In the COVID-19 era, webinars have become the preferred way of learning for people across the globe. Webinars are a more interactive and convenient way of learning and are going to stay even after the world emerges out of the pandemic.
Webinars are cost-effective and offer organizations economies of scale, driving down the fixed costs. All you need is internet connectivity, along with software services, and you are good to go.
The other exciting aspect of a webinar is that it has flexibility in location. So even if your host is somewhere else in the world, you can still attend their session and interact with them.
Webinars are perfect for two-way communication. It allows real-time conversation, and the audience can get their answers instantly. You can use online applications such as InVideo to make your presentation using the best free slideshow maker.
While hosting a webinar, it is crucial to pay attention to your audience. Make it interactive with the help of the following tips on visual and creative elements.
Exercises And Challenges
You can plan exercises and challenges to keep your audience hooked to the session. These tasks are designed to activate the brain and make individuals pay attention to the topic at hand.
An excellent way to keep your audience from getting bored, it will also actively channel the energy into making the webinar more productive.
While planning challenges or exercises, make sure they are not too complicated. They should be simple and should not stress out your audience.
These challenges not only let you gauge the interest level of your audience but also help them gain information without forgetting.
Instant Polls
While creating your webinar, add a few polls that you can pull out in between your session. This is an excellent option for the times when you feel your audience is getting bored or if they are losing attention.
You can also add polls that are just for fun. These polls come handy when all you want to do is to interact with everyone.
The questions can be designed according to your session, or you can simply pick some random interesting ones to break the ice. A few examples are:
- Would you like to time travel? If yes, where do you want to go?
- One superpower you wish you had?
- What do they prefer movies or series?
- What do you hope to do once the lockdown ends?
Your questions can be anything aimed at lightening the mood and then let people focus back at you.
Videos
It is an evident fact that the human brain is attracted more towards visuals than text. So, you should drive learning though visual art – pictures, videos, animation, etc.
The video will be a great help for bringing uniqueness to your presentation. It will also help the audience visualize the concepts more holistically.
You can add videos strategically to your presentation. Your aim should be to drive discussions and engage audiences.
When it’s time to play those videos, explain your objective to the viewers. Explain how you want them to go about it, what all portions should be carefully watched to have a better understanding.
Creating and adding videos to your presentations can be done easily with the help of an online free video intro maker. You can also customize your content for mobile platforms.
Panel Discussion
Adding a panel of experts discussing a relevant topic and sharing their opinions will attract more visitors because of its rich and diversified content.
Have a panel of industry experts on your session to discuss their viewpoints. Try to keep the panel discussion informative and short. Don’t let the debate go off-topic.
Make sure you keep asking topic-related questions to the panelists throughout the discussion. You should also let the audience ask their questions, which will increase their involvement.
Competitions And Giveaways
An excellent way to ensure your audience stick to their seats is to set up a competition. Organize a small competition and plan for a giveaway or prize to the winners.
You can also do lucky draw giveaways, where whoever gives a correct answer gets to participate in the lucky draw. Or ask a few questions, and the one who gets most of them right gets a prize.
Going digital in this aspect, too, can solve the problem of picking a prize during the outbreak. It need not be anything grand; give the winners a free e-book, a subscription to an educational website, or a pass to your next session.
Multiple Speakers
If your webinar has multiple speakers, then the audience will get different viewpoints, presentation styles, and even different voices.
Inviting a co-host or another speaker to present with you will let you avoid the monologue and give a structure to your session.
It helps in breaking the usual routine where they only get to hear one person and keep them engaged.
You can also use some humor. It can be anything – a trivia related to the topic or some interesting anecdotes or maybe some banter between the speakers.
Talking With The Audience
Instead of talking about everything theoretically, try picking someone randomly from the audience (or someone who would like to volunteer) and speak to them directly.
You can ask for their views, understand their reasoning, and then start the session, explaining why you do or do not endorse their opinion. It will be quite an exciting experience for the audience as the content will resonate with everyone.
Closing Thoughts
For webinars to stay effective, it must be interesting enough to engage people. And to make it enjoyable, the focus should be on using innovative methods for interaction.
A few of the common mistakes that speakers usually make are that they deliver the content like a lecture. Understand that it’s not just about conveying information but also engaging your audience.
Anything that is the same for an extended period can get boring. Avoid repeating the same things you did in all your past webinars. Remember, there is no such thing as a fixed template in the public speaking domain.
To make your webinars interesting, you can make the above small but significant changes to your presentation and the way you present it.