Anyone can give a webinar now, but can you really rock one?

Let me start with a confession, I was one those people who was late embracing the webinar. My attitude was attend them when I had to and only host them if I must. Then suddenly I realized I was starting to see some value in those webinars. So what changed? Technology for one thing.  There are now many reliable platforms and user friendly dashboards to take the angst out of webinar logistics. The turning point for me was last year when I had such a great time putting together the Twitter webinar with Adi Ferrara along with the help of Andrew Buskey from AMWA headquarters. So much so that I decided to attend the open session on developing, designing, and executing a webinar by Ruwaida Vakil at our Memphis AMWA conference. What a valuable session that was for me. I left there armed with useful knowledge that helped me make great decisions for using webinars with client projects this year. That was the first hurdle I had to overcome and if you are at that point with webinars now, Ruwaida has a great online webinar available on demand at Beacon Live that can quickly get you up to speed.

Webinars have really grown these past few years and according to B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks they are now tied with video as the 3rd most effective means of marketing today. More and more people are conducting them, but are they doing them effectively? That is why I was so pleased to see a follow-up session by Ruwaida (OS39- How to Make Your Webinar Relevant, Impactful and Memorable) on this year’s AMWA conference program. Last year’s session was a great hands on exercise in getting the session audience comfortable with executing a webinar. This year Ruwaida is promising a session helping speakers to make their webinars more effective by being more impactful. A common misconception for many people is that webinars are the same as public speaking. Ruwaida points out for a webinar to be a success, there is a need to translate the oral presentation into an online presentation and that there are tools and technology that help enable that translation to be successful.

In this session Ruwaida will be presenting the six key components she feels are essential in order for a speaker to assure their webinar will be relevant, impactful and memorable. If you still are not convinced of the value of webinars check out Ryan Parker’s 14 reasons why you should be using webinars. You can also hear Ruwaida’s insights and perspectives on that topic in her on demand “content marketing with a webinar” presentation on youtube.  

As a freelancer I have learned to appreciate the roles critical content and visual marketing have played in my success. Ruwaida feels strongly that webinars are wasted when treated as a sales presentation and her goal is to show this session audience how to use a webinar as an effective educational tool that will help establish a person’s credentials as the content/subject matter expert. Establishing those credentials is an important step in building your brand. Ruwaida’s session OS39- How to Make Your Webinar Relevant, Impactful and Memorable is scheduled for Saturday, October 3 at 4PM. Be sure to check the AMWA Program Brochure for additional information on this session and for other sessions that may be of interest to you as well. 

Additional webinar related sessions at this year’s AMWA Annual Conference Sept 30 – Oct 3 in San Antonio, TX include:

Roundtables

T-04 So You Want to Do a Webinar?

Open Sessions

OS–31 Beyond the Box: New and Money Making Strategies for Freelancers

Don’t forget to join the Twitter conversation and follow AMWA at @AmMedWriters and use #AMWA2015 to keep up with as well as to share the conference events.

-Larry Lynam, 2015 AMWA Conference Committee

@scopedbylarry