I wrote this list of best practices off the top of my head in response to a thread on Peregrine (a great forum for PMEL folks that you should join if you haven’t already!) The thread asked for inputs on running a webinar well since the OP had participated in several badly-run ones and was wondering why they were of such low quality.

My response got a lot of great feedback, so I thought I’d share it wider. What are your ‘best practices and lessons learned’? What mistakes have you seen people making in webinars beyond the usual ‘you’re muted, you need to turn on your camera’ debacle?

Great discussion. Been at the receiving end of terrible and excellent webinars, and as a facilitator myself, I like to think I avoid things like this! Here’s what I’ve found helpful and valuable for participants:

• Tech equipment for you and your team: make sure whoever is facilitating has a good mic and speaker system and a good camera on your computer. No one likes hearing feedback or garbled audio in a webinar.

• Make it clear whether simultaneous translation will be available, and show participants how to do this. If you are making any allowances for different abilities and access, make this clear. It’s always great to see this participatory approach in a webinar and could also lead to our sector making webinars more inclusive!

• Prepare a quality deck – with information, relevant insights, and your information. It’s a marketing and sales tool, so make sure links to your website are there somewhere!

• Share this deck with all participants afterwards. Not everyone can join all the webinars they register for or take notes at the pace at which you speak. It is selfish not to do this!

• Send an informative email before the webinar, with your aims, a rough outline of what will be covered, what participants can expect, and what you as the facilitator will give them.

• Also, send just one email with a registration link to add to their calendar and one reminder at most – no one wants to receive a dozen! I’m attending two webinars today, and I’ve received three messages about them so far just this week. Don’t annoy your participants!

• I would always keep the Q&A chat open. If it’s distracting for you, which makes sense, of course, ask a colleague or partner to co-facilitate. They can group questions by category and moderate them with you. It’s an excellent way to structure the webinar that way too. They can hear someone else’s voice and perspective.

• If the webinar is more than 2 hours long, always add a break of 10-15 minutes. We joined it to hear from you, so please give people time to rest, go to the bathroom, make a cup of tea, or absorb what they’ve heard!

• Personal preference: this is not your university lecture. We all know those who ask 15-minute long questions, with references and quoting Kant thrown in for good measure – don’t make your webinar like that! Provide space to get ideas from others, whether that’s a co-facilitator, interactive Q&As, or what have you. Be humble with what you share!

• Have a Jamboard, Miro, or other space for people to add their feedback.

• Share a post-webinar quick survey. You can do this within Zoom or add a thumbs up button to a follow-up email. Useful to collect this immediately after the session!

There are, of course, a lot more ideas, but I’m going off the last ten webinars I attended and my experience as a workshop provider. Exciting conversation!