The Complete Guide to Zoom‘s Co-Hosting Features

Introduction: Zoom Co-Hosts Explained

As Zoom has become a ubiquitous video conferencing platform for businesses, schools, and even personal use cases like family calls, many users struggle to effectively manage larger-scale online meetings.

Juggling tasks like screen sharing, answering questions in chat, troubleshooting issues, and presenting slides can quickly overwhelm even experienced video call hosts.

Fortunately, Zoom provides privileged roles called co-hosts that allow meeting organizers to get assistance with all those meeting moderation tasks from other trusted participants.

But to take full advantage of these helpful co-hosting capabilities in your Zoom sessions, you need to properly understand how the features work before designating any assistants.

In this comprehensive guide, you‘ll learn:

✔️ Exactly what Zoom co-hosts can and can‘t do to help run meetings

✔️ Step-by-step instructions for enabling co-host settings

✔️ Pro tips for choosing co-hosts and outlining their responsibilities

✔️ Detailed methods to assign the co-host role on both desktop and mobile

Let‘s start by examining why co-hosts are so useful for large or complex Zoom meetings.

Zoom Co-Hosts Help Take Online Meetings to the Next Level

For some important context – Zoom has become the video conferencing app of choice during the remote work revolution.

According to Zoom‘s 2021 financial results, their client base grew 470% in just two years:

With Zoom powering everything from virtual classrooms to board meetings, their group session capabilities enable sessions far beyond just one-on-one video calls.

But successfully managing a webinar, training, or even family call with over 10 participants presents huge organizational hurdles:

✔️ Broadcasting presentations/screen sharing

✔️ Moderating discussions in breakout groups

✔️ Monitoring raised hands and questions in chat

✔️ Troubleshooting any audio/video issues

The list goes on! All those concurrent meeting moderation tasks quickly pile onto the video call host.

This is exactly where utilizing Zoom co-hosts helps take stress off the meeting organizer and improves the experience for everyone involved.

Co-hosts take over particular moderation responsibilities, acting as "assistant organizers". Empowering just one other person with additional controls lifts a massive burden off the main video call host.

Real-World Examples of Zoom Co-Hosts in Action

Here are just a few examples of scenarios where assigning dedicated co-hosts could drastically improve meetings:

• Webinars – Designate co-hosts to spotlight speakers, monitor Q&A, and manage virtual "rooms"
• Enterprise Training – Let an assistant handle breakouts, chat, polls and technical issues
• Online Classes – Have TAs manage hand raise queues or unmute students
• Virtual Family Calls – Give a tech-savvy relative co-host to manage grandparents in another room!

As you can see, co-hosts aren‘t just about spreading the workload. They facilitate engagement across potentially hundreds of attendees and enable hosts to focus on their speaking/presentation delivery.

Next let‘s examine exactly what powers Zoom co-hosts are granted.

Zoom Co-Host Capabilities and Limitations

The core value proposition of Zoom co-hosts revolves around granting trusted participants additional controls over various meeting moderation tasks:

What Can Zoom Co-Hosts Do?

✔️ Admit users from waiting room

✔️ Mute/unmute meeting participants

✔️ Create and manage breakout rooms

✔️ Start/stop screen sharing

✔️ Remove disruptive meeting participants

The key abilities center around managing attendees (admitting/muting/removing) along with facilitating content screen sharing and breakouts.

But Zoom does restrict some critical host-only settings from the grasp of co-hosts:

What Can‘t Zoom Co-Hosts Do?

🚫 Start cloud recordings or transcriptions

🚫 Edit security settings like meeting passwords

🚫 Reassign someone else as the primary host

So while extremely useful for delegating moderation tasks, the meeting host must remain present for the co-host to retain privileges.

This contrasts Zoom‘s alternate hosts who can fully step in to run meetings without the original host.

Let‘s compare the capabilities across roles:

Now that you understand the landscape of Zoom co-host powers and constraints, let‘s look at what‘s required to actually use these meeting sidekick capabilities.

Pre-Requisites to Enable Zoom Co-Hosting

Designating a co-host itself is straightforward. But Zoom does impose a few restrictions around co-host privileges to maintain security:

Paid Zoom Account

Similar to common features like unlimited time limits, co-hosting is only available on paid Zoom plans:

✅ Pro
✅ Business
✅ Enterprise
✅ Education
✅ Custom

If you‘re still using a basic free Zoom account, you‘ll have to upgrade first.

Zoom App Version

All participants in meetings where you assign co-hosts must be running somewhat recent and compatible versions of Zoom‘s app across desktop or mobile.

If participants don‘t see co-host options, double check they have updated Zoom installed.

Manual Account Setting Adjustment

Finally, enabling co-hosting requires manually toggling on a permission in your specific Zoom account settings.

This extra activation step adds a layer of security, preventing the feature from opening vulnerabilities until hosts explicitly approve co-host usage.

Let‘s walk through where to find this key setting…

How to Enable Co-Host Capabilities on Your Zoom Account

Allowing designated co-hosts requires accessing an account option nested away in Zoom‘s advanced settings area.

