Screen sharing, also known as desktop sharing, has become a powerful tool for businesses big and small. As the number of remote teams continues to grow and companies go global – the ability to share your screen, app, or file in real-time from across the room or across time zones has opened up a whole new world of possibilities while changing the way everyone is doing business.
In fact, a recent study found that adoption rates for conferencing technologies like screen sharing are booming, with audio conferencing in the lead (50%) and screen sharing a close second (45%), making it almost as essential as conferencing itself. While it plays a critical role in today’s business environment, the good news is it’s a relatively simple tool that often comes pre-packaged into your video conferencing software, such as Microsoft Teams.
Chances are, you’ve already used some of the most popular features of screen sharing. Whether you’re sharing a PowerPoint presentation or pitching a new idea to a potential client or customer, screen sharing delivers deeper comprehension and better collaboration across the board. If you haven’t used it before, here’s how:
Whether you’re in chat or in a call, on a desktop or on the mobile app, the icon for sharing your screen on Microsoft Teams is the same across the board:
Here are some specifics for sharing your screen during a meeting:
In Microsoft Teams, you can show your desktop, a specific app, a whiteboard, or a presentation in a meeting.
1. Select Share content and choose if you want to share your computer audio.
2. Select what you want to share:
Screen lets you show everything on your screen.
PowerPoint Live lets you share a PowerPoint presentation.
Microsoft Whiteboard and Freehand by Invision lets you share a whiteboard where participants can sketch together.
Window lets you share an open window like a specific app you have open.
3. After you select what you want to show, a red border surrounds what you're sharing. Meeting participants won't see any notifications that might come in.
4. Select Stop sharing to stop showing your screen.
From internal communication to employee training and every task in between, let’s take a look at eight screen sharing uses that can make you more productive at work:
1. Online meetings
Being able to share your screen makes everything a lot easier when you’re trying to collaborate with a remote team on a document or project. It puts everyone on the same page, literally and figuratively, instead of requiring attendees to download large files and then wonder if they’re keeping pace.
2. Presentations
By screen sharing during your presentation, you can better connect and engage with clients, colleagues or customers, bringing a better depth of understanding than words alone could ever do. This practice applies whether you’re pitching a new product, presenting to an internal team or trying to reel in a potential investor.
3. Employee training
With screen sharing, you can conduct training all at once, no matter where the employees are, instead of having to train multiple groups separately at various training sessions. It’s not only efficient, saving valuable travel time and dollars, it also ensures that everyone receives the identical training.
4. Brainstorming
Need to hold a brainstorming session to come up with new ideas. Some collaboration software allows you to create a virtual whiteboard to collectively scribble ideas on, make notes on a shared document, and so on. It truly is a free-form, digital canvas where people and ideas can come together to create.
5. Sales pitches
Most companies (66%) report using web conferencing with clients and prospects during the sales pitch process. Why? Because it improves efficiency and the quality of interactions.
Aside from conducting sales meetings, using screen sharing for online product demonstrations is also wildly popular, becoming the go-to method for creating a compelling sales experience.
6. Webinars
With desktop and screen-sharing capabilities, it’s a lot easier to conduct educational seminars for potential customers or internal teams. It encourages real-time, in-depth discussions and enhances the experience with high-quality video and audio recordings that can be distributed and re-shared with all employees.
7. New employee interviews
If you’re interviewing a new potential candidate for a role at your organization, screen sharing can be a great way to get the most out of an interview conducted via video conference. It can be a way for an interviewee to demonstrate their level of skill using a particular software program, or perhaps to show off their coding or presenting abilities, or walk you through their portfolio.
In addition, the interviewer can more efficiently share the types of projects the new hire might be working on, or walk them through a typical process at the company.
8. Project updates
Quick check-ins with remote teams are faster and more efficient with screen sharing. Now you can quickly demonstrate the status of a project schedule, for example, by sharing it with colleagues while getting real-time feedback on timelines, dependencies resources and more.
Along these same lines, a long-term project can have a lot of phases and a lot of stakeholders. It can be the perfect avenue for something like a daily scrum, huddle, morning roll call, or any quick meeting that requires updates and feedback along the way.
No matter how you choose to use it, screen sharing is an efficient, simple and powerful tool. It enables you to bring people together and improve the way you communicate while creating a better solution for today’s business environment.
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