How to host a webinar step by step

What is a webinar, and how is it different from a Zoom meeting or a live stream?

Webinar vs meeting comes down to who holds the microphone. In a meeting everyone can talk, share a screen and turn on a camera. In a webinar the hosts and speakers present, and the audience joins in through chat, questions and polls; Zoom, for example, puts attendees in listen-only mode. A live stream is usually open to anyone with the link.

A webinar is also called an online seminar, while an online conference usually has several speakers and several sessions in a row. A hybrid event has an audience in a room and online at the same time. Broadcasting an in-person or hybrid event is a different job, covered in the guide to live streaming an event.

Which webinar platform should you choose?

Features, plans, prices and audience limits change often. The table lists what each platform is good for and what to check on its own page before you decide.

Without buying a licence, you can stream on YouTube Live, which is built into a YouTube channel, or use a meeting tool's free plan. Zoom's free Basic plan, for example, allows meetings of up to 40 minutes with up to 100 participants, without registration or polls. If you need registration and questions from the audience, check what the free plan allows.

How do you prepare a webinar step by step?

1. Choose a narrow topic with one promise: one problem, one result.
2. Pick a date and time: a weekday slot your audience can attend, in their time zone. If the audience is abroad, give Riga time as well as theirs. Plan about an hour, questions included.
3. Open registration on the platform's own form, with the title, the date and what people will learn.
4. Send reminders the day before and shortly before the start.
5. Make the slides: one idea per slide, large text and a number on each, so people can refer to them in their questions.
6. Write a run sheet, like the one in the table below.
7. Agree the roles: host, speaker, moderator and, for a large audience, someone for the tech.
8. Rehearse on the same platform, with the same slides and devices, a few days before.
9. On the day, use a wired internet connection, have the charger, headphones, microphone and light ready, and turn notifications off.

For delivery, see the guide to speaking on camera. If a meeting tool is not enough and you want prepared scenes, with slides, a camera and titles switched at a click, see the guide to OBS Studio settings.

How do you keep a webinar audience engaged?

• run a poll in the first minutes;
• set points in the run sheet where you take questions from the chat;
• let the moderator group the questions and read them out;
• use people's names when you answer;
• keep your face on screen next to the slides;
• change something every few minutes: a question, a demo, a poll;
• never read the slides aloud.

How do you record a webinar and reuse the recording?

The simplest way to record a webinar is the platform's own recording: it captures the slides you share on screen along with the sound. Zoom's computer recording saves the session to the host's computer, or to that of a participant the host allows to record, on free and paid accounts. In Teams the recording is saved to OneDrive or SharePoint, and everyone in the meeting is notified that it has started. Google Meet does not record a live stream automatically, so start and stop the recording yourself. For a copy of your own, record the screen and sound with OBS, as the OBS guide above describes. Say at the start that the session is recorded.

After the webinar:

• trim the start and the end, cut the technical pauses, and add chapters and captions;
• send the recording to everyone who registered within a day or two.

A good recording stays useful long after the day:

• as a module of a course, as the guide to recording an online course explains;
• as an article or show notes written from the transcript, which the guide to turning audio into text helps you get;
• as short clips for social media.

Should you host a webinar from home or from a studio?

Home is fine for a small internal webinar if you have a good microphone, light facing you and a wired connection. A studio pays off when:

• the audience is paying, or the webinar is public;
• the recording will be reused as a course;
• several speakers share one room;
• the event is broadcast live with switching between cameras.

Recording a webinar or a course in our studio in Riga costs from €310 and includes the studio, light, sound, an operator, a teleprompter and basic editing; you bring the text and the presentation. Running it live is a separate service, live streaming, which costs from €320 for the first hour, then €70/h.

What goes on the webinar checklist for the day?

The day before

• send the reminder;
• make the slides final;
• share the run sheet with the moderator.

An hour before

• plug in the network cable;
• restart the computer;
• turn notifications off;
• put water on the desk.

Ten minutes before

• join as host;
• test the sound with the moderator;
• have the first poll ready to launch.

During the webinar

• the moderator watches the chat and the time.

After

• stop the recording;
• send it to the registrants with the slides;
• read the feedback.