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The 7 Worst Backgrounds For Your Zoom Meetings

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We’ve been WFH for about half a year thanks to Covid-19, and our days have become packed with Zoom meetings. We’ve even seen news correspondents broadcasting from home and political candidates campaigning from home. As a result, we have peered inside a lot of people’s houses and apartments.

Video meetings are powerful. They give you the opportunity to deliver a complete communication and connect with people on a deep emotional level. When done right, they are powerful brand builders. One way you can put your best brand forward is to be thoughtful about what’s behind you when you’re on video. When your background is right, it’s a major personal brand booster. When it’s wrong, it’s a brand buster.

1. Don’t be a member of the witness protection program. This happens when you have light shining behind you. You end up being a shadow, and that’s not the way you want to look. Instead, make sure the light is coming straight at you—not from behind or from one side. And to make sure your mug is appropriately lit no matter what time of day you’re zooming, consider buying LED bulbs or a selfie ring light so you can shine online.

2. Don’t do a shelfie. We know you’re smart. You don’t need to position yourself in front a bookshelf to prove that you read. At this point, having a bookcase background has become so commonplace it’s truly trite. And worse, some people are curating the books they want people to see in order to project a certain image. Rather than working so hard to project an imaginary persona, just show them an authentically capable person.

3. Don’t advertise. When I was watching Michael Cohen being interviewed about his new book, Disloyal, there was a deliberately placed book standing up behind his left shoulder. Shortly afterward, I saw a reporter for the Washington Post on CNN with a Washington Post logo on the pillow strategically placed on the sofa behind him. It may seem subtle to you, but it looks like a sales pitch to those who are watching, and it cheapens what you’re saying. You want to use your background to bolster your message, not to scream “infomercial.”

4. Don’t send a messy message. A background with dishes piled up on the counter. An open closet door revealing clothes leaping off shelves. A vase of flowers that should have been composted a week ago. A plain wall that clearly hasn’t been painted in decades because of the stains and holes from pictures that once hung on it. These are all backgrounds I have witnessed in online video meetings. Although being too deliberately staged isn’t good for your brand, being a little thoughtful about what your background says about you is absolutely necessary if you want to deliver the most compelling message.

5. Don’t use bad green screen. Most video conference software comes with the opportunity to project an image behind you so you can appear to be on a palm-tree-lined beach or standing in the middle of Times Square in NYC. Yes, it’s fun, but it gets old pretty fast. And if you’re not using an actual green screen, when you move around, parts of your head start to blend in with the background or they disappear altogether. If your goal is to create a fun mood for your videos, invest in an actual green screen and then create—or have a designer create for you—a custom image that helps you convey your personal brand value.

6. Don’t overly curate. While you need to be thoughtful and intentional about what’s behind you so you can exude your absolute best, don’t overdo it. When you try too hard, people think, “He’s trying too hard.” During the Democratic National Convention, Elizabeth Warren delivered her speech from a primary school replete with giant block letters from the alphabet. On the shelf behind her were three letters: BLM. It’s important to support the Black Lives Matter movement and we know that she is an advocate for it, but that image ran the risk of seeming opportunistic and insincere.

7. Don’t make it a high-traffic corridor. A colleague told me he was interviewing a candidate for an internship one morning. The candidate was answering the questions from the middle of his apartment. Behind him was the hallway to the bathroom. During the interview a few people appeared in the background in various states of undress on their way to the bathroom. We’re all making do with our portable video studios, but do your best to choose a zone where you won’t be featuring random guests from your personal life.

When you’re delivering a message with video, what’s behind you will have an impact on what’s ahead of you in your career. Make sure you’re sending a high-quality message that bolsters your credibility, your likeability, and the authentic traits that make your personal brand unique.

William Arruda is a founder of CareerBlast and co-creator of BrandBoost - a video-based personal branding talent development experience.

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