Webinars

Contents 1 What is a webinar? 2 Advantages of webinars 2.1 Interaction 2.2 Convenience 2.3 Cost 2.4 Marketing 3 Disadvantages of webinars 4 See also

What is a webinar?

A webinar is web-based seminar, typically about a topic or trend that doesn't already have a lot of information available about it. Participants meet in a virtual conference room online by viewing the presentation at a specified URL and listening to the presentation on the phone or with their computer speakers.

Webinar presenters are generally experts on the topic, and the webinar may include materials sent to each participant before the webinar takes place. Participants can often ask questions during or after the presentation, depending on the webinar.

Some webinars are courses offered for a fee, while others are marketing presentations on a product or service at no cost to participants. Webinars in the web hosting industry, for example, have been about cloud computing, PCI compliance, and online tools to offer clients. Webinar producers sometimes make recordings of webinars available to the public after they've been held, thus making the webinars useful for search engine optimization.

Advantages of webinars

Interaction

• Presenters can conduct polls or surveys, and participants can respond to them during the webinar.
• Participants can interact via an online whiteboard during the webinar (if they're given access to it).
• The ability to interact creates a better learning experience than would be gained from just reading material about the topic.

Convenience

• Participants can take part wherever they are in the world as long as they have high-speed Internet access.
• There's no need for participants or presenters to dress up or make themselves look presentable.
• Presenters can share any of the files on their computer with participants during the webinar.
• Webinars can be recorded (if this feature is enabled) and shared or reviewed later.
• Current trends and recent information can be shared and discussed while it's still new, enabling participants to stay on top of developments in their field.

Cost

• Participants don't have to pay travel expenses to get to the seminar.
• Expenses for webinar producers remain almost the same no matter how many people participate.

Marketing

• Information can be shared easily with potential distributors of products and services.
• Recorded webinars provide website content after the webinar has taken place.

Disadvantages of webinars

• Because participants and presenters don't see each other face to face, they can't respond to facial expressions or body language.
• Participants may experience distractions during the webinar that they wouldn't experience if they were all in the same physical room rather than at their own desks.
• If the target audience is global, there is no time that will be during the day for all participants. (This can be overcome by scheduling at least two different times for a webinar to accommodate different time zones.)

See also

• Social media marketing
• The proliferation of video as an SEO tool
• How to advertise your web hosting company