10 Ways to Increase Webinar Engagement in the Era of Zoom Overload

Professionals who spend their entire workdays on Zoom calls are starting to glaze over when it comes to “yet another webinar.” Organizations need to redesign the experience to make it more meaningful and interactive for their audience. 

Here are 10 tips that will help you design a virtual meeting or webinar that your audiences will find fascinating, energizing, and valuable. And one they won’t drop off half way through.

1. Welcome people when they join

As people begin to join, have the moderator on the line to say hello and welcome people. (“I see the team from Company X has just joined, welcome”). Designate people on your team to reach out to individuals they know over chat to get the conversation rolling. 

2. Consider playing music before the call begins

We’ve all joined webinars early and found ourselves staring at a slide in silence. Not very engaging. Playing music can work well. The right music can help you make an emotional connection with your audience and set the right tone. Some companies have even invited musicians to play live. Other options include using humor or beautiful imagery to make that emotional connection leading up to the start time.

3. Open with an icebreaker

Help your participants jump right into the action with a quick activity. You can ask the audience a simple question like “where are you from?” or “what’s your industry?” Or you could plan a fun and casual icebreaker activity, such as placing an image of abstract art on the screen and asking your audience to share their perspective on the piece. You could spark conversations between the attendees of your meeting by asking them to share in the chat  “what brought you to this meeting” or “ if you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be and why?” 

4. Have multiple speakers

Listening to a lone voice for an extended period of time can be boring.  A 2017 educational report found that dialogue between multiple speakers is more engaging than a monologue. Attendees find value in hearing different perspectives. And each time you shift speakers, you pull listener attention back in. One suggestion to consider in your planning phase is to have your second speaker be a customer or expert in a similar role to your audience.

5. Make frequent media changes

People get bored fast. Watching talking heads on a computer for an hour is not very engaging. According to a study by Microsoft a few years ago, the average human attention span is 8 seconds. In addition to speaker changes, shifting forms of media every three minutes or so can help. Speak and discuss for a few minutes, then show a PowerPoint slide, offer a short video, and then take a poll. Switching things up like this will keep the audience engaged; just don’t take it too far to avoid confusion.

6. Be smart about slides

Good slides can’t make a great virtual session, but bad slides can sure ruin one. If you use slides, the slide deck should back up the points you make, not be a script you read. Make sure the slides are light on text but heavy with imagery.

Use infographics, photos, charts, visualized data of all kinds. Keep the style of each slide consistent and on-brand, and cite sources. Try to display an average of three slides per minute. This quick pace allows viewers to retain information and avoid boredom.

If you do plan to use slides, be sure to include some non-slide segments. You can engage your audience with 3-4 slides at a time, then switch over to face-to-face dialogue, then back to slides.

7. Let the audience pick topics

It’s possible to incorporate this into an entry poll, but questions can be asked at any time during a webinar to ensure viewers can get the most value out of the presentation. You could say, “Now we can either dive deep into this industry example, or we can move on to cover the next topic,” and then let people indicate their preference through a poll, the chat, or raising a hand. This requires presenters to be more flexible, but it can increase engagement significantly.

8. Flip the experience

“Flipped” classroom environments where learners speak more and teachers become guides or coaches, rather than presenters, have been proven to drive higher engagement in education settings. According to Adesina Media, having webinar participants read up on the topic before coming in allows for more meaningful and engaging discussions. The session can dive right into asking people to share their thinking/examples first. Think more roundtable or panel discussion vs. formal presentation. 

Breakout rooms are one way to increase audience participation, even with fairly large groups. We recommend you assign a facilitator for each breakout, have clear directions for what people need to do once they are in the breakout room, and have  a plan for how the discussion will be captured and shared back.

9. Offer incentives for participation

Professor Colleen Cunningham of London Business School wrote that the most engaging webinar she attended offered a prize at the end for one lucky viewer. You could offer a prize to each person who answers a question from the speaker(s) or to the person who asked the best question. 

When deciding on incentives, think of ways you further the audience’s relationship and connection with your organization. It could be branded merchandise, free consulting hours, or even a free online course. 

10. Mind the chat

Comments and the chat are gold mines for audience engagement in a webinar. We recommend assigning 1-2 people on your team to relay chat questions to the speaker. One of our clients uses a shared online doc to paste in and track questions from the chat in priority order to make it easier for the facilitator. You can also assign others to directly engage and respond to your audience. For example, your relationship managers can message your VIPs privately through the chat and thank them for joining.

Consider allowing viewers to submit questions throughout the webinar. Displaying the attendees’ questions on the screen while answering them is also an excellent touch for engagement. You can spotlight attendees asking questions by calling out their names when you respond to them. And if you can’t get to everyone, try to thank people for their questions -- then be sure to circle back with them afterward.