Is Zoom Right for You?

By Joshua Botello

2020 was all about virtual meetings and Zoom was the one to use. It was easy and free. But is it a good choice for your small business? In this video, I will cover what you need to know to get started with Zoom and its features to see if it’s right for your business. So let’s get started.

Who is Zoom For?

Zoom is primarily for small and medium business owners who are looking to set up virtual meetings and want easy-to-use software. Zoom is also an easy way to give webinars and stream online to Facebook, YouTube, and other third-party platforms. Zoom is not great for tech-savvy business owners or full-time content creators who want more quality in their streams or live webinars. 

Demo

Let's take a look at how to get started and what we can do with Zoom. Just head to Zoom.us and sign up for a free account with your email address and a password. Once you can set up your account you can download the zoom client on your Windows or Mac and log into your account. From your zoom client window, you can see what recurring or upcoming meetings there are, check your contacts, and add a new meeting invite on the fly.

So let’s start a new meeting and check out the interface. My zoom interface is going to have a lot more stuff than the free version, so I'll only go over the features you can get on that one, but I will let you know what is possible later in the video. On the bottom left-hand corner where we have our audio and video controls. From here you can assign different audio sources, video sources like a DSLR or camcorder providing you have a capture card and do some interesting things with background filters. 

The next thing we can look at is the share screen function, Where you can share your screen from different windows and even different sources like an iPhone or second screen and you can mimic a 2 camera setup with some limitations. Next to your shared screen, you have the chat feature where you can send links and resources to all the participants. You also can record your sessions and in select accounts, you may also have the ability to stream to Facebook, YouTube, or a custom third-party.

Pros and Cons

So we use Zoom daily here at the SBDC. What I like about it is that it’s user-friendly and you don’t need a lot of training to use it. For our accounts, we can record and live stream to social media for our webinars. So, zoom has a lot of upgradable features to make the meeting experience a lot better. 

Now don’t get me wrong, there are some things that I don’t like about it. For instance, the quality is good but not great. Since most of the video is done through the cloud, the video is processed on the Internet so your video quality will depend greatly on your Internet speed and connection and is limited to 720P resolution. Here you can see the difference between the Built-in-camera for zoom, and HD video source, and recorded video straight from the camera.

Zoom is not as customizable as you would like to think. Although you can connect zoom to a bunch of other apps, you’re very limited on what you do and what will work with the zoom. You can’t get additional filters or transitions beyond what you get, but you can get simple pictures you can just upload from your device. There are no third-party upgrades, just integrations to make Zooming easier. The other drawback is that things will get expensive if you try to upgrade or add new features, which I’ll explain next when we get to the price. 

Pricing

So as I said in our demo zoom is free but there are a bunch of caveats. With the free account, you are limited to one other participant and the meeting can be no longer than 40 minutes. The only other features are the ability to record to your computer and background filters. You can also upload your own and it's pretty easy but a little tedious.

You can also upgrade to meetings longer than 40 minutes, with up to 100 participants and the ability to Stream on social media but that is going to cost you $150 per year per user account. If you want to get into webinars That is gonna cost you $690 per year per user. What do you get for all this money? Well, with the webinars you were able to schedule them in advance, charge for attendance, you also can view attendee lists, and set up your company branding. You are also able to record to the cloud and use those recordings as lead magnets for building your email list.

The final upgrade that a small business owner would be interested in is the zoom room. The zoom room quality tops out at 1080 HD video instead of the 720P limit you get with all other zoom accounts. That will cost you about $50/month per room and is the most expensive add-on. You will need to weigh these features and benefits to fit your use and budget.

Conclusion

Zoom is a great simple app to get started with video meetings or webinars. You can access it anywhere with an Internet connection since it is cloud-based. For the price, zoom offers good features and decent quality up to 720P. Although if you want to upgrade the experience it’s going to cost you a lot compared to free streaming software you would have to learn. If you want to get into full-time content creation and stream more for your business, then do you want to consider another type of software like Streamyard, OBS, or ECAMM live.

But let me know what you think, have you ever tried hosting virtual webinars before, or are you looking for affordable options like zoom? Let me know in the comments below.

Funded in part through a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration. All opinions, conclusions, and/or recommendations expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the SBA.