Up Your Zoom & Teams Game With Custom Backgrounds

Wednesday, June 17, 2020

By: Rebecca Jami, Chief Operating Officer

In the post-COVID era, videoconferencing while wearing your house slippers is a new norm. But that doesn’t mean you need to broadcast how messy your house is.

Enter custom backgrounds for Microsoft Teams and Zoom videoconferencing software. And get used to it. You’ll be seeing it for a while.

Videoconferencing Isn’t Going Away

Since the pandemic started, the number of users of videoconferencing platforms have skyrocketed. Zoom reported daily users reached 200 million in March—up from 10 million in December. Microsoft Teams saw users jump from 20 million in January, to 38 million in early March, to 44 million just one week later, and more than 75 million by the end of April.

And by nearly all accounts, this isn’t a temporary trend. As Forbes put it in “How COVID-19 Will Change the Future of Work,” even after a vaccine is developed, you should expect “more video calls and fewer in-person meetings.”

Using Custom Backgrounds to Market Your Program

You can choose from a number of options in Teams, such as an office backdrop, a scenic beach scene, or even a sci-fi alien world. Zoom has its own library of virtual backgrounds, so you can hang out at the Golden Gate Bridge or even orbit the planet.

An even better idea is to use it as a branding opportunity for your program. The importance of engaging your stakeholders isn’t going away because of COVID-19, so use every opportunity you can. During your next virtual event, try using a custom background to brand your program, reinforce key messages, or just minimize distractions.

You should also consider your audience and customize your background based on who you are talking to. Sometimes you won’t be talking to internal audiences or external stakeholders. Your audience may be legislative staff, legislators themselves, or members of the media. Consider the products you produce or using imagery that pertains to your industry to help reinforce its importance to a legislative district.

Download Your Free Graphics Now!

Here at ACCESS, we know a thing or two about working from home, because we’ve been doing it since day one. We’d love to talk to you about how we can help your campaign—by designing your next videoconferencing custom background or whatever else you need.

In the meantime, if you’d like to to try a custom background, we created two free options:

To download your free graphics, please provide the following information:

To contact us to discuss your program’s goals, click the button below: