Five simple tips to increase webinar interaction

Hosting a webinar has many advantages, including more flexibility, fewer logistics, a larger audience, and time savings. However, engaging the audience remains a major challenge. Even when everyone is seated behind their screens, it can be difficult to capture their attention and encourage interaction. How can you promote interaction between online seminar participants? Here are five tips to make your webinar engaging and interactive.

Make the webinar interactive and engaging for the audience

Getting the audience involved is the key! Allow the audience to express themselves.

Registrants can intervene in writing via instant messaging or live chat, which is the most effective way to accomplish this. Make sure the videoconferencing platform you choose includes this feature.

Prepare your presentation beforehand to avoid running out of ideas. Plan out what questions you will ask the participants and when you will ask them.

You can implement the following questions or activities:

• Ask open-ended questions at the beginning of the meeting, such as: "What are your expectations of this webinar?", "How much do you know about the topic?"; "Where are you located?".
• Ask attendees what they think about a topic you have just discussed: "What are your thoughts? ";
• Invite them to respond with emojis;
• Request specific phrases from them. For example: "Write down [this expression] if ..."; "Write down [this expression] if you agree".

As comments come in, keep an eye on the thread and, most importantly, reply.

Conduct online surveys

It is easy for your audience to lose interest in your presentation if it becomes a monotonous and boring monologue behind a screen. Use polls to counteract this. These are great for making webinars more interactive. A survey is also a valuable tool for gathering information about your audience and what they expect. You can use them to adapt your products, if you have offers or services to market, or to personalize your future presentations.

What questions should be asked? The profile can be based on the participants' age, their position within the company (HR, communication, sales, management, etc.), or their location. In addition, you can ask them how they found out about the event or what criteria they use to choose a product (such as how much are you willing to pay? etc.).

The results should be displayed and shared with the participants at the end. As a result, they will be able to identify themselves and find commonalities.

It is not difficult to set up this type of tool. All you need is a webinar tool with a virtual survey option integrated, along with prepared questions and answers.

Provide fun content during the remote seminar

Wouldn't it be fun to include some fun quizzes to encourage more interaction? Audiences will appreciate it.

Start your interactive webinar with a quiz to test your audience's knowledge of a specific topic, related to your theme, of course.

The presentation can also cover topics that are discussed throughout. Participants should be informed at the beginning of the event to ensure its success. By doing this, you will ensure that they follow your presentation closely so that they can answer the questions correctly.

Who says game, says prizes! Prizes should be interesting for the winners, but also relevant to your business sector: free coaching, discount coupons, e-books, etc. Think outside the box!

Set up separate breakout groups for workshops

Some webinar platforms allow you to divide into small groups and meet in interactive rooms. The audience can be divided into breakout groups based on topics, for example.

This is a terrific way to make the virtual seminar more engaging, while also building cohesion and encouraging participation. People are generally more open to discussing issues in a small group.

Prepare a Q&A session

Make sure your program includes a question and answer session. So as not to disrupt the flow of the webinar, it is usually held at the end.

By doing so, the audience is able to ask questions directly and voice their concerns. Additionally, Q&A sessions allow the presenter to clarify points that were unclear or to resolve critical issues. By doing so, the presenter can ensure that participants are satisfied and make future interventions clearer and more effective.

There you go! A webinar should not be a one-way presentation with only you speaking. Interactive webinars have a double benefit. In addition to promoting engagement, it also provides you with useful information that can be used to improve your content. However, participation in these various animations should remain optional, regardless of how much you want to keep the audience engaged. Choosing a complete platform with many features will also make your job easier.

Using Lemon, you can host interactive webinars. You can interact effectively with your audience by using the tool's many options. Check out the platform now.

You can register for free. 🍋