Here is how to find and turn on the crucial co-host toggle for your account:

Step 1) Log Into Zoom Account Settings

• Go to Zoom‘s website and click Sign In
• Use your account email and password to login

This will access the backend area where your personal meeting settings are configured.

Step 2) Access Advanced Account Options

• Hover over Account Management in left sidebar
• Click into Account Settings

This expands the menu into granular admin controls for enabling specific capabilities.

Step 3) Toggle On Co-Host Switch

• Scroll down and locate Co-Host
• Flip the switch to blue/enabled position

That activating the option! But also take note of these pointers:

✔️ You must restart any currently running meeting for this permission change to fully take effect

✔️ Co-hosts will now be available meeting-wide by default, but you can restrict usage on a per-group basis too

🚨 Pro tip: Click Save Changes at bottom to ensure updates apply

With your Zoom settings now supporting designated co-hosts, let‘s walk through granting someone those elevated meeting moderation abilities.

Assigning Co-Hosts in Active Zoom Meetings (Desktop + Mobile)

Once your account unlocks the advanced co-host powers, you‘ll then see options to grant the special role to another participant in any meetings you personally host as the owner.

The process works nearly identically whether joining meetings via Zoom‘s desktop application or their iOS/Android mobile apps:

Step 1) Start Your Meeting + Add Participants

• Begin scheduled or instant Zoom meeting as owner
• Have co-host candidate(s) join session

Of course everyone must be in the active call before assigning helping hands!

Step 2) Pull Up Manage Participant Menu

• Click/tap Participants icon in bottom menu
• List of current attendees will appear

This allows managing specific individuals versus global room controls.

Step 3) Hover/Tap on Future Co-Host

• Mouseover or tap on the user‘s name
• Exposes quick actions menu for that person

You‘ll see mute/unmute and other options for each person here.

Step 4) Click/Tap Make Co-Host Link

• Choose Make Co-Host
• Confirm the privilege elevation in popup

Then 💥…that user can now assist with moderation activities!

While simple in theory, let‘s breakdown the exact click path if you‘re:

On Zoom Desktop:

1. Hit Participants > Hover Name > Click Make Co-Host

2. Confirm in popup prompt

On Zoom Mobile:

1. Tap Participants > Tap Name > Tap Make Co-Host

2. Confirm in popup prompt

And that‘s truly all there is to assigning privileged helpers in your meetings!

Troubleshooting: Common Co-Host Issues

While unlikely, a couple quirks could block you from designating a co-host:

• If already in a call, you must restart the meeting for new co-host account settings to apply
• Check everyone is fully updated to the latest Zoom app releases
• On old meetings, quickly toggle the co-host setting OFF/ON to force a refresh

Outside these scenarios, feel free to retry the designation workflow or contact Zoom support if issues persist.

Now let‘s wrap up with pro power tips on running meetings with assigned co-hosts!

Pro Tips for Mastering Zoom Co-Hosts

With great power comes great responsibility! Here is some expert advice for taking full advantage of Zoom co-hosting superpowers:

💡 Carefully Designate Co-Hosts

Don‘t randomly elevate participants without good reason. Determine minimum criteria like:

✔️ Trustworthiness – They won‘t abuse elevated privileges
✔️ Responsibility – Will take the role seriously
✔️ Familiarity – Comfort and experience using Zoom already

💡 Outline Co-Host Duties + Expectations

Provide crystal clear direction on exact responsibilities you want assistants to handle:

✔️ Monitoring chat, Q&A, raised hands
✔️ Running breakout rooms
✔️ Troubleshooting audio/video issues
✔️ Muting disruptive participants

Leave no questions about which meeting elements they should help own!

💡 Practice a Dry Run Meeting

Have at least one test meeting before an important session with prospect co-hosts.

Ensure they understand features and can handle moderation tasks capably when it counts.

💡 Don‘t Forget Overall Host Ownership!

At the end of the day video call owners remain accountable for meeting success even with helpers:

📈 Satisfaction – Follow up with attendees on experience

🛡 Security – Guard sensitive meeting data

🎥 Content – Quality presentations and material

✔️ Welcome/Wrap-up – Opening and closing the session

Lean on your co-pilots for assistance, but don‘t drop the ball leading meetings entirely!

Conclusion + Next Steps

With Zoom becoming the new go-to gathering place for everything from university lectures tohappy hours with friends, effectively facilitating and engaging in larger online meetings grows extremely difficult without help.

By taking advantage of Zoom‘s versatile co-host roles correctly, you can get the assistance you need with:

🔈 Muting and unmuting participants

🏢 Managing virtual breakout rooms

🙋 Spotlighting active speakers

💬 Monitoring live discussion chat

…Plus many other critical moderation tasks!

The only catch lies in properly enabling and then designating co-hosts with clear expectations. But now that you have step-by-step instructions guiding you through the complete process, you can start taking your professional virtual sessions to the next level with privileged participant helpers.

So whether you need to start streaming engaging webinars or keep your monthly book club meetings on track, don‘t try to host it alone – assign trusted assistants as Zoom co-hosts today!