More and more companies are finding their way to organising an online webinar to reach their employees and (potential) customers. This takes online meetings – which are becoming increasingly commonplace – to a higher level. During such a webinar, participants can follow an online presentation, ask questions and take part interactively. And although a webinar has much in common with an ordinary physical presentation, there are nevertheless specific elements that are characteristic and unique to the format and which you would do well to take into account.

Why is organising a webinar a good idea?

Safe Giving a webinar is, in the post-corona era, a very safe way to bring together and inform a larger group of people. You do not need an event venue where hundreds of people sit together. Everyone simply joins in from their own office chair, at home or at work.

High-quality Giving a webinar is different from a physical gathering but, if well built and delivered with the necessary technical support, it is experienced as just as high-quality by the participants.

Accessible Because a webinar takes place online, all distances and traffic-jam problems disappear. Anyone with an internet connection at home can take part, regardless of location. And that happens to make an ecological contribution to the environment too.

Reach Because you are no longer hindered by a specific location, your reach is virtually unlimited. Your pool of people who can take part therefore becomes much larger with a webinar.

What to bear in mind when setting up a webinar?

For many people, following a webinar is a new experience. That is why it is important to make clear arrangements with your audience at the start of the webinar. That way they immediately know what to expect and how things will proceed. Think of:

• the duration of the webinar
• how and when questions can be asked
• whether or not the webinar will be recorded
• muting the microphone (mute)
• …

There are four major blocks to take into account when organising a webinar:

1. Story
2. Presentation (PowerPoint)
3. Presenting
4. Technology

The story

The attention span in an online presentation is shorter than in a physical presentation.

Because of this, you have to be a good deal more specific and direct in the way you build your story. Give your audience a clear frame of reference from the start. You do that by making clear at the beginning of your presentation what the objective of the presentation is. Determine a clear core message and send your participants home with a few concrete to-dos or homework.

The presentation

Because your audience follows your presentation via a platform on their computer screen, the PowerPoint will not fill the entire screen. So make sure the text on the slides is easily legible. You do this by, on the one hand, not putting too much text on your slide and, on the other, using a font that is large enough.

The more visual your slides are, the more supportive they are and the better you will hold the audience's attention. Using icons and other graphic elements also makes the slides more attractive. Moreover, this allows you to tell your story more spontaneously and not lapse into reading out your slides.

By building interactive moments into the presentation, you keep the audience actively involved and engaged. You can provide interactivity by:

• Allowing questions to be asked at moments you determine, for example after finishing a particular topic or chapter.
• Setting up a Q & A or chat where both you (the speaker) and the participants can post their questions. These questions can be answered in the Q&A/chat both publicly and privately.
• Adding a poll or quiz that is answered during the presentation and whose result is immediately visible to everyone. This immediately creates room for dialogue and interesting discussions with your audience.

Presenting a webinar

Giving a presentation without physical contact with the participants is, alongside the technical aspects, an enormous change. You communicate with your audience via a camera and you are only partly visible to your audience. So as a presenter you will also have to change tack and adjust a few things to this digital format.

• Positioning in front of the camera: make sure you sit far enough from the camera so that more than just your face is visible.
• Try presenting a webinar standing up for once. It gives a more active impression.
• Because you cannot use your whole body, you will have to use your face for the supporting non-verbal communication. So mind your facial expression.
• And, please, do not read your slides out word for word. Tell a story! But that of course applies to every presentation.

Technology

Organising a webinar involves a technical side that we are often not used to. A webinar is just a bit more than an online meeting. Video, sound, various speakers with PowerPoint presentations, ... It all has to be steered in the right direction. Fortunately there are some handy platforms that can be used for this. Choosing the right platform to host your webinar is an important decision. Zoom and Teams both have a (paid) extension for setting up a webinar. Zoom offers the most interactive possibilities of these.

For an online meeting, the microphone built into the computer is often sufficient. But for a webinar we do advise adding an external microphone for good sound quality.

Journalist Jan De Meulemeester made a nice vlog about this.

And last but not least: do not forget to test everything thoroughly beforehand before you go live with your webinar. There is nothing as annoying as stressful technical struggles in the moment itself.

SmartPresentations' offering

As a specialist in PowerPoint design, presentation advice and coaching, we know all too well that your reputation is at stake when giving a webinar too. Even more than with a physical presentation, your audience will drop off without a second thought if it is not engaging enough. That is why we offer a complete package to help you with this:

• Preparations
• Story development
• PowerPoint production
• Technical hosting of the webinar via Zoom
• Follow-up

Have you already started giving webinars? Then let us take a look. We make an extensive analysis and provide you with suggestions for professionalisation and improvement. Send an email to harald@smartpresentations.be