Webinar

What is a webinar?

A webinar is a live or previously recorded online lecture or event that uses presentations, discussions, and demonstrations to educate, engage, or train an audience. Support features like screen sharing, live audience polls, breakout rooms, and live messaging allow for a high level of interactivity, despite geographical distance separating participants. The most common webinar formats include live webinars, pre-recorded or on-demand webinars, and product demonstration webinars. 

Example: Our sales and marketing teams attended a live webinar presented by a communications expert to help foster better client relationships.  

Benefits of webinar training

Integral to modern corporate training initiatives, webinars offer a flexible and scalable learning environment that eliminates the need for costly travel and materials fees. Organizations with a global workforce find webinars especially ideal because of their capacity to deliver a uniform experience to a vast number of employees. Employees can either access webinars live or recorded versions on their own time. 

If accessed live, webinars facilitate audience interaction, enhancing engagement and knowledge retention. Instructors and hosts can implement live feedback from their online audience via quizzes, surveys, and polls, allowing for real-time adjustments to improve learner outcomes. 

Webinar best practices

As a webinar host, there are several basic best practices to follow for an effective learner experience. Begin by setting and sharing clear objectives with your audience, use interactivity as much as is necessary to engage your audience, and provide live technical support to ensure participants have a seamless experience. Always provide follow-up resources and links to covered materials, and ask for learner feedback to identify areas for improvement. 

What is a webinar platform? 

To host, manage, and deliver high-quality online seminars, learning and development departments typically rely on specialized webinar software. Most webinar platforms offer options to register and track attendees, customize content to match company branding, facilitate content sharing, and add interactive features like chat tools and surveys.