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Best Practices and Tips for Webinar Marketing

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This podcast is hosted by edWeb.net.

The webinar recording can be accessed here.

Webinars have become one of the most popular marketing channels for solution providers. Hosting thought leadership and professional learning webinars is a great way for a company at any stage, particularly in these challenging times, to engage with educators for brand recognition, lead generation, content marketing, market insights, and nurturing relationships with education experts and leaders.

Listen to an edWeb podcast with Lisa Schmucki, founder and CEO of edWeb.net, and Jerri Kemble, National Academic Advisor and Evangelist for ClassLink. Lisa shares lessons learned from over 15 years as the founder who launched professional learning webinars as a major media marketing channel. Lisa and Jerri provide tips for getting the best results from webinar marketing, especially with school leaders and administrators. They also show how ClassLink works in partnership with AASA, CoSN, and edWeb to host a series of “EmpowerED Superintendents” webinars for superintendents and education leaders.

This edWeb podcast is of interest to education companies and associations that want to strengthen their webinar marketing efforts for success.

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Speaker 02

We're happy to make podcasts available for selected EdWebinars for your listening pleasure. If you'd like to receive a CE certificate, you must watch the video recording. Recordings and quizzes can be found in the EdWebinar archives. Please visit home.edweb.net slash podcasts for more information.

Speaker 06

Hello, everyone. I'm Lisa with EdWeb, with Jerry with ClassLink, and we are excited to come on a little bit early today for our webinar on webinars. That's right. I know. One of our tips is to come on early and just welcome everybody and see who's in the room and

Speaker 05

to scroll through the list and see who's here while we have a little bit of time ahead of time and see if we know anyone. And it's just a little bit of time to chat And get ready for the

Speaker 06

webinar. And I saw Peggy in the chat. And she, I think, has the record still for watching the most webinars of anyone ever in EdWebWorld. So, Peggy. It's Peggy Frown. Peggy's in Arizona, right where our program manager Mary is.

Speaker 05

Oh, fantastic. Well, and exciting too, we've had 140 sign up pre-register, but the thing I love out webinars as you can watch them later. That's the best part,

Speaker 06

right?

Speaker 05

I

Speaker 06

agree. We might even put this on podcast too, Jerry. I don't know that the slides are great and we're going to do some fun things that are fun to see, but I think we're going to give some advice that people would benefit from just for listening to us. I hope. Absolutely. Oh, Anne's on. Great. Wonderