We just presented our first webinar at Bootstrap, which was a successful endeavor given our expertise at executing webinars for our customers. Using our very own best practices, we hosted our webinar “Catch the Big Data Wave” yesterday, November 14th, 2012. We want to share with you three must use strategies that will also bring you closer to the engagement results you want for your webinar. If you ever need more help, we are just a call away!

1. Include The Engagement Factor! Keep the audience engaged even before the webinar beings. You don’t want to lose your audience’s attention before the event starts. There are small tricks you can do to insure that they will stay online.

• Go on air every 30 seconds and thank your attendees for staying online and waiting for the webinar to begin.
• Announce the countdown for the start time.
•  Include a rotation of a couple moving slides. Use slides that emphasize the content of the webinar, include technical support for the webinarand about your company and products.

2. Use Graphics! I can’t stress this enough. People are visual and need to be entertained both with the information given and the visualization of that information. As we conducted our webinar, I kept a close comparison of when the majority of the attendees had their webinar screens open or closed. The attendees were most engaged when we were showing an interesting and informational graphic. Don’t underestimate the importance of creating or finding a good graphic.

3. Poll Questions and Keep Results Honest! Everyone knows to use poll questions and to use them often. But, everyone also knows that it doesn’t always work. We experienced this yesterday. Not everyone participated in the polling questions. However, when we relayed the results of the polls, those attendees that did not have their webinar screens open quickly reopened their screens. Don’t insult your audience’s intelligence. Keep the Q&A and poll questions honest. Not only will this increase their engagement, but you will also increase your credibility with them.

Need help keeping your Webinar audience engaged? We are here to help you keep your  presentation engaging and informative.