The purpose of adding live video conferencing to your online business meeting is to enhance the human element in your meeting. Here are a few tricks of the trade to help you convey an image that feels close, warm, and natural to distant participants in your session.

1. Only use the live video if you know that your image projects you accurately and warmly. A quality camera, quality bandwidth, and quality lighting are essential.
2. Make sure the camera angle gives you good eye contact. If you are video conferencing in a web conference meeting, your camera is probably on your desktop, either attached to the top of your monitor, or placed somewhere around it. When the camera is on, be sure your eye contact is "straight on." Avoid positioning your camera too high, too low, or too far to the side in ways that direct eye contact is not established. When the camera angle is not "straight on", the image feels more like a surveillance camera than a warm conversational view.
3. Make sure the lighting in the room lets you project a warm image. Poor lighting or bright sunlight will distort your face and your features, making your look more harsh or unnatural.
4. Make sure the background behind you is warm and pleasant. Your camera is not only looking at you. It looks at everything behind you. Avoid backgrounds that appear messy or intrusive (such as a camera angle that looks down the hallway just outside of your home office). Make sure the area is neat and tidy, so people get a positive impression of your workspace.
5. Add personality to the background behind you. For example, if the background is at your desk, include photos, flowers, and plants. Position them so that people can see them. If the background is in a meeting room, warm it up, too. For example, include a large green plant, large wall pictures or posters, and a pleasantly-colored wall (not gray or white)
6. Only use the video for the first few minutes of the meeting. The look at the camera, freeze the frame, and then interact about the documents in front of you. The video will then act like a snapshot of you that continues to convey warmth.
7. Adjust the camera zoom so you look close. The bottom of the frame should show your shoulder, and the top of the frame should show just above the crest of your head. Avoid having the camera too close, so that your face fills the entire frame. Avoid having the camera too far, so that you seem far away.