Webinar Wire

Ricky Nelson On Webinars

Posted by Ken Molay September 16 2008 12:30 AM EST

"You can't please everyone, so you gotta please yourself."

In addition to coming from a really good song, this advice holds true when looking at a few choices in the world of webinars.

The first is the decision on whether to let the audience see comments and questions typed in by other participants. You will not please everyone no matter which way you go. You might as well make the choice based on your own priorities.

Opening up the chat so everyone can see it creates a sense of community and a shared experience. It tends to stimulate more interaction from audience members. And it makes you seem fearless and open in your approach. Good stuff.

Unfortunately there are just as many drawbacks. People might write nasty things about you or other participants. I have seen competitors advertise their services or products to the audience. Participants can get sidetracked on a discussion, attempting to answer each others' questions and debating about the contributions. You can't pretend a question did or did not come in to suit your preferences on what to address in Q&A.

My default preferences are to open the Q&A when holding a team-based collaborative web conference. I make it private when presenting a lecture or primarily one-way presentation to a large audience. And yes, there are exceptions to both scenarios.

Another no-win choice is whether to extend a Q&A session past your announced webinar end time. If you are lucky enough to have a lot of action and interest from the crowd, the questions may keep coming in as you approach the scheduled cut off. If you keep up the momentum and extend your session, someone will complain that they had to leave and missed something interesting. If you stop on time, someone will complain that you didn't answer their question and that they feel slighted or that you are being evasive.

In a small audience web conference, why not survey the participants? Find out if they want to continue. If warranted, go ahead and extend your time. In a large group presentation (especially marketing/promotional webinars), I prefer to stop when promised. If possible, let your audience know that you will follow through and answer questions you couldn't get to in the session, either in a public forum or privately. Then make sure to do it!

The key to making this more palatable to your audience is to explain that you recognize and appreciate their interest but you also recognize the value of their time and other demands in their work day.

Ricky knew what he was talking about.