Tips for Success

Review helpful suggestions on how to make the most of your webinars.

Prior to Webinar Start

• If you plan to share your entire desktop, turn off any instant-messaging applications, notification software or other programs that may interrupt or distract from the webinar.
• Turn off any streaming media applications that may take up bandwidth and resource-intensive applications that may be taxing processor ability.
• Set the desktop display to a neutral background and adjust display settings to a mid-range resolution (e.g., 1024 x 768) to improve the display for attendees with lesser settings. This is also the optimal setting for recording a webinar.
• Clean up your desktop before a webinar or use the Clean Screen feature when showing your desktop to avoid distracting your attendees.
• Have the documents you wish to share ready to be accessed in 1 or 2 clicks.
• Run a Practice Session with your panelists and any other organizers to familiarize yourself with the format and flow of your online presentation.

Managing the Webinar

• Arrive a few minutes early to greet the attendees as they arrive, and start the webinar on time. It also helps to have a welcome presentation running during this time. Your presence in these opening minutes can help establish the tone and direction of the webinar.
• Provide an agenda at the start of the webinar, including estimated duration, and stick to it.
• Inform attendees what the purpose/goal of the webinar is, what to expect and when and how to ask questions and participate in the webinar.
• Provide information on how to use equipment or services and how to get assistance if needed.
• Consider having another organizer help manage and monitor questions and answers.

• Encourage participation by using the Polling feature.
• End the webinar clearly. Make sure all the attendees know that the webinar is formally over and stay on the line to address any last questions.

Managing Audio

• If dialing in to the webinar using a telephone, avoid using cellular and cordless phones due to static. Use the phone handset or a headset instead of speakerphones to avoid background noise, tunnel effect and sentence clipping.
• If using a telephone, turn off your call waiting. The beep of a new call on another line can be heard by everyone.
• If using a telephone, avoid putting your phone on hold during the presentation. Your hold music will play into the conference call and make it impossible for other attendees to continue the webinar.
• If you find you are having a sound quality issue, hang up and dial back in (telephone) or check your mic and speaker devices (VoIP). Sometimes these problems clear themselves when the bad connection is terminated.
• If presenting, join the webinar from a location where there is little background noise.
• Introduce yourself when you begin speaking and ask your panelists to also identify themselves before speaking. Not everyone in the webinar may know everyone else's voice.

| Views: 14407 | Last Updated: Thu, May 16 2013 2:51 PM

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