Webinar - The Complete Definition and Guide

Ever since we stepped in digitalization live video webinar has been helping businesses to leverage. The webinar is the latest trend in today's fast-paced world to walk with and to achieve success. It is considered as the most powerful tool for businesses around the world. From organizing a business or educational seminars, imparting education online, offering training courses, uplifting the sale of the product or services, webinar live video streaming serves all. To closely understand how webinar works and for what purposes it has been used by brands and businesses, understanding what is a webinar is essential. 

What is the webinar?

A webinar is a live video event held over the internet, which allows participants from around the world to participate in it. The live video webinar allows speakers and participants to interact with each other in real-time while allowing them to share slides and documents. The market is full of webinar technology providers that offer the best webinar services that enable you to share slides during live video webinars. It allows attendees to participate in interactive sessions through Q&A and chat boxes. Live video webinars can even help in carrying out business collaborations globally. It helps in boosting interactions while discussing important and relevant topics globally without any geographical restrictions in real-time.

With the rapid increase in the usage of live video webinars by businesses a large number of online webinar platforms came into play. The webinar is used by businesses for conducting online meetings as well as used by companies or brands as a core of marketing strategy that allows brands and customers to have face to face interactions through audio and visual features. Live video webinar allows you to share the screen, presentation, slides & documents with other participants which helps in illustrating your points in a much better way while carrying out your meetings, events or seminars more effectively. One can share presentation slides with the other party in real-time video conferencing via web conferencing.

A live video webinar allows businesses to host an event and allow a person to participate from anywhere around the world at the same time. Webinar builds a virtual connection between the attendees and the speaker, thereby saving from the hassle of traveling. Simply relax in your home or office and tune in live for a webinar. From organizing professional conferences to educate students around the globe to demonstrate the product use, webinar severs all. A webinar has become the favorite marketing tool and is highly used in B2B( business to business) & B2C(business to customer) companies. A link is sent to the participants by the host to join the webinar. You can simply click the link and participate in a webinar by entering your name. One can ask for an on-demand webinar from webinar technology providers, which can be viewed later by the people who missed the live video webinar after the event ends.

A webinar is a perfect fit for distance learning while sitting in your town. The cost of webinar service providers entirely depends on the services they offer. Selecting the best webinar technology providers who offer excellent webinar live video streaming services on the best online webinar platforms helps in carrying out virtual events more effectively.

Where webinar can be used?

A webinar can be used effectively in various spheres starting from organizing business meetings, sharing presentations, conducting conferences to educational seminars, lectures & product demonstrations. Let’s have a look at some areas where live video webinar works effectively:

1. A webinar can be used for imparting education online

A majority of colleges and universities around the world rely on the webinar, as an effective tool for reaching a wider audience base. Live video webinar reaches a larger set of students around the world without having them to face the hassle of traveling. It has removed the barrier of location for imparting education. Online webinar platforms have made it easy for educators and participants to tune in live at the time of live video webinar. It has completely resolved the barrier of location which was one of the major challenges faced by students. The educator just has to send the link to the participants located anywhere around the globe to join the educational webinar. 

Universities and online training institutes often rely on webinar technology providers to impart educational sessions and lectures. It even helps in reducing the cost of organizing the seminar in person thus having more attendees at the webinar. 

Webinar technology providers offer an on-demand webinar to the participants, who missed the live video webinar due to hectic schedules. One can view the saved version of a webinar for educating self which may seem like a video rather than a live video webinar as you are not allowed to comment and write feedback on, saved version of the webinar. 

2. For carrying business collaborations and updating employees

Whether we talk about B2B business dynamics or B2C business dynamics, webinars are widely used for carrying out business collaborations. A live video webinar is used by businesses to update their employees for important information as it is nearly impossible for a big organization to gather all employees under a roof at the same time. It is even used by businesses to hold meetings and conferences online with people around the globe without having to travel, thereby saving time and expense. The best webinar services allow participants to share slides with visual aids to other participants, which helps in explaining their point more elaborately. Webinar live video streaming has been used by businesses to showcase presentations, have meetings or conferences by sitting comfortably at home or office.

3. A webinar can be used for advertising and marketing a product 

Online webinar platforms are used for marketing a product to a wide range of audiences, thereby expanding the reach of the product or a brand. When a product launch or demonstrations are carried out through a live video webinar, it is likely to generate more audience engagement rather than a static graphic or blog content. It helps in building a customer-brand relationship by answering the valuable questions asked by customers which later converts into brand loyalty. 

What is required for a webinar to run successfully?

When a brand, business or an education institute plans to opt for webinar live video streaming services, some things are vital. 

• A reliable and strong internet connection is a must for attendees and the host, to carry out live video webinars successfully. 
• Audio equipment, microphones, webcam & webinar software is necessary for webinar live video streaming. 
• For organizing big events or carrying out large organizational meets online, contacting webinar technology providers is the right step. 
• Selecting the right online webinar platforms is a must for carrying out your live video webinar effectively while reaching the right set of audiences.

How to plan a webinar?

Whether you want to plan a webinar for a business event or a corporate, following certain steps helps live video webinars to work effectively. 

1. Create an account & sign up on online webinar platforms

Creating an account on one of the online webinar platforms of your choice is the first step in the process. Select the best online webinar platforms that offer the best webinar services suiting your business needs. Schedule the live video webinar event beforehand. Set the date, time and duration of live video webinar using the dashboard before the date of the event.

2. Plan accordingly

Change the settings as per your requirements to make your webinar reach your specific set of audiences.

3. Ensure before starting a live video webinar

Upload additional materials if required, to make it easy to deliver your message. Check the equipment and internet connectivity before going live.

4. Host a webinar

Sent the invitation link to the participants or attendees you want to join your live video webinar. They can simply join the webinar by clicking on the link. 

5. Boost interaction

You can use interactive tools while holding a live video webinar. It allows you to share slides, pictures, presentations & graphs to other participants while making it easy for you to deliver your message more effectively. Best webinar services allow participants to communicate with each other via chat or Q & A sessions.

By now you have learned about the merits of webinars and how it works. Get started to organize your first live video webinar event.