How to Prepare for a Webinar: Tips for a Speaker

One of the most common questions today is how to develop yourself. This raises another question about education or training and what outcome it will lead to. Much depends on who the speaker is and how he prepares. So, what should a speaker pay attention to when preparing for a webinar?

What are webinars?

Let's start with the essentials. A webinar is an event held on the Internet - a remote video conference that involves one or more speakers presenting information on a topic in front of a large audience. To do this, the organizers of the online seminar use sound, video and other means of presenting information, explaining it and providing visibility for the audience. Another frequent element of a webinar is various kinds of questionnaires.

Its features

Several features distinguish webinars from other types of video conferencing. The main one is the process of communication - it is monologic in nature, assuming that one or more people are talking, and everyone else is listening. In addition, webinars have the following characteristics:

• communication takes place via video, audio and text channels;
• webinars are convenient for presentations, including for sharing visual content or a visual aid;
• having questions to help interact and clarify how the audience understands the information.

Webinars can be streamed live or pre-recorded. In the first case, participants can ask questions or give feedback to the speaker. The second case makes this impossible, but allows you to review fragments or the entire webinar.

Its advantages

The webinar provides benefits that other lectures do not have. The main ones include:

• independent - can be conducted by experts and, depending on who organizes them, closed or open;
• universal - webinars are just a form that can be filled out on any topic, from science-intensive to purely entertaining;
• flexible - events can be pre-recorded, conducted in real time or recorded during a live broadcast (this allows you to share and review it);
• separable - can be divided into several sessions if the topic is broad;
• modern - they differ from classical lectures in the use of many interactive elements to increase the visibility of the whole presentation.

You can add to this list, but the main idea is that webinars are a much more effective way to get information across to a large audience.

Skills required for an effective webinar

As we said before, the quality of a webinar depends on who is speaking. So, in order to achieve maximum productivity, the speaker must have the following skills:

• positivity - do not switch to sullen mumbling;
• articulation skills - speech features, plus sound equipment can give a slightly distorted sound, depending on the quality;
• the ability to monitor connectivity;
• speech skills - the use of intonation, volume, pauses;
• abstract thinking - to more clearly describe and explain things;
• charisma - makes people better remember the speaker and his material.

As a rule, some skills are optional depending on the topic being discussed. But if the speaker has it all, the webinar is likely to be successful.

Preparation: Tips for Webinars

To make your presentation more visual and understandable, you can use the following tips for webinar hosts:

• check the equipment - sound and video should be set up so that those present can hear you well and see everything that you want them to see;
• set up the right light - you must be in front of the light source;
• get information about the audience - information for those present, so be guided by what information they want to receive;
• prepare a presentation - make the text clearer, give examples in pictures, use diagrams, add video and interactive elements;
• write a plan or create a script to control time - during a conference it is easy to get lost in time;
• add cases to the presentation - this convinces you of the relevance of the material you present;
• think about your appearance - even web conferences require etiquette.

If you're new, using these webinar speaker tips will be helpful.

Why is it important to prepare well for a webinar?

Remember that the impression you make is just as important as the quality of the information you provide to people. Using the advice of speakers, you can improve your performance and build your reputation. To be an expert that is invited by business owners and companies of different levels, it is necessary to consider everything that can be considered and be flexible if something goes wrong. But good preparation allows you to avoid a maximum of unforeseen problems.

The bottom line is that a webinar speaker needs to take into account the basics, such as setting up devices and choosing an app for the webinar, and be prepared for other aspects to go wrong. The rest will help to cope with skills and stress resistance.