Your potential customers want to get to know you personally! There are various ways to do this: You can, of course, pick up the phone and call every person in your phone book at random, walk from house to house like a salesman and introduce yourself – or: You can hold a webinar online and easily reach many people at once without much effort: More reach and visibility for your online business!
In a webinar you can:
- Give your potential customers a feel for what makes your company tick,
- Present yourself authentically in your unmistakable way,
- Explain your vision and mission,
- Present your products,
- Answer questions,
- Building personal connections
- Organize challenges or workshops and much more!
Holding webinars – you need to do this:
- A good camera (either on your cell phone/tablet, your computer or an external device
- Adequate lighting: You can either use daylight for this – which is perfectly sufficient, especially during the day in summer – or daylight lamps. These are available in various designs and sizes. They provide a pleasant white light without a yellow tint.
- A good microphone. Make sure you test whether the microphone on your cell phone/computer is sufficient! If not, either get an external microphone or a headset with an integrated one!
- A stable internet connection so that you have a smooth transmission.
If you are planning to hold a webinar, you should definitely clarify these points in advance. Nothing will make your participants disappear faster than a bumpy internet connection or poor sound quality!
Holding webinars – where?
Once you have the necessary equipment, you still need a suitable platform to hold your webinar successfully. You have various options for this:
Holding free webinars with Lives
Instagram, Facebook and TikTok offer you the opportunity to go live easily and free of charge. This means you can easily reach your followers on these channels and don’t have to spend extra money on tools.
Holding webinars with Instagram Live
- In your Instagram account, click on the + sign at the top right and select “Live”.
- You can now either go live immediately or schedule your live in the calendar. You can schedule lives up to 3 months in advance
- Give your video a meaningful title so that your followers know what it’s about!
- You can then share your planned live in your feed as a post or as a story and your followers can be reminded of it too! When creating your post, make sure that you also share it on Facebook.
- Share the link on other platforms to reach even more interested parties.
- You can then start the Live simply by pressing the record button.
- During the live, your followers can write comments or use emojis to express their support or opinion.
- Remember to share or download your Live to your device after the end if you want to keep it in your feed! Instagram doesn’t automatically share it there. You can also save your Live broadcasts automatically in your archive. To do this, activate the “Save Live broadcasts to archive” function in the Live settings.
- Do you already have an e-mail list? Then share your live link via newsletter with all your subscribers!
By the way: You can easily add co-hosts to Instagram Lives. You can use this very well for interviews, for example!
Holding Webinars with Facebook Live
You can also schedule your webinars as Facebook Live. You can do this either via your mobile/tablet or via the desktop. If you want to schedule your webinar via your cell phone, select “Live” on your page (click on the plus at the bottom) and then you can either go live directly or schedule your live (click on the calendar icon). Alternatively, you can also select the Live function in your profile. You can add a description here and also mark other people who will also be active in your Live, for example. You can also give the event a name and plan the date/time.
You can also activate the Q&A function on Facebook or invite guests to your live. Another very interesting tool here is the poll function, which you can use to prepare polls in advance and then play them during the live.
If you have various Facebook groups or other pages, you can also automatically share the live announcement there. To do this, select “Share in groups” or “Crossposting” under “Distribution”. You can also manage who can see and participate in your Live here. By default, your guests can also invite friends. However, this can also be deactivated if you are planning a live for certain people only. However, live videos organized by pages can only be posted publicly.
If you want to schedule your Live via the desktop, click on Live Video in your feed, on your page or in your profile. Another option is to click on “What are you doing right now?” and then select Live Video.
Holding Webinars with Tiktok Live
TikTok also offers you the opportunity to go live. However, you need at least 1000 followers to do this, otherwise you won’t have the function activated. Select Add post + at the bottom of your profile and tap on LIVE. You can then also add a title and select various filters and effects. When you are finished, tap on “Go LIVE”.
If you want to plan your Live, you can do this using the calendar function. To do this, go to the calendar icon and select “Create event”. Here you can select a title, date, time, duration and description of your live. As soon as TikTok has approved your event, you can link it to a video in which you promote the live or send invitations to your followers.
Not sure which of your social media channels you should hold your webinar on? Simple – use the channel on which you have the most followers! You can still promote your live on the other channels. Lives are a great way to interact with your target group quickly, easily and free of charge, conduct interviews or simply show your presence and increase your visibility and reach.
However, if you want to show presentations and have prepared a PowerPoint or similar, for example, or have a target group that is less active on social media, then tools such as Zoom are suitable. This allows you to create webinars and share your screen and links via the chat function, for example. This option is particularly suitable if you are planning a product launch, want people to register with you in advance to take part in the webinar (e.g. to collect contacts for your email list) or you want to explain presentations or infographics etc. In order to hold a Zoom webinar, you need a paid Zoom account in addition to the technology already discussed.
Conclusion: Hold webinars – increase visibility and retain customers
If you want to present yourself authentically to your target group, webinars and lives are particularly suitable. Your followers can “sniff” you out and ask you questions. This gives them a feel for what makes you tick and allows them to see your expertise for themselves. This is how you retain your customers and increase your visibility at the same time!
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With all tips even more detailed and with the 50 best online business niches for coaches and therapists with which you can start your online business immediately!
Good luck with starting your online business!
Be a lighthouse, not a tea light!
Yours JyotiMa