Webinar Quick Tips

When I was on my first teaching practice, I planned interesting, exciting activities for the class. However, when I was actually in front of the children, I abandoned the plans in favour of safe activities I knew would keep them ‘busy’. The lessons were fine, the children learned but it …

In this first ever episode of The Webinar Show I talk to Mike Agron from Web Attract about his approach to Webinars. He kindly shares a huge amount of detail about his Webinar methodology including explaining what he calls the ‘Webinar Life Cycle’ which is split up into 5 ‘Acts’. …

Recently, I saw some new trial e-learning materials by a company. They were fine but I couldn’t help thinking – what’s the audience and purpose of these? They were essentially a cut-down version of one of the main products sold by the company. I suppose the intention was to use them …

If you use a webcam for your Webinars, it can add a great personal touch as your audience can see the presenter, host or even in some cases, other participants. It’s as close as you can get to a face-to-face meeting, especially with today’s cheap HD cameras and Webinar software …

This tip is from Cliff Ravenscraft of podcastanswerman.com who got it from a public speaking course he attended. I always try to follow this general approach when I plan Webinar Quick Tips. A lack of structure in presentations usually makes them less successful than they could be. The presenter can …

I was hosting a Webinar some time ago in which the audience were all from countries where English is not the first language. All attendees spoke excellent English, however. For the digital ice-breaker, I used the traditional world map. I asked the participants to add their pointer to indicate where …

When I started using Webinar software back in 2001, I taught children who were isolated at home because of medical needs and we always recorded the sessions so that the children who were unable to attend could watch the recording later and catch up on what they had missed. It …

In an attempt to drive adoption, many people – particularly managers – have been given the wrong idea about Webinars and web conferencing technology. Of course, web based meetings are ‘greener’ than face-to-face ones and can reach audiences it would not be possible to reach any other way. There are …

If you are using Webinars, then I’m sure you want to make a personal connection with your audience – otherwise why not just send a video or a pdf out to your mailing list? However, how can you make this personal connection most effectively when you are using a webcam …

It may come as a shock to you, as it did to me, but you might not be the only person in your organisation who can host Webinars. That’s clearly a joke but just because you do host most or all of the Webinars for your organisation doesn’t mean that …

What do you think is the most important aspect of a Webinar? Getting attendees to join? A spectacular video? An inspiring, big name presenter? Considering the audience? Defining the purpose? Preparing fully? Using your great hosting skills? Actually, all those are useless if the audience can’t hear what’s going on. …

‘Word of mouth’ has never been more important than now – in the age of Social Media. However much we spend on promoting our webinars, a simple recommendation from an influential person on social media is definitely worth more. We can spend hours being social, being careful not to be …

I don’t know about you, but when I see invitations to Webinars with a duration of 2 hours, it makes me shudder. I think it’s important to put yourself in the position of the audience. Just think what it’s like to sit for 2 hours holding a phone to your …

If you have ever been a teacher like me, you’ll know the importance of setting ground rules. Without them, children in a class don’t know what the boundaries are, misunderstand expectations and experience a lack of structure so things can get out of control quickly. When I first taught children using …

Every time we run a session,  face-to-face or online, we need to know how it’s gone so we can improve. In Webinars, it’s all about learning from feedback how to improve our use of tools or hosting techniques to better serve our audience and the purpose of the session. I spoke …

I’m not really a marketing professional (I’m an educationalist and an E-learning specialist) but I know what stimulates my interest when I see it. So I’m always very interested in seeing promotional webpages, status updates, tweets or advertisements for Webinars. I’ve seen a variety of approaches being used. Some are very …

I’m a visual learner. Recently, I wanted to learn how to solder so I could plumb my satellite TV signal up to my bedroom from the digibox downstairs. So I searched for YouTube videos on basic soldering. When I was young, I used to watch the UK weekly pop programme, …

Aim to keep things simple but check and check again to make sure you’ve got what you need to actually run the Webinar! Here’s another time I almost created a disaster! I was set to broadcast from a live event with the minimum possible set up. It was just going to …

It’s obvious but the more complicated your Webinar set up, the more things there are to go wrong. It’s a bit like the difference between conducting a huge, amateur symphony orchestra and beating time for someone playing twinkle twinkle little star on a recorder. Conducting music is similar to hosting …

Have you ever put time aside really to explore your Webinar software? You might be amazed what you can find. Some Webinar systems have very complicated websites where  sessions are scheduled and set up. It can be easy to stick to the basic tools for fear of breaking anything, particularly if …

We all like to know how well our Webinars have gone by receiving feedback from the audience. We might need this information as part of our reporting process to managers or for our own, more personal reasons. Clearly, this kind of data helps a great deal when planning better events …

Whether you have 5 or 500 in your Webinar, breaking the ice by using an activity of some kind generally leads to better engagement and a more successful experience for all. A little like a warm-up act for a comedian, a good icebreaker can warm up your Webinar audience, ready …

So you’ve hit the start button and names are popping up on participant list – now what? In my experience, if hosts are not pro-active in managing the attendees from the first moment they arrive, the text chat will start filling up with questions such as: Is there anyone there? …

I have yet to find Webinar software of any kind which has no text chat facility. Text chat is such a simple, yet powerful tool. So I am always amazed to see that some Webinar hosts restrict the text chat in their sessions, or even turn it off. For me, …

When I was a teacher, I used to take whole-school assemblies, so I had an audience made up of hundreds of children. Sometimes I was the only adult in the room. I used to lead the singing, tell a story or give out messages. Obviously, I couldn’t see what all …

It might sound obvious but in my experience, not all Webinar hosts help the audience to join the session – or not in the most helpful ways. Of course, this all comes back to knowing your audience really well. How confident with and knowledgeable about technology are your audience? How …

As well as yourself, you might have a moderator, a co-host, a presenter or maybe even a panel in your Webinar. You might be tempted to have them all in one location – which is completely logical. However, this can create a single point of failure. If everyone is in …

One of most important and useful tools in any Webinar is the ability to share. You can share presentations, websites, documents, images or practically anything you have on your computer with your audience. However, it’s also possible in most webinar systems to share your computer desktop and this is where …