Webinar Attendees’ Reactions Are Now More Expressive Than Ever

Reactions with emojis during webinars have been a great way for webinar hosts to gauge their audience’s level of engagement during their webinar and understand what content is resonating.

Now, when users react to your presentation their emoji of choice will fly across the screen for the presenter and other attendees to see.

Here are a few FAQs about our Reaction Emoji update:

If I record the webinar will these emoji reactions be visible on the recording?

No. Only live attendees will see the emojis. You may want to keep that in mind while referencing these emojis during your presentation if you plan on posting the recording to your website or blog.

Can I turn this feature off?

Yes. In fact, the feature is off by default (for now). If you wish to use this feature you will need to turn it off using AnyMeeting’s webinar settings. 

Does the usage of emojis affect my webinar metrics?

This update makes no changes to your metrics. However, we believe it will entice attendees to use the feature more often so you may see a bump in engagement.

Is this like Facebook Live?

Sort of. Our goal at AnyMeeting is to deliver features that will drive engagement to help you give great webinars. As norms and features become ubiquitous we want to make sure we are on the forefront of delivering them to our customers and not lagging behind.

 

Want to try out the new feature? Fantastic, log into your account and schedule your next webinar. If you aren’t already an AnyMeeting customer, sign up for a free trial.

Feature Spotlight: Webinar Survey

A survey can be a very powerful tool; especially when paired with webinar service, like AnyMeeting, to boost your business or conduct your training sessions. Attendee feedback is essential when it comes to measuring ROI or gauging if your message was received. Moreover, it’s important to gain feedback after each of your webinars, so you can improve and evolve as a presenter, and determine the direction you’d like to go when it comes to future online presentations.

The easy-to-use and integrated AnyMeeting survey tool provides the opportunity to collect attendee demographics, gauge the performance of the webinar presenter, content, and technology, plus any other custom questions you may have for participants. Never used our survey tool? No problem. Here’s a step-by-step guide to get you started:

1. When setting up your meeting or event in the AnyMeeting app, you will be guided through the following 6 steps: Invitation, Registration, Survey, Preview, and Finish. Once you have provided basic information for your webinar invitation, you will have the option to create an attendee registration form, followed by a prompt to create a survey for your webinar audience.

2. The AnyMeeting survey form allows presenters to customize the following fields:

• Survey Header Text – Text to appear at the top of your survey, usually like an intro
• Standard Fields – Common fields like address, marketing information, and rating scale for the presentation
• Custom Fields – Allows you to add your own questions to the survey, with an option to score the custom questions as if it was a test.  
• Footer Text – Text to appear at the bottom of your survey, usually like a thank you
• Additional Options – Receiving email notifications every time someone fills out this survey, or providing a link for attendees to visit after the survey is completed. 

3. Once you have completed survey customization, you will be able to preview the survey, and if it’s good-to-go, simply click “Finish.” Keep in mind, your webinar attendees will be taken to your survey immediately following your webinar, but you also have the option to send the survey link to individuals manually — like in a follow-up email. 
4.  The results are in! Ready to check out your survey data? Locate the completed webinar in your Account Manager, and click the meeting header text to be taken to a “Meeting Details” page. Click the “Survey” tab to view survey data. From here, you have the option to view or edit the survey, and more importantly, export and download the data as a CSV file to create your own spreadsheet. Apply this information to help shape your next meeting, presentation, or training session. 

 

As a presenter, it’s important to keep your audience engaged, to know what they really thought of your presentation, and measure what they have learned. AnyMeeting’s survey feature empowers you to do just that, and it’s included with your Webinar Pro subscription — so be sure to take advantage of it!

For more information about AnyMeeting’s webinar service and robust features, visit www.anymeeting.com.

 

Top 5 Tools For Webinar Attendee Engagement

Does your webinar service provide the right tools for attendee engagement? The folks at AnyMeeting know that webinar attendee engagement is what drives an online presentation. That’s why AnyMeeting offers a variety of tools to facilitate awesome online presentations. Here are the top 5:

1. Handouts: A lasting impression with a compelling handout will further carry your message and brand. The AnyMeeting platform enables attendees to download your presentation and handouts directly during your webinar.
2. Polls: Engage attendees while gathering useful information. AnyMeeting’s polling feature allows you to gather information, increase engagement, and generate live insights related to your webinar topic.
3. Text chat: If attendees have questions or comments during your AnyMeeting webinar, they are able to communicate via text chat. This flow of communication between you and your attendees ensures engagement and encourages attendee participation.
4. Video: Whether you are video conferencing or presenting a YouTube clip during your AnyMeeting presentation, your attendees are sure to pay attention to dynamic visuals — versus a dry slide presentation.
5. Interact Feature: Audience members who are truly captivated will react to your presentation in real-time. AnyMeeting makes it easy for attendees to share those reactions — and  for presenters to assess engagement with the smart “Interact” feature. Interact icons include hand raising, thumbs-up for “Yes,” and requests like “Speed up” or “Slow down.”

