Episode 19- of Zooming to Webinar Success!
This is Grant: My clients call me The Webinar Guy.
For the last few episodes, I’ve been covering many things to consider as you think about doing Webinars. Mainly your Recording environment- specifically web cams, lighting, and the “set” or space you record in.
So what’s next? Well, since it doesn’t matter, let’s cover something else that you should consider as you plan; How you’ll present.
Well, duh, Grant. I’m gonna talk for 10 minutes or an hour, etc. Don’t need no nothin’ else! (Got it!)
There are several modes to use and that is the first. Let’s call that a casual presentation. In this mode, you are the focused speaker and ONLY you will be on-screen, present your information and that will pretty much be it. You may or may not do Q&A, but the point here is, that this is a solo project all the way.
If you need assistance with the tech, or want a hose to introduce or other guests, you’ll still need to plan how—Who will do what. Will you manage this yourself? Have a moderator (We call a moderator the person doing the tech side; pulling levers, pushing buttons, monitoring chat, etc.
Will you need and emcee or host? Think your favorite awards show. Say Billy Crystal and the OSCARs. I may have just dated myself, but you get the point!
BTW, The Webinar Team at The Webinar Guy.com can help with both the tech and the host roles if needed. So if you are ready to start your next webinar or virtual meeting, but don’t want to do the tech, or need a host, hit our contact form!
Next might be a slightly more formal setting. Say in this one, you’ll be using a slide deck to help disseminate the information. BTW, using slide decks is planned for further exploration in an upcoming episode! In this case you’ll want to know how to be on the screen at the same time as your presentation. This can be done a few different ways. Again, our Webinar Team can help you with both creating your deck and how to manage the tech.
I suppose there are even other ways to manage your information, but these two are certainly the most popular. I’ve also seen presenters start live, then show a video they’ve recorded elsewhere at another time. While this can work, it can come across as canned.
So far we’re assuming you’re the only one presenting. What if you’re interviewing someone, and they are using a slide deck?
Now you need to be on top of your tech game! Managing others AND doing your presentation can be really challenging.
Our advice is to practice with those that will be in your webinar before the actual live event. If your other guests aren’t available, then lean on a few friends and ask at least two or three others to join you so you can manage them in and out of the session as well as needing to hide video, spotlighting the speaker and more.
Also get very familiar with the platform you’re going to use such as Zoom, GoToMeeting, GoogleMeets, WebinarJam, WebEx, LiveStream, AirMeets and more.
They are all slightly different and some have really cool features that you may/not use, so choose wisely. A search will get you more information than you can possibly use, nd like all software platforms, they are all adding features all the time.
So we’ve covered “Going Solo”, the easiest way to go with ONLY you on the webinar or meeting and not using any slide deck.
Then about you presenting on the screen, but you’re still the only one presenting- and you’re going to add the element of a slide deck. Still pretty easy on a scale of difficulty.
The moment we add more guests and presenters, like I pointed out above, it gets more problematic. And the more guest speakers you ad…
Now you’re not only adding complexity to the meeting itself, but now your managing others and them actually showing up for your virtual meeting and preparing for if they do not!
If you are planning a virtual summit with many speakers at different times, and you can add the exponential issue of doing over more than one day, we get pretty close to a TEN on the difficulty scale.
If this is your first webinar with many moving parts such as this, we strongly suggest getting professional help. Ummm, the webinar management kind. But some may think you require the other kind!
If you decide you need assistance with your virtual event, and you are considering using a friend to moderate, that says they’re happy to help, do a practice session! Realize that not everyone has more than thirty years of stage, hosting and emcee experience, and knowing what to do if it goes south, how to handle hecklers and more… are all critical skills!
Tune it next week for using slide decks!
This series is for smaller organizations and solopreneurs that may not be tech savvy, don’t know all the steps, or don’t WANT to know all the steps.
Over the series, I’m going to lead you through the significant decisions and capabilities you’ll need to “Zoom to Webinar Success!”
As always, if you need help now, don’t hesitate to reach out!
Thank you for watching! Would love to hear your questions and comments!
And if you’re listening to the Podcast audio, thanks for listening! Tell a friend!