Some Lessons Learned from presenting Live Webinars over Google Hangouts

I recently conducted a live Webinar to over 250 people using WebinarJam Studio.

WebinarJam Studio is an online software that makes it easier to conduct webinars via Google Hangouts. It means you get all the scalability and flexibility of Google Hangouts, without all the hassle.

• Easy to gather emails to register for the webinar
• Automated reminders to people joining the webinar
• Easy to use chat system

WebinarJam is great, I've been using it for over a year now, and I try not to use Google Hangouts without it.

For this webinar, I was going to be broadcasting  to a lot of people direct to their office and computer so the normal WebinarJam registration process would handle that.

But I was also going to be broadcasting live to 4 different conference rooms in four different cities. i.e. a user group, spread over 4 different cities. Where each room would have 50+ people in it and watching and interacting with me live on a big screen.

To do this, I made one person in each room an admin on the WebinarJam webinar. That person then connected to the webinar as an admin so their webcam was pointing at the room full of people.

Lesson Learned: Have a trial run of any webinar with new admins.

I've done a few webinars now, and I always make sure that I have a test webinar a few days before the actual webinar with the admins of the webinar.

Even if we have done it before, it helps make sure that all our browsers are up to date, our webcams and microphones are working, etc. etc. Because computers change. Browser versions change. And you don't want any unexpected nonsense on the day of the Webinar.

Lesson Learned: During Q&A Just Nod

Normally with Google Hangout webinars, the admins don't experience any lag. There is usually a delay for anyone watching at home, because the webinar is streaming over youtube.

But I learned, during the Q&A session, that when someone is asking a question I have to do a slightly unnatural interaction and keep completely quiet. If I "um" or "yes" or "uhhu" as the person is asking their question then it breaks the flow of the webinar audio. 

So now, when someone is asking a question, I nod, smile and offer visual feedback that I can hear them. But no audio during the asking of the question.

Lesson Learned: Gaps are OK

I had a slight cold when I was presenting and needed to drink water during the webinar. I noticed on the recording that I rushed the drinking and started to speak too quickly after drinking so I hadn't fully processed the drink.

I only noticed this on the recording, so I wasn't able to change my behavior live.

The gap, was not too long on the webinar. I could have taken more time.

For the replay recording I edited out these gaps anyway, so for longer term playback it doesn't matter. So remember to take the time you need.