Live webinar

What is a live webinar?

Live webinars are webinars that occur in real-time. They can be seminars, classes, interviews, or panel discussions that are broadcasted to a live audience online. These events are interactive and the audience can see and hear everything that occurs as it happens.

Can you be seen in a live webinar?

The short answer is no! You can see the speakers and the content they are presenting, but nobody can see you. Both your webcam and microphone are off! So don't worry : you can join a live webinar from anywhere your couch, your kitchen or even the gym!

What are the benefits of live webinars?

Compared to automated or on-demand webinars, such webinars are much more engaging. Audience members can interact with presenters through the live webinar platforms by chatting, asking questions, and answering polls. Hosts and guest speakers can respond to viewers, and even shape their presentations in real-time. The interactivity of live webinars creates an instant feedback loop for hosts, letting them know if participants are interested.

Live webinars can also help make the webinar presenters more relatable. Since the audiences see the action as it is happening, it is possible to feel more connected to presenters. Authenticity is highlighted when hosting live webinars.

How do you host a live webinar?

To create a live webinar, you should follow to main steps. First, you need to create a new webinar. Then, you should add contributors like team members and guest speakers.

Creating a new webinar

Creating a live webinar occurs in the webinar dashboard. Settings allow users to plan multiple sessions of a single webinar. Hosts can make changes to the webinar room and add integrations.

Adding contributors

Members of a team can be invited to moderate a webinar by interacting with attendees and answering questions in the chat tab. And guest speakers from external organizations can be added to the webinar at this stage.

How do you join a live webinar?

In order to participate to a webinar, you need to register on the webinar's registration page. Then, ahead of the date and time of the presentation, you will be contacted with a link to the live webinar. These links are most often emailed and will direct you to the webinar you have signed up for.

The links are often made for individual use, only usable by those who have registered for the webinar and cannot be shared. Some webinars are not gated and can be accessed by anyone. If the live webinar has been recorded, you can expect a copy of the recording, even if you were unable to make it to the live stream version of the event.

How do you promote a live webinar?

Promoting a live webinar involves two steps :

• Building a landing page to capture participants.
• Customizing emails around the event: registration confirmation, reminders, follow-ups, and more.

Building a landing page

The landing page hosts the description of the event and registration form. The registration form acts as a gate for the webinar, disallowing access until the registrants provide information. This data is then stored in the webinar dashboard. The registration page is also where the design and branding can be changed.

Customizing automated emails around a live webinar

Automated emails allow organizers to send important information to registrants without having to manually send email campaigns. Key automated emails around webinars include event registration confirmation, event reminders, and follow up emails. In most webinar apps, these can be adapted for attendees and registrants who didn’t show up. Follow up emails usually contain the presentation slides or recording of the event

How do you automate a live webinar?

Even though a live webinar is happening “in the moment”, there are some webinar automations that can be programmed beforehand. These automations can make a presentation more streamlined, and take some pressure off of the hosts and moderators.

The time that the webinar will begin or end, page redirects, and even playing videos at a specific time can be automated. Additional automations include sending polls or chat messages. Some automated webinars are built to simulate a live event without the actual presence of a person to host it live.