Introduction
How often does your continuing education program feature webcasts? Webcasts are a powerful tool for delivering your continuing education content. Whether you aim to educate professionals, engage a broad audience, or build your organization’s credibility, webcasts offer an efficient and impactful way to connect.
To maximize your webcast’s effectiveness, read our blog for four webcast best practices, covering every stage of the process, from planning to follow-up.
What are webcasts?
Do you understand the differences between a webcast, webinar, and livestream? While similar, these formats all have unique distinctions. Webcasts are typically one-way presentations to a large learner audience, livestreams often occur live and on social media platforms, and webinars are interactive and usually smaller scale.
4 webcast best practices for continuing education programs
Now that you understand what webcasts are, it’s time to begin planning how your continuing education program can implement this powerful learning tool. Follow these four webcast best practices to get started:
1. Pre-webcast planning strategies
To begin planning effective webcasts for your continuing education program, you’ll want to follow these three strategies to get started:
- Set clear goals and objectives
To maximize the effectiveness of your continuing education program’s webcasts, you’ll first want to begin by identifying the primary goal of your webcasts. Are you planning to share critical updates, offer training, or host a thought-leadership session? A well-defined purpose will ensure focus and set the tone for your event. - Understand your learners
Next, you’ll want to understand your learner’s needs so you can tailor your webcast content to address their challenges, interests, and preferences. Learner surveys or personas can help refine your approach, ensuring long-tern relevance and engagement. Clearly outline what learner success looks like for your webcasts. - Choose the right learning management system (LMS)
As you look to add webcasts to your continuing education program, you’ll want to find the right technology platform for your organization. Look for a learning management system (LMS) with reliability, ease of use, and features like Q&A, interactive chat, and advanced analytics. Another can’t miss LMS feature is AI closed captioning and subtitles, increasing learner accessibility and broadening your continuing education program reach.
Choosing the best LMS will help you offer webcasts, provide engaging learning content, and drive non-dues revenue to your continuing education program.
2. How to host an engaging webcast
Now that you understand how to prepare your organization to meet its webcast goals, you can begin planning to host your first webcast. Here’s how to get started:
- Implement engaging content strategies
Use visuals, polls, expert polls, and storytelling to break up monotony and sustain interest during your webcasts. A mix of media formats, such as videos and infographics, can enhance learner comprehension. - Encourage learner interaction
During your webcasts, foster learner engagement with live Q&A sessions, polls, and discussion features through your LMS. Encourage participants to share their insights and questions during the webcast. - Prepare your presenters
Equip your speakers with the skills and tools to deliver their webcasts confidently. Rehearse with your presenters thoroughly, emphasizing clear communication, pacing, and familiarity with your technology.
3. Executing the webcast successfully
After the planning phase, you’ll be ready for the next stage, launching your webcast. Follow these three steps to host your webcast successfully:
- Start with a strong opening
Capture learner attention immediately with a compelling webcast introduction, by clearly outlining what your audience will gain and why it matters to be attending this webcast. - Maintain learner engagement
Keep the momentum going throughout your webcast by varying content delivery, using interactive elements, and acknowledging learner contributions throughout. - Handle technical issues
Should any technical issue arise, be sure to have a dedicated technical support team on standby. Conduct pre-event checks to ensure you have seamless webcast execution.
4. Post-webcast follow-up and analysis
After your webcast be sure to collect feedback from your learners. Use surveys or direct outreach to gather insights on the webcast’s effectiveness. This feedback can inform future improvements. Leverage your LMS to evaluate metrics such as learner attendance rates, questions asked, and poll responses to measure webcast success and audience interest.
You can repurpose your webcast content for future use by transforming it into blogs, social media snippets, or on-demand videos for wider dissemination, broadening your program’s reach.