CONDUCT ONLINE WEBINARS AND MEETINGS
USE TECHNOLOGY TO TRAIN AND EDUCATE A REMOTE WORKFORCE
Many company’s today have a large remote workforce. This can make it difficult to conduct live workshops whether it’s a morning workshop or a lunch and learn. You may want to consider holding your workshop as an online meeting or webinar. There are several options you can use to create online meetings and webinar. Let’s look at some of the options:
Adobe Connect
Adobe Connect offers web conferencing solutions for webinar, online meeting, video conferencing and virtual classroom.
https://www.adobe.com/products/adobeconnect.html
Zoom
Zoom is another online meeting and webinar platform that is easy to use and allows you to hold virtual meetings and webinars.
GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar
Another popular online meeting and webinar platform is GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar. This Citrix software offers an easy to use platform to conduct your online meetings with little set up time.
WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN ONLINE MEETING AND AN ONLINE WEBINAR?
Deciding whether to conduct an online virtual meeting or an online webinar will involve knowing which platform you are using. Let’s look at the differences:
ONLINE MEETING
An online meeting can be schedule through any of the above software platforms. When you set up an online meeting, you will create the event and then send an email to your attendees. Your attendees will need to accept the meeting request and then the software will add it to their calendar. The biggest challenge with doing an online meeting is sending out reminder emails. Online meetings are best for meetings with fewer than three attendees. Most online meeting platforms allow for video conferencing and provide audio integration that is not muted. If you are holding a meeting that has more than three attendees, you may be frustrated if an attendee decides to take a call during your meeting and does not mute their line. Online webinars are usually set at a default of having all attendees muted, so you will not have interruptions if someone decides to write a long email and you hear their key board humming along or their dog is barking in the back ground. Think about what type of meeting you will be holding and how many attendees you will have before you decide to hold an online meeting.
WEBINAR MEETING
The primary difference between an online meeting and a webinar has to deal with how attendees register. When you set up an online webinar meeting, you will set up a date and time for your webinar, add your headline and content and what information you want to collect from your attendees. Your webinar platform will then generate an online webinar invitation that you will email out to your attendees to invite them to your webinar. Attendees then register for the webinar and add the event to their calendar. Webinar platforms are typically integrated with follow up emails that will be sent to your attendees reminding them of your event. This is helpful because it takes over and follows up for you. When the date and time comes for your webinar, attendees simply click on the email link that is sent to them from the webinar platform and then they are in the meeting. You can set up the webinar to either have attendees muted upon sign in or live with their audio. If you want to unmute attendees to ask questions, they simply raise their hand to let you know they have a question and you then unmute them or they can type in questions. The primary benefit to using webinar settings for your online meetings has to deal with ease of registration and reminders. It will also give you an attendee list that you can follow up with and market to in the future. If attendees are not able to attend the webinar, you will know that they did not attend, and you can follow up with them with the information they missed during your meeting.