Greetings from Barcelona☀️where we are celebrating 19-year-old “Carlitos” Alcaraz’s US Open Win🇪🇸🎾.
🙌Many thanks for reading The Quest. It was fantastic to see so many members of the Quest in the Breakthrough Facilitation demo session last week!
If you are joining for the first time, welcome to your weekly round-up of tips and insights to help you design and lead exceptional virtual sessions that your group members will love❤️.
Let’s jump right in!
🐟Leading an interactive webinar can feel like swimming in the dark.
You can’t tell if it was a piece of algae or the fin of a hungry barracuda that just brushed against your leg.
When it comes to webinars you are designing with a lot of unknowns:
👉You don’t know who or how many participants are going to show up to the live session (especially if you promise to share the replay).
👉When people join you don’t know how or if they intend to participate (or if they will turn their cameras off).
👉You have very little information about audience members (and what motivated them say yes to your webinar).
Not having this information makes preparing an interactive webinar even more difficult (and even scary 🐟!).
No wonder why so many people default to the “go-to” webinar format👇
- Present content & slides (50 mins)
- Q&A (10 mins)
I’ve seen this format time and time again. Maybe you have too?
The problem is that this kind of webinar design can leave participants feeling bored and uninspired.
When what you want is the opposite. You want your participants to pay attention, engage, and take action. That’s where adding interaction comes in.
Webinars are a powerful way to share your knowledge and skills with more people.
They help you to connect with and grow your audience so you can increase your impact. So it’s worth taking the time to do them well.
Adding interaction peaks your audience’s curiosity.
It taps into the knowledge of your group. And it gives you valuable information that gets you out of the murky waters of uncertainty so you can confidently lead a brilliant session.
🤔How can you shake up your next webinar and inspire your participants to take action?
That’s our Quest for this week🔎
🌐10 Ways to Shake Up Your Next Webinar and Inspire Your Participants to Take Action
1/ 👉Greet people by their name
Webinars can be big impersonal spaces. Using names makes participants feel seen and heard – especially in big groups. And it builds trust in you.
2/ 👉Start with 3 prompts
Most webinars start with 2 prompts: Your name, where you are calling in from
There’s a 3rd prompt that unlocks deeper interaction. It reveals how people feel about your topic.
Example: For a webinar on how to lead webinars (let’s get meta!) you could ask “what’s one word that describes how you feel about leading webinars.”
3/ 👉Narrate the chat
Narrating the chat switching communication from one way (you → audience) to two ways (you < – > audience). It attunes you to your participants. And it gets their voices heard.
4/ 👉Find out who’s in the room
Often you don’t know very much about your webinar participants before you go live. You can still learn about your group members even after the session starts. You can run polls and put prompts in the chat throughout the session.
Here are 4 valuable things to find out👇
👉Their motivation to join
👉Their comfort level with the topic
👉Their experience with the topic
👉Their biggest challenges with the topic
5/ 👉Make your topic relevant to your participants
Surprisingly few webinar leaders take the time to connect their content to the specific needs to the webinar group. That’s why their content comes off as generic and not relevant.
Tie your content back to the experience and challenges of your participants. Reference what people have shared in the chat.
6/ 👉Tap the knowledge in the group
You have knowledge to share. Your participants do too. (I can see you facilitators nodding your heads).
People feel frustrated when they have something to contribute, but no way to share. Inviting people to share their experience, favorite tools, and resources to honor their experience. And it allows participants to learn from each other.
7/ 👉Look for unscripted interaction
Webinar magic can happen in spontaneous moments of interaction.
This can be a humorous comment in the chat, a surprising insight, or a brilliant question.
Be on the lookout for these moments.
8/ 👉Help participants take action
Your participants will get value from your webinar if it helps them to take action and solve a problem.
The problem is that it can be hard for participants to know where to start. You can help them by giving them time to reflect on actions they can take with their new knowledge.
Example: when you finish your content piece, ask your participants to share one action they will take (in the chat).
9/ 👉Scatter the Q&A
So often you get to the end of your webinar. You open it up for questions. Only to hear nothing but awkward silence. The problem with waiting until the end is that people forget their questions. Or the moment has passed. And your participants are starting to think about their next meeting.
Fielding questions throughout the session helps clarify your participants’ doubts. And it also helps you to track what is (and is not) resonating with your participants.
10/ 👉Finish with insights
Most webinars end with a “thanks for coming out”. But after interactive webinars, your participants will be buzzing with ideas and insights. These can get lost if you end your session too abruptly.
Before you close ask your participants to share their biggest insight. This helps them focus their takeaways. And it helps you understand what value your participants got from the session.
💡How do you shake up your webinars?
💌Thanks for reading The Quest
I always love hearing your feedback and suggestions. Just hit reply to share your thoughts and ideas.
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Creatively yours,