When it all comes down to it, YOU hold the key to engaging your online presentation audience. The good news is, AnyMeeting provides an array of robust tools and dedicated support team to help make your webinar a real success. For more information about AnyMeeting, and its turnkey online meeting service, visit www.anymeeting.com.

Practice Makes Presenter

Webinars are an awesome tool for growing your business. You know this because you are here, reading about webinar best practices, like…practicing. Presenting your message effectively, with a guaranteed ROI, requires preparation beyond practicing your script in front of the mirror. Solid webinar preparation involves testing and getting to know the webinar platform’s features to gain a real sense of how your presentation will flow, and to shake off any nervous energy you may have prior to your webinar.

AnyMeeting knows that practice can make or break a great webinar, so it offers a convenient “Practice” feature for Webinar Pro plan customers, which allows you to rehearse your webinar up to one hour prior to scheduled start time.

While in “practice mode,” you can familiarize yourself with AnyMeeting’s robust webinar platform features like screen sharing, slide or document sharing, polling, recording, and more. Practicing your webinar is also a great way to collaborate with guest hosts — ensuring they are comfortable with the presentation before the webinar begins.

An effective webinar begins with preparation. When it comes to having the right tools for solid webinar presentations, AnyMeeting has you covered. For more information about how you can conduct webinars like a pro, visit www.anymeeting.com.

Freebinar Announces New Social Media Features to Increase Webinar Marketing Power for Small Businesses and Non-Profit Organizations

Update: Please note that AnyMeeting was known as Freebinar prior to 3/26/11. Blog posts prior to this date may still mention Freebinar. For more information, please review our blog post or FAQ’s.

Freebinar users can now create public profiles that integrate today’s top three social networks to promote upcoming and recorded webinars in one centralized space.

Huntington Beach, California, November 15, 2010 – Freebinar, the only free webinar service provider, announced this week that it has released new features: Freebinar profiles and social notifications.  With Freebinar profiles, meeting hosts can create a personalized page to display their upcoming and recorded webinars, as well as their Facebook Like Box, LinkedIn profile and Twitter streams. Social notifications provide Freebinar users the option of automatically promoting scheduled webinars on Facebook and Twitter.  The result of this integration is a powerful webinar promotional tool. “There are hundreds of new webinars created each day. Freebinar gives small businesses and non-profit organizations marketing tools to help them stand out from the rest of the pack,” said Costin Tuculescu, CEO of Freebinar.

Highlights of the new features include:

Freebinar Profiles

• Personalized Freebinar profile page
• Central location to list upcoming and recorded webinars
• Displays user’s LinkedIn profile, Facebook Like Box and Twitter stream
• Search Engine Optimized to build traffic to profile pages

Social Notifications

• Automatically promote live webinars with notifications on Facebook  and Twitter

In order to stay competitive, many small businesses are turning to social media to raise brand awareness. A recent study shows that the number of small businesses using social media is projected to grow by 13% in the next two years: with 82% using Facebook, 32% using LinkedIn and 30% using Twitter.¹ “With these new Freebinar features, small businesses and non-profit organizations have the ability to promote webinars easily and effectively without having to be an online marketing guru,” said Tuculescu.  “Our free webinar service now offers powerful marketing tools that even many paid providers such as GoToWebinar® and WebEx® do not have.”

¹ “The State of Small Business Report” by University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business, July 2010.

About Freebinar

Freebinar is a free web conferencing and webinar service created by Huntington Beach, California – based CosNet Inc., a web conferencing software developer and provider. Built on CosNet’s proven Software-as-a Service platform, Freebinar’s services exceed any other free webinar applications on the market. Webinar hosts can invite up to 150 attendees per meeting with no meeting-time restrictions. With free customer service, Freebinar is the best choice for businesses ready to hold an online meeting.  To learn more, visit www.freebinar.com.

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Webinar Whiz eNewsletter – May 2010

Update: Please note that AnyMeeting was known as Freebinar prior to 3/26/11. Blog posts prior to this date may still mention Freebinar. For more information, please review our blog post or FAQ’s.

Major Performance Upgrade Completed

Freebinar received a considerable infrastructure upgrade this past weekend. Hosted on new dedicated servers in a tier-1 data center, the Freebinar system is now much more stable and reliable.

The new Freebinar infrastructure will help keep your meetings running smoothly.

Maximum Reliability

Improved Stability

Enhanced System Performance

read more…

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Webinar Whiz Tip

Did you know it’s a best practice to use a wired internet connection when hosting a webinar?

Visit the WebinarWire blog to read what can happen when presenting a webinar on a wireless connection.

View our full list of Best Practices

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What’s New

Support Wiki

The new Freebinar Support Wiki contains information to help you become a Webinar Whiz. Up your game with helpful video tutorials and user guides.

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We’re Listening

Would you like to see new features such as VoIP and the ability to record webinars? Let us know by completing our short online survey.

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Communicate with Freebinar staff and other users on Facebook and Twitter .

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