What is a webinar and how does it work? I’m going to unpack 7 really frequently asked questions about what a webinar is and how it works so that you, by the end of it, are an expert in all things webinar. It’s kind of a buzzword after this 2020, 2021 situation.
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I’m gonna unpack these 7 questions and below in the description, they’re actually divided and time stamped so if you just want to jump, if you just are curious about 3 of them, feel free to just click through and find those questions that you’re most interested in. If you want to have a master’s degree in webinars by the end of this video, and the end of these 7 questions you will have it.
How Can I Record A Webinar For Later Viewing?
Number 1, how can I record a webinar for viewing it later? Probably it’s already recorded. Whenever I lead a webinar or something, I usually get about 35 emails saying, “Is this going to be recorded?” Like the harassment has won me over. I just record every single session. And I think that most people do also. If there’s a doubt, feel free to ask. Feel free to be one of those 35 emails and say, “Is this going to be recorded?” But I wouldn’t worry about you recording it. I would count on that person recording it. If you really wanted to get weird and crafty, I guess you could use something like quicktime or a screen recorder to actually, literally manually record the webinar. But, I would just get it from the host. It’ll be much better that way. If it’s a Zoom webinar, there’ll be a transcript next to it that you can actually search and jump right to the point in the webinar that you want to in a really easy way too so, much better than any sort of recording that you would do on your own.
Can A Presenter See You In A Webinar?
Number 2, this is really frequently asked, can a presenter see you in a webinar? There’s always that kind of question. When you go to click a link and you’re like, “Am I going to be on camera right now or am i not going to be on camera?” I actually had this moment, I’m a part of the National Speakers Association and I was joining a webinar, and I wasn’t sure if this was going to be a Zoom meeting, is it a webinar? I wasn’t sure so, I actually joined because I was sick at the time, I had no interest in being on camera. There’s lots of reasons that people don’t want to be on camera and hoping that- and then it wasn’t on camera. It was really great for that instance. But, 1 tip with that, if you’re going to lead a webinar, I would totally tell people beforehand whether they should expect to be on camera or not.
Can I Attend A Webinar On My Phone?
Number 3, can I attend a webinar on my phone? Sure! I don’t care. Anything you want. On your phone, on your tablet, on your android tablet, on your iPad, on your laptop, on your sofa, however you want to attend a webinar is totally up to you. Most devices work. There are some webinar services that might be a little bit less mobile friendly if it’s going to be something that’s really engaged that you’re going to be wanting to type in the chat a lot, I wouldn’t recommend joining from your phone but you probably can.
What Equipment Do You Need For A Webinar?
This question comes to me mostly by people who are one of lead webinars, which if you’re watching this video on what a webinar is, might not be you. But just in case, I will throw out the equipment that you would want to lead a webinar is a computer and good, solid, reliable internet and an audience. That really is all you need. If you want to go nuts, there’s lots of tech tutorials on live streaming and webinar setups that you can look and hook up DSLR cameras and get lights and all that sort of stuff, that’s not the purpose or intention of this video. I do have another video linked right here that’s a kind of a desk setup for virtual presenters and I’m trying to just share you my setup. I’m in a film studio right now but my setup at home, when I’m actually delivering webinars or presentations. If you want to walk through of the nitty-gritty of all that tech, feel free to jump over and find that either above or in the description below.
What’s The Difference Between A Webcast and A Webinar?
Number 5, what’s the difference between a webcast and a webinar? A webcast is Australian and a webinar is American. Just kidding! Although, I will say I am a part of this Australian business school because it’s called Thought Leaders Business School and they do call- a lot of stuff they do webcasts even though there’s interaction involved, Typically, and I think somewhat by definition, a webcast is going to be pre-recorded and streamed live. So, a lot of big conferences, virtual conferences will pre-record all of their content and then put it out live on the day of. I’m not a huge fan of that because that’s totally designed for consumption and not contribution. Ideally good webinars, in my opinion, are designed for contribution. They’re designed to harvest people’s ideas, to take people’s questions, to interact back and forth, even if it’s only through the chat designed for interaction. That’s the purpose of jumping online for something that’s live. For me if it’s not live, just send me the recording or send me a link to a YouTube video so that I can play it on 2 times speed and save a half hour.
How Do You Set Up a Webinar on Zoom?
It’s super easy. Don’t be intimidated by it. It’s like setting up a Zoom meeting so, just go into the back end of zoom.us click through- I’m not going to do a tech tutorial right now because it genuinely is self-explanatory. You go in- now what might not be self-explanatory is your account probably doesn’t have access to creating webinars. You might not be able to find it because you have to pay extra for it and it’s a significant chunk more per month. I have like a Zoom enterprise account or whatever so, it’s just built right in and so I can create a webinar just like I create a meeting and oscillate back and forth but, you need to check that on the back and see if that happens.
There are some more advanced settings and specific things you can set up of, you know, what people get emailed, when and that kind of stuff in the Zoom webinar so they just take a little bit more time. I don’t mean to trivialize it and say like, “You can do it in 2 minutes and that’s it.” You can set up in 2 minutes but you probably want to spend 20 minutes making sure that you have all the settings like you want them before you send people the registration link for it. If this was useful to you, (1) hit the like button. It takes no effort on your end but it really helps out the channel and I built this channel specifically to support leaders and educators helping to make online connection and engagement really easy. And so, if I were you hit that like button, subscribe if you want to see more. For now though, this video on how to make virtual meetings and online learning fun. It’s a 2 minute, super fast-paced demo that will leave you hopefully a little bit inspired about connecting in an online context.