Webinars are among the most effective lead nurturing strategies out there: they let you demonstrate your authority while connecting with your audience in direct conversation. Successful webinars usually end with lots of qualified leads, and even sales if you pitch your product or service at the end.
The question is: how do you actually host a webinar? There are various online conference tools, but most of them are intended for large businesses and have a premium price tag. But you don’t need to invest in expensive business tools which you will not use frequently enough to recoup your investment. You already have a powerful broadcasting platform: Facebook™.
Streaming Webinars on Facebook™ Live—a Few Things you Need to Know
Before we go in depth with the explanations, there are a few things you need to remember. First of all, Facebook™ can be unpredictable in Live videos performance. The image will freeze every now and then, and the sound and image can go out of phase—this is annoying for the audience. But there is little you can do except to ensure that you have a good and stable internet connection.
Secondly, you will not be able to monetise your webinar. However, if you are at the beginning of your entrepreneurial endeavours, you will probably not be able to demand money for webinar attendance anyways. First you have to prove your skill and build your authority, and then you may ask for a webinar fee.
Last, but not least, you will not be able to capture the email addresses of your webinar participants. To counterbalance this downside, you can create a custom audience on Facebook™ consisting of these participants and include them in a retargeting ad campaign.
Now, let’s show you how you can stream your webinar on Facebook Live™.
- Select Your Streaming Software
A webinar cannot be streamed directly from your mobile phone. You will need to share your computer screen and show your participants graphs, charts and even demonstrate things step by step.
For this reason, you will need to use screen capture and streaming software. You can pick between:
- Zoom Webinar—this tool allows you to create an online conference room, invite participants and stream the event live on Facebook™. Attention! This tool does not allow you to preview your broadcast, so make sure that everything is working fine and you are ready to start the webinar as soon as you click on the “Live on Facebook” button. The entry level Zoom Webinar package costs $54.99.
- BlueJeans onSocial—this streaming platform works in a similar manner to Zoom Webinar above, with the added benefit that you can preview your broadcast before actually going Live on Facebook™. Pricing starts at $39.95.
- HopLive—if you are looking for a free screen capture and streaming tool, HopLive is the right choice. This tool simply broadcasts your computer screen to Facebook™, so you cannot have extra participants apart from your Facebook™ audience, as you can with the two other options.
- BeLive—this free screen capture and streaming tool has a very useful feature: it brings all the comments made by participants on your Facebook™ Live session into its interface. Thus, you can click through your computer presentation and answer comments without having to work at the same time on your computer and mobile phone.
- Prepare Your Webinar Carefully
As you have seen in the explanations above, some streaming tools will not allow you a preview of your broadcast. Even if you have this feature available, before you start the software, make sure that you have a clear webinar plan at hand: introduction, order of presentation, conclusion, etc. Check your slide presentation or the other materials you will use in the webinar and make sure they are complete and there are no typos in them (your participants will actually see your computer screen).
- Train Your Voice
Our voices sound very different on a recording or broadcast than we hear them in our head. This is why you need to make a few audio recordings before you start a webinar, and adapt your voice pitch and volume to make them pleasant to listen to.
Last but not least, make sure that you will not be disturbed during the webinar by noises, people entering the room or your mobile phone ringing.