Discord is one of the top video conference and video streaming platforms in the world. It boasts 250 million registered users. And it’s known for being easy-to-use and very reliable. While it is mostly used by gamers, discord can also be used in your business.
One of its most useful features is the ability to share your screen. In this post, you’ll learn exactly how to use the Discord screen share function for improved productivity and collaboration.
What Is Discord?
There are over 2.6 billion gamers in the world, and a huge chunk of them play and communicate on Discord. Discord was created by a gamer for gamers. Now, it’s shedding its gamers-only brand and becoming as inclusive as possible for anyone and everyone that wants a “place to talk.” Which includes you and your team members.
It’s now a popular alternative to communication apps like Slack or Microsoft Teams. The best part of Discord is that all of it’s base features are completely free. Create an account, build a server, grow your server full of users, text chat, voice chat, video chat, and screen share without paying for anything.
You can upgrade your account to Discord Nitro in order to enhance your server’s video and livestream functions and limits, but for most business uses, this isn’t necessary.
One of Discord’s best features is its incredibly high server limits.
A single server can support up to 250,000 members and 25,000 simultaneous online members. This is more than enough for the majority of businesses using the platform.
Plus, each server can host up to 500 different channels to keep hundreds of conversations well-organized by a variety of topics.
If you’re concerned about security and privacy when discussing sensitive information, Discord protects your communications with two-factor authentication (2FA) and a specially-designed client-server architecture that guards your IP from being exposed. Users logging in from a different IP must be verified by email and other users can only join your server if you send them an invite link.
With Discord, you get a private and safe message board, chat room, and VoIP chatting system rolled into one.
What Are the Benefits of Screen Sharing?
Screen sharing in your business offers many benefits.
Here’s a short list of some reasons why you should be using screen sharing in the workplace.
Improve productivity during meetings
Video conferencing meetings have been rising for a long time and are being adopted more so today than ever before.
This streamlines communication, no longer needing to gather team members in a physical conference room – everyone can join the meeting from wherever they are.
But instead of sending out PowerPoint presentations for everyone to download and follow along, you can simply share your screen and present the PowerPoint to your team.
Receive Better Technical Support
When applications aren’t working or software is being glitchy, you need to contact technical support. If you’re working remotely, this can cause significant issues in getting the problem resolved.
Rather than describing the problem over the phone or email, you can share your screen with your IT tech and allow them to see the issue themselves, which makes it much easier for them to solve it.
Strengthen Your Pitch to Clients
If you’re running a remote meeting with a client to pitch them on your SaaS product, as an example, it’s better to show them the product in action rather than relying on static descriptions of the product.
You can demonstrate how it works on your own computer, giving them a vision for how it will work for them. This creates a deeper level of trust in you and your product.
How to Share Your Screen in a Discord Server
The screen sharing feature on Discord was released back in August, 2017. It allows users on your Discord server to view and engage with your screen.
You and 9 coworkers can simultaneously conduct a live video chat and share your desktop screens.
Below, we’ll walk you step-by-step through setting up Discord to manage this feature and activating screen share.
First, we’ll look at the basic settings for voice and video that you should have setup in order to take advantage of all of Discord’s features, especially if you want to speak over your screenshare or simultaneously share your screen while on a live video chat.
Enable Your Video Settings
First, you’ll need to enable the proper video settings to prepare the application for screen sharing.
Navigate to the lower left-hand part of the app (or screen if you’re using it in your web browser) and click on the little cog icon located slightly to the right of your username.
That will take you to a list of many different settings you can adjust. Select “Voice and Video” from the list to adjust these settings.
From here, you can select your “input device” which would be the headphones or speakers you’re using. If you’re using your PCs built-in speakers, you can leave this as default.
Your “input device” is the microphone you’re using. Again, if you’re using your PCs built-in mic, just leave it to default.
Once you’ve chosen your input and output, you should perfect a test to make sure everything is working properly by pressing the “Let’s Check” button in blue.
Scrolling down you’ll see the video settings where you can select your video camera. If your PC has a built-in webcam then you can leave it set on “Integrated Camera.”
Just like with the sound, you’ll want to test the video. To do this, hit the blue “Test Video” button.
If you’re using a web browser instead of the Discord app, then make sure you’ve given your web browser permission to access your camera, otherwise you’ll end up with a blank screen instead of your smiling face. This also applies to voice settings.
Join or Create a Server
In order to share your screen with coworkers, you’ll need to either join or create a server where you’ll be video conferencing.
Servers contain text channels that let you type to talk and voice channels for live talking and video which we’ll cover in this post in a moment.
Every server has multiple channels, each of which can be dedicated to a different topic and governed by a different set of rules. This makes it easy to split your teams up by department, project, or any other category.
Starting and joining servers is completely free.
To create or join a server, click on the big “+” button in the upper left corner of the app resting below the bright blue Discord logo.
A popup will appear prompting you to create a server or join one. For this example, let’s create a server.
After clicking on “Create a server” you’ll be asked to give it a name.
Once you’ve chosen your name, click “Create.”
Connect to a Voice Channel
In order to chat with team members, start a live video conference, or share your screen, you have to connect to a “voice channel.”
Simply click on “General” to begin fiddling with this feature.
You’ll see that you’re now connected and ready to start a video or share your screen.
By clicking on the “Video” button, your PC will access your webcam and start a streaming video.
Clicking the button labeled “Screen” will allow you to share your screen. You’re presented with several options.
If you have applications open, you’ll be able to select one of them to share your screen displaying only that application. One app may be your web browser, or photo-editing software, or a PowerPoint presentation.
You can also choose to share your screens. If you have multiple monitors, you’ll be able to select which screen you want to share.
This means you can share a selected window excluding all others or share your entire screen and all of your windows.
After selecting an application or screen, you’ll be given several options before you screen share.
You can change the Voice Channel you’re streaming in.
You can change the resolution and framerate of the video (but this requires a Discord Nitro paid subscription).
And you can double-check that you’re screen sharing the right application.
Now, simply click “Go Live” and you’ll start sharing your screen!
Discord will now show your screen share side-by-side with your webcam video screen. This is where Discord really shines.
You can start a live video while sharing your screen and vice versa.
Only people connected to the voice channel will be able to see your video and screen share.
How to Record Your Screen and Share It With Anyone
One of the features missing from Discord is the ability to record your screen and share the recording with your team members.
There are many reasons why you may want to record your screen:
- Create a tutorial or walkthrough.
- Show work completed to your team.
- Connect with customers.
That’s why we created Zight (formerly CloudApp).
Zight (formerly CloudApp) is a screen recorder that is fast, easy-to-use, and comes loaded with tons of features absolutely free.
It’s an all-encompassing tool that lets you:
- Capture HD video recordings of your screen.
- Record high-quality webcam videos of yourself.
- Record your screen with your webcam at the same time.
- Snap unlimited screenshots with Mac or Windows.
- Create helpful GIFs.
And so much more.
Zight (formerly CloudApp) is a visual communication solution that makes collaboration fun and easy while reducing miscommunication and mistakes.
No more multi-paragraph emails or unnecessary team meetings.
Zight (formerly CloudApp) allows you to quickly share important information, create engaging content for both team members and customers, all while helping you stay focused and productive.
With 700+ reviews on G2 and an almost 5-star rating, Zight (formerly CloudApp) is one of the highest-ranked screen recording software options available. It
Plus, we’ve been ranked by G2 Crowd as one of the top sales enablement tools and we continue to help companies improve communication with one of the easiest-to-use visual content apps available in the cloud.