How StreamAlive kept a webinar audience hooked for 90 minutes
The latest news from StreamAlive and the world of online, offline, and hybrid live events.
Hi there!
Before we get into this week’s newsletter, don’t forget to register for the upcoming workshop on how to run webinars so interesting that your audience will be begging you to extend it on September 20th at 12 noon EST | 9:30 pm IST.
If you ever wondered how to make your webinars more interesting, then this workshop is for you. It combines everything we’ve learned from running our own webinars and speaking to creators, coaches, facilitators, and marketers on what makes a webinar successful.
There will be a recording so if you can’t make it, we’ll send you the recording afterwards (register for the recording).
How do you run a webinar so interesting that people choose to stay on for an extra 30 minutes and make them sad to see it end?
Getting people to register for a webinar is one thing.
Getting them to attend is another.
Getting them to stay on for the entire duration takes some next-level skills to keep them engaged.
(There’s probably a meme in the sentences above!)
However, that’s exactly what Manish and Abhishek did in our webinar last week: How to build an online audience.
The graph below shows how attendance at this webinar changed over time.
Attendance peaked at 221 in the first 15 minutes and at the end of 60 minutes, we still had an incredible 85% of the audience tuned in.
At one point the webinar was getting 360 comments per minute!
By popular demand, we had to extend the webinar by another 30 minutes and people were still glued to their seats to see what Manish and Abhishek had to say.
Two reasons people stayed in this webinar and blew up the chat box with their comments
The first is the content. Manish and Abhishek are experts at content creation and building an online audience. The attendees were very keen to hear what they had to say.
The second is that people felt like they were being heard. They were an active part of the webinar and their comments were helping to drive the conversation.
It starts by breaking the ice.
In our case, we asked where people were joining us from and what they hoped to get out of the webinar.
Aside from helping the audience realize that this was not another borinar, it helped give Manish and Abhishek some direction on what people wanted to learn in the session.
We also asked people to let us know their challenges with building an online audience.
We used our spinner wheel to pick three people who told us about their challenges to win a one-on-one session with Manish and Abhishek!
But the event wasn’t all plain sailing…
Dealing with trolls in your live sessions
Unfortunately, trolls are a fact of life for anyone building an online audience and we experienced our first trolling in a webinar.
A couple of users decided to start spamming the comments during the audience interactions, impacting the enjoyment of others.
Fortunately for the audience, StreamAlive allows the host to simply remove comments from counting towards certain interactions.
In this case, we were able to delete a spammed emoji from the Emoji’s Everywhere interaction where the audience was letting us know what they thought of the session.
Take that, webinar trolls!
You can run engaging sessions like this
On September 20th we’re running a live session on how to run exciting and engaging webinars that don’t bore your audience to death - even if you’re not lucky enough to have someone like Manish Pandey or Abhishek Ponia as your speakers!
Become an expert meeting and webinar facilitator - Breakthrough Facilitation
The run webinars, not borinars workshop above will give you a 60-minute insight on how to run better webinars.
However, if you’re serious about running the best webinars and meetings that you can, then you need to be looking at the Breakthrough Facilitation course by Gwyn Wansbrough.
It’s the only 5-week immersive online course that gives you step-by-step feedback, personalized support, and a proven framework that will save you time and stress in designing and leading your online meetings and events.
Gwyn is an advisor to StreamAlive and she’s our go-to for all things online facilitation and helped us create the amazing workshops featured above.
Gwyn has agreed to reserve a few spots and a special price for StreamAlive friends for her fall cohort from September 26 to October 26.
Check out the course information on her website breakthrough-facilitation.com. Email her at hello@breakthrough-facilitation.com if you want to claim your spot. Doors close for good on Sunday, September 24.
The Slide-Streaming & Livestreaming TL;DR
It’s been a busy week in the world of livestreaming and slide-streaming. Here’s a rundown of the stories we’ve been reading:
How to get the most out of Microsoft Teams webinars
The Microsoft Teams engineering team is hosting a series of webinars to help you get the most out of your Teams webinars. It’ll cover the technical aspects of running a webinar with Teams, promoting a webinar and how to share the livestream to other platforms.
Catch us on our social pages
If you haven’t already, check out our social media pages to stay updated on our quirky takes on the latest social media trends and the occasional piece of engagement-related advice.
All the best,
Lux and the StreamAlive team