting. There’s no TV fatigue. Movies create emotional connections through the screen all the time. That’s how they work. It’s what they’re for, even.

Now, I’m not saying you’ll be the Coen brothers or James Cameron, or even your favorite TV host the next time you have a Zoom call, but you can learn from them.

So here are tips to help you avoid making some common mistakes on Zoom calls.

Mistake #1 – Not Designing Your Background

The little window in Zoom where you show up is small enough. Don’t make it harder for your prospect to see you by blending in with the background. Keep it simple. Avoid distracting elements, especially things that move. Set up a background that contrasts with your skin tone in either color or brightness. 

Even if you’re using a virtual background, this is important. The simpler your background is, and the more it contrasts with you, the better the virtual background replacement algorithm works. That way you don’t get the weird gray fuzziness around your edges.

Mistake #2 – Poor Posture

The point of video chat is to enable more and better non-verbal communication. Sit up straight. It’s easy to forget that you’re virtually present with other people, act like you’re by yourself, and let your posture relax or slouch in a way you wouldn’t if you were sitting across a boardroom table from them. Stay conscious of your audience, stay present in the conversation, and let them see your interest and engagement in your posture.

Mistake #3 – Poor Framing

If you’ll notice, on TV there are two main ways people show up on the screen: either head and shoulders only, or waist up. Sitting too close to the camera is another one of the most common mistakes on Zoom.

The head and shoulders shot works well if you’re going to show up in a small window on the screen because people can see your face better. This is good because it lets us see your expressions. Happy, interested, and receptive? or skeptical, disbelieving, and uninterested?

Unfortunately, we can’t see your hands. This is too bad because seeing someone’s hands while talking conveys a lot non-verbally. What are they doing? Fidgeting? Are their hands open and palms up as they gesture? Are they clenching their fists? If we can’t see your hands you seem more stiff and expressionless. One whole channel of non-verbal communication is cut off.

Mistake #4 – Hiding your hands!

The waist-up shot avoids this problem with a trade-off. Because you’re further away now, your face and expression are harder to see, but now we can see your gestures. Win some, lose some. If you’re in a meeting with only a few people and expect that you’ll show up on the big screen in Zoom when you speak, there’s enough real estate for this framing to work well. If you expect to be screen-sharing a slide deck, your window will be smaller, and the head-and-shoulders frame may be a better choice.

Mistake #5 – Eye Contact

Possibly one of the most common mistakes on Zoom involves eye contact. One of the most off-putting things about video chat is not getting natural eye contact from the people we’re talking to. Getting poor eye contact from someone we’re speaking to makes us feel uneasy. We start to feel they aren’t listening or aren’t trustworthy.

Our natural instinct is to make eye contact. On video chat, though, when we seek eye contact with someone, we look at their image on the screen. As a result, our eyes, in the image THEY see are looking too high, left, or right. Psychologists have investigated this “eccentric gaze” as a possible cause of “Zoom fatigue.” It feels weird and a little creepy. To fix this, we need to look at the CAMERA. When we do, we give up our eye contact, but then the viewer feels they’re getting eye contact with us when they look at our image. If you want your listeners to feel natural eye contact with you, look at the camera when someone is speaking directly to you and when you are speaking.

Unfortunately, none of these tips will help you if you have bad lighting. So go here to find out how to light yourself well on camera.

References

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Döring, N., Moor, K., Fiedler, M., Schoenenberg, K., & Raake, A. (2022). Videoconference Fatigue: A Conceptual Analysis. International journal of environmental research and public health, 19(4), 2061. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19042061

Hietanen, J. O., Peltola, M. J., & Hietanen, J. K. (2020). Psychophysiological responses to eye contact in a live interaction and in video call. Psychophysiology, 57(6), e13587. https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.13587

Jang, M. H., & Choi, E. Y. (2022). How Will Video Conference Fatigue Affect Participants of MICE in the With-COVID-19 Era? Focusing on Video Conference Quality, Social Presence Theory, and Flow. International journal of environmental research and public health, 19(8), 4601. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19084601

Kushner B. J. (2021). Eccentric Gaze as a Possible Cause of “Zoom Fatigue”. Journal of binocular vision and ocular motility, 71(4), 175–180.

Mühlbach, L., Böcker, M., & Prussog, A. (1995). Telepresence in videocommunications: a study on stereoscopy and individual eye contact. Human factors, 37(2), 290–305. https://doi.org/10.1518/001872095779064582

Murphy, N. A., & Hall, J. A. (2021). Capturing Behavior in Small Doses: A Review of Comparative Research in Evaluating Thin Slices for Behavioral Measurement. Frontiers in psychology, 12, 667326. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.667326

Riedl R. (2022). On the stress potential of videoconferencing: definition and root causes of Zoom fatigue. Electronic markets, 32(1), 153–177. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12525-021-00501-3

Shockley, K. M., Gabriel, A. S., Robertson, D., Rosen, C. C., Chawla, N., Ganster, M. L., & Ezerins, M. E. (2021). The fatiguing effects of camera use in virtual meetings: A within-person field experiment. The Journal of applied psychology, 106(8), 1137–1155. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000948

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