Best Practices for Preparing and Hosting a Webinar

Table of Contents

Overview

Here are a few key ideas and areas of focus that can really help you as you prepare for your webinar. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list but can serve as a good starting point.

Create a Shared Document for Event Planning

Start this as early as possible when beginning to plan your event. Create a shared Word or OneNote document and then invite all the stakeholders and people who are helping plan the event to contribute. This document is so valuable for creating a unified and centralized place that can serve a the source of truth for all the preparations and decisions as the event develops.

Assigning Roles and Team Communication

The number of people involved can vary greatly between departments and type of event. The idea here is to identify and gain consensus on key roles and responsibilities so that everyone involved understands what they are responsible for. One key role to highlight is that of Producer. This may also be referred to as an event coordinator, program director or the like.

What Does a Producer Do?

At the highest level a producer is responsible for guiding an event from start to finish. They are connected to and involved with virtually all aspects for the event. They help plan, they gather resources, they connect people, they are able to conceptualize at a high level with stakeholders and bore down into the details support staff. A good producer makes it their business to know the answer to all the questions. If they don't know the answer themselves, they know who does and how to connect with that person.

During the event, the producer is the behind the scenes person running the event. They will oversee anyone joining the meeting, give directions to presenters, enable or disable participants mics or video, select the what content or presenter will be shown live, etc.

A Webinar license can only be assigned to one person. That person will need to create the webinar event in Zoom and will, by default, be the host. You should assign other members of your team to the role of Alternative Host. An alternative host has the same privileges as the host.

Be sure to assign your presenters, emcee, speakers, etc as a panelist.

Whenever possible, distribute and assign responsibilities to different members of your team:

host or alternative host - emcee, moderator, speaker
produce - manage the flow and order of events with a Runsheet (see just below), ensure everyone is ready, mics, camera, when they will speak or be on camera, etc.
someone to manage the Q&A - monitoring, vetting, and responding (optional) the questions, approving and pass them to the moderator
someone to manage the chat - hosts, alternative host, panelists, and any support staff who are in the zoom session can use chat to message various groups - ex. to "all panelists"

It can also be helpful to setup a channel in Teams where all your staff and support members can discuss and monitor the event in real time.

Creating a Runsheet

A runsheet is a critical document to have for helping your event proceed as planned. In it's simplest form, a runsheet is a schedule that lays out, in order, what is happening during your event and when it happens. A runsheet should be developed and flow out of the planning event document noted above. Naturally the producer should be the person who ensures that all parties have signed off on the runsheeet, have their own copy, and understand it's flow. The producer utilizes the runsheet leading up to and during the event to keep the event proceeding on time and in the correct order. They will ensure that each speaker or guest or piece of media to be displayed is ready and queued up before they are live.

Zoom Settings When Setting Up the Webinar

Here a few of the less obvious items to enable when setting up the webinar in Zoom:

enable practice session option so your team and presenters can join early to rehearse and make sure everyone is on the same page
if you plan to stream the webinar to another service like YouTube be sure to enable the custom streaming URL option
If you plan to make the webinar available later, make sure to click record to cloud before you begin the broadcast
for Q&A, enable attendees to view and upvote questions but disable the ability to comment on questions - this simplifies user interaction and keeps attention on your presenters
if your audience is actually viewing the event on Zoom (as opposed to viewing the live stream of it on YouTube or somewhere else) AND you want your panelists to be able to interact with the audience through chat, make sure the panelist change the "to" in the chat window to "all panelists and attendees"

Equipment and On Screen Presence

Currently SPU does not have an actively maintained or centralized repository of AV equipment to checkout. Both CIS and ETM can be available to advise on what type of equipment is suitable for your event and how you might procure such equipment. With that said, here are some general rules to consider:

external USB webcams and microphones will provide better image and sound quality than those integrated into a laptop, when possible these are preferable
elevate your webcam (either internal or external of your laptop) up off your desk so that it is more inline with your face/eyes
find an evenly, well lit room to broadcast from, generally more light is better
light sources that can be placed at eye or desk level are preferable to overhead lights only
broadcast from a room that is as quiet as possible, insulated from external noise like HVAC units, street traffic, and other people or conversations
do your best to always look directly into your webcam on not on the video image of yourself on your own screen, this will help your audience to better connect with you
consider having a simple list of your talking points within quick viewing distance to help you stay on point with the content you want to present