39. Webinar/Webcast

What it is:

Take a slide presentation and put it online: that's the essence of the webinar (slides and audio) or webcast (slides, audio and video). Visually, the content is delivered slide by slide in the online equivalent of a live presentation. The audio component can be delivered via telephone or computer. A webinar generally refers to slides and audio only.  A webcast usually involves video.

A cool tool for:

• Internal presentations across geographic boundaries
• Attracting attendees without imposing travel expenses
• Complementing fixed content with interactive Q&A

Not so hot for:

• Organizations that would struggle to find or build an audience (consider co-branding with a media company)
• Entertaining (think informative and helpful)
• Sharing simple information that could be packaged in a data sheet or other less-imposing forms

CROWNPEAK
	CrownPeak takes the lead with informative webinars such as Online Marketing Revolves Around Content: When Content IS Marketing, featuring Joe Pulizzi of Junta42, Rob Rose of CrownPeak and Ellis Booker, editor of BtoB Magazine and Media Business.

3 key play points:

1. Webinars make an excellent call-to-action or follow up offer to other forms of content, such as ebooks, white papers, enewsletters, etc.
2. You benefit twice: first, from the live webcast, then from the people who download the archived event. According to Penton Media, Inc., about 80% of total registrations to a webinar attend the live or archived event over a six month period
3. A successful webinar requires an aggressive promotions strategy, typically via your website, blog, newsletter and other media or social media channels

Bonus Links:

• The Anatomy of Building a Webcast Schedule from American Machinist
  
•  A Full Listing of Webinar/Webcasting Tools from Social Source Commons
  

Chapter 38 - Online Publishing Center

Chapter 40 - Road Show