How to Execute a Successful Webcast
Site Inspection
There are many ways to produce an effective webcast. If you are producing a live webcast at a conference center or a hotel, for example, there are some very basic steps you must take in order to ensure you make the right call and don’t totally lose on your investment.
The key to a venue is to "know your location." A floor plan is not enough; it is always best to go to the site in person well in advance of the event, bring a laptop, and actually "test" the site for yourself. Ensure that your site can support the number of people in the room; also make sure that the space is conducive to a video webcast and has the network connectivity you will need to maintain a live video feed. Do not be afraid to say the venue just isn’t conducive to video.
The most important part of the site inspection is the walkthrough. This is precisely what it sounds like: You physically go to the site in which you plan to host the event, and go to the exact location where the speaker will be presenting with your handy checklist. Naturally, some points on The Walkthrough Checklist (see sidebar, p. 144) apply only to webcasts that include video.
Learn the Jargon
Communication during requirement gathering and estimating for an event is critical, and preparation for effective communication during the event is just as important. You can’t ask for something if you don’t know what it is called. During the event, make sure you have someone in charge of "calling the show" who understands not just what is important "in the house" during the event but also what is critical for the webcast elements.
The stage manager needs to consider the flow and timing of the webcast experience. If no one is speaking or visible on camera, there should be some sort of music with a holding slide that indicates a break in the show, like a "standby" or "intermission" slide. I usually create a custom "countdown."
Equipment Check
Check all your equipment before you leave home base. If something goes wrong on-site, you need to be able to troubleshoot quickly. Diagram your event for the best product—save time and pride when it comes to a corporate webcast; ask what is going to result in a real, useable product for you or your client.
Other Elements of Best Practice Preparation
Prepare all your webcast elements in advance. Create a wizard with the correct filename, path, etc., for all the media that will be used for the event. At one webcast I actually had a manager override my best practices for slide preparation, fonts, animation, charts, and diagrams. Think about breaking the webcast into chapters, such as podcasts, syndication, case study, marketing, certification, etc. You need to make the archived webcast as useful as possible for users who access it after the fact.
When doing webcasts of conferences, keep in mind that breakout sessions don’t need to be webcast. As critical as delivering a strong webcast is, it’s also important, in cases where conference attendees paid thousands of dollars to be there, that they retain some greater value for their attendance than those who watch the webcast for free.
Provide guidelines to remind speakers that people are viewing the webcast and that they need to present themselves in a way that’s conducive to being seen and/or heard on the web. Here are some pointers to share with the speakers:
- Don’t wear stripes.
- Don’t rustle papers next to the podium microphone.
- Refer to the slide that you are speaking to by title and slide number (especially if it is an audio-only presentation that focuses on the slides and offers no video or slide components during the webcast).
Related Articles
New features make the already engaging Podium webcasting tool more useful.
31 Aug 2010