Besides, a person might be great at addressing large crowds at a seminar, but can fall short when it comes to speaking in front of a virtual audience. To ensure that your speakers deliver the content effectively in your webinar, we’ve created some tips and tricks to employ.
Let’s dive in.
Who is a guest speaker?
A guest speaker is the person who is invited to speak at a particular event, which can be a webinar, in-person event, or any other event.
They are typically experts on a particular subject, with valuable insights to share about your webinar topic. The role of a guest speaker is primarily to address the participants with valuable content and provide them with a fresh perspective on the topic.
The goal behind inviting guest speakers is to bring credibility and expertise to the event, engage the audience and boost the value of the webinar.
The Importance of Guest Speakers in a Virtual Event
Guest speakers can play a crucial role in the success of an interactive webinar. They set the tone of the webinar and uplift the overall experience of the webinar attendees. And a great speaker is one who brings authenticity and credibility to your virtual event.
Here are some other benefits of inviting guest speakers to your webinars:
- Increases registrations: Bringing a reputed speaker to your webinar is a great way to draw larger audiences, as people tend to trust an event more if the guest speaker is someone they look up to.
- Brings expertise and insights: A speaker with extensive knowledge about a particular subject matter can bring valuable insights and help create an in-depth understanding of the topic.
- Boosts audience engagement: Guest speakers, with their unique presentation styles, storytelling techniques, and interactive approach, can add excitement and variety to the webinar, boosting the overall engagement levels.
- Expands reach and networking opportunities: Inviting renowned guest speakers gives you access to a larger audience. Reputed guest speakers have their own followers and networks, and when they promote your event in their circles, you could enjoy a larger turnout.
How to prepare your guest speakers for your webinar?
To ensure that your guest speakers deliver their speech and engage your webinar attendees effectively, here are some tips to consider:
Schedule a handshake call with all speakers
In case you are inviting a panel of experts, or multiple speakers for your webinar, it is advisable to engage them all on a call soon after you finalize your speakers. This will serve as an opportunity for everyone to get to know each other, will help you clarify their respective roles during the event, and also provide an overview of how the webinar will be conducted.
Make sure to create a checklist or an agenda for this call, so that all key information is communicated with the speakers, from the get go.
Ensure a Professional Setup
Make sure you share your webinar set up guidelines with your speakers, so they can make the necessary arrangements from their end. This includes proper lighting, sound and background. Also specify if you have any expectations on the background you expect, lighting or seating specifications, mics or webcams that you prefer, etc.
Run a tech-check
It is vital to provide your speakers with a walkthrough of the webinar software, prior to the event. This helps them familiarize themselves with the features of the software beyond just using it as a video conferencing tool – like interactive elements, screen recording, showing presentation slides, etc. The better equipped they are with using the features of the software, the more seamless the webinar flow and better the audience engagement.
Rehearse the entire flow
It is wise to conduct a thorough dry run of the event, a day or two before the webinar, especially when you have multiple speakers who will be sharing information and presenting slides. It will also help you gain a fair view of where to give breaks in between sessions,etc.
Best Practices for Guest Speakers in a Webinar
Here are some of the best practices for a webinar guest speaker to follow:
Leverage non-verbal communication
Reports state that body language, gestures, posture, and physical cues contribute to 55 percent of the meaning people derive from communication at virtual events. On the other hand, tone, inflection, and words that you put up also contribute 38 percent, and words only 7 percent, respectively. Leverage the power of non-verbal communication to maximize impact of your webinar content.
Maintain eye-contact
When speaking in a webinar, it is not possible to maintain eye contact with every single person in the audience. However, eye contact does play a crucial role in making the audience feel that you’re talking to them, helping to maintain engagement.
In a virtual set-up, maintaining eye-contact with the audience can be made possible by looking into the camera, which will make every member of the live event feel like you’re talking to them, and will also help you stay focused.
Add video elements
Visual elements are one of the most important tools for helping people understand complex concepts. Mix up your media, and add short video clips along with the presentation slides, along with graphs, infographics, images, etc.
Leverage Giving Breaks in between Sessions
Scheduled breaks help the webinar participants temporarily relax and center themselves, which becomes all the more important when the content is either too niche or if the webinar duration is longer than usual. It also helps them assimilate the webinar content better, register the information, and provides them with the opportunity to discuss it with other participants, boosting engagement further.
Explore the Interactive Features
Guest speakers must leverage the use of interactive features to increase opportunities for engagement. Use of live polls for encouraging audience participation, monitoring the chat box in case someone raises a doubt or poses a question, and other interactive features come in handy for speakers.
Bottom Line
The making of a successful event lies in the planning and execution of it all – and if you follow these tips and best practices on how you can prepare your guest speakers, they will be able to present themselves to the webinar attendees in the best possible way.
FAQs
Guest speakers typically need a reliable internet connection with high speed, appropriate hardware like microphones, a high-quality webcam, extensive knowledge of the webinar platform they’ll be using, and backup plans, in case they face any technical issues.
You can provide the guest speakers with:
- Reminders: Use timers or signals to indicate when they need to wrap up.
- Agenda: A clear agenda with time allocations for each segment of their presentation.
And also encourage them to rehearse their presentation to optimize their timing, which will be vital during the event.
