What is a Webinar?

There are many people still asking the question “what is a webinar”?  So, we thought it an important post to discuss what webinars are, how to become involved in a webinar and how webinars work.

Webinars are a flexible, interactive and cost effective tool for communication, allowing people to conference or train together over the internet.  Webinars are also used to market and sell products or services.

Some of the main advantages of webinars are they have the ability to reach a larger audience, costs are reduced and participants are able to digitally record the event to enable future playback.

Where does the term Webinar come from?

For those who are interested the term “webinar” was coined last century – 1998 in fact, when Eric R Korb used the term to brand the online meeting service he created for his company.   The term webinar is short for “Web-based seminar”.  There have since been varying versions of the term “webinar” and among those commonly used are online workshops, online seminars, live meeting and web conferencing.

Join a Webinar

Since 1998 webinars are more commonplace, with people feeling more at ease when being invited to attend one.  All you need is a computer, internet access and a phone line for listening to any teleconference portions.

For those who have not yet received an invitation to attend a webinar, a good way to become familiar with one is to invite yourself!   There are a lot of free webinars to be found on the internet.  Often these are promotional webinars to market and sell products and if you do your research you can find one to join on a subject matter you enjoy.   Once you’ve booked your place on the webinar, set yourself up with a coffee (or tea) have some pen and paper at hand and along with some good quality earphones – join in.   Typically webinars are one-way from the speaker to the audience however some may include limited audience interaction.

Hosting a Webinar

If you want to host a webinar of your own, it is important to choose a company which can accommodate both your budget and your requirements.

Webinar hosts usually offer a variety of services such as programing, producing and delivering the webinar.  There are also different formats e.g.: live webinar, pre-recorded webinar or your webinar host can fully produce, present and moderate the webinar.  The latter is commonly used for people with limited public speaking experience.

If webinars sound like something you would like to do and if you are interested in having a webinar hosted, Keyword Intent are more than happy to discuss the best options with you.