Does Your Webinar Audience Hate You?

Here are some random tweets showing up right now on a filter search for “Webinar”:

• Waiting, waiting, waiting for webinar to begin…
  [ed: Written at 11 minutes after the hour]
• Shiny objects are distracting me during this webinar… SQUIRREL! BIRD!
• BS detection mode on. Another webinar…
• Why didn’t they invent a web2.0inar? Webinar just sounds sooooooooo one-way. Consumers want conversations 🙁
• “Going” to another Webinar today. Turns out these things are pretty informative 

Are your attendees among the 20% writing something positive? Or are they among the 80% expressing their frustration?

You can help improve your odds by standing out from the crowd with a webinar that doesn’t suck. Most of the negative tweets above could have been avoided by making a commitment to addressing the audience’s expectations and needs rather than the host’s.

• If audience members make the effort to show up on time, couldn’t you reward them by starting when you said you would? Or do you choose to reward the latecomers?
• Are you droning on and declaiming a bunch of bullet points? Or are you inviting your participants to actually participate? Are you encouraging and acknowledging their questions and comments? Are you challenging them mentally and getting them to actively think about the material? Are you radiating interest in your own subject matter? Are you using presentation “tricks” to constantly recapture attention?
• Are you promising one thing and delivering another? Are you advertising informational content and training, but actually presenting a pitch for your products and services? Is it obvious that the webinar is for your benefit rather than your audience’s?
• Are you using interactive features to stimulate two-way conversations? Are you speaking to audience members as individuals rather than as a nameless, faceless crowd? Are you using polls as a jumping off point for discussion, or are you just adding them because someone told you to?

If you develop a reputation for respecting your audience and providing value, you just might make people want to attend more of your “pretty informative” webinars. The choice is entirely yours.