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Webinars: how it works and how to create one

by May 26, 2022Virtual

Webinars are live or pre-recorded video presentations conducted via the internet that have grown in popularity over the past decade. Used primarily to communicate a specific message, webinars have become quite versatile in nature. Companies and organizations are beginning to use them to launch products, bring teams together and facilitate discussions with internal and external speakers. It comes as no surprise that over 67% of marketers have increased their investments in webinars in 2020 alone.

As a rule of thumb, webinars share five main elements, irrespective of the purpose or the format, and these include: the organizer(s), the presentation, the hardware, the software and of course, the audience. To run an effective webinar, each of these elements need to be carefully considered. Who’s involved? What’s being presented? What equipment is needed? What software will it run on? And who exactly is the webinar for? 

While our most recent article details how to run and create an effective webinar, this article is meant to dive deeper into what a webinar is, and to shine a light on how easy it is to create one. 

How Does It Work?

Webinars are simple. And it’s even easier to understand when we place the five elements into two categories: input and output. The input is what we, the facilitator, must put into the webinar. We choose the speaker(s), the moderator(s), the topic(s), the presentation material, and the equipment we’ll use to record the presentation. Think of it like a movie. You have people in front of the camera, and people behind the scenes. Each person has a specific role, but it all supports a collective objective. The webinar topic is like the genre, the presentation material is the script, and the hardware we use is the audio and visual equipment. That’s the input, and it’s all meant to be polished and finalized before the webinar reaches its designated audience. It’s the same way actors rehearse before the final product makes it into the theatre or hits the stage. But once it does, we move into the output –– and that’s the software we choose to use. 

Like most software, there’s a plethora of options available; from free to expensive, to basic to advanced. The software we select should be the one that best fits our needs. Two questions should be considered. What do we need to support our presentation? And what do we need to satisfy our audience? The first question is the easiest to answer because even the most basic software can and will you’re your webinar’s needs. So, the real question becomes what do we need to satisfy our audience? Will the webinar be live, and therefore interactive features like Q&A, live chats, and polling are needed? Is it an open invitation, where the integration of social media is most important? Or is the webinar for a closed, internal audience, and therefore something simple would suffice? When we answer these questions, we begin to piece together the functions we need, and that makes narrowing down our options that much easier.

Conclusion

Webinars are a powerful tool for educating an audience, interacting with potential customers and clients, and bringing teams together. Whether it’s live or pre-recorded, webinars are a simple and effective tool that every business and organizations should leverage. Here at FCCF, we are well versed in all things digital. We are more than happy to turn your webinar goals into a reality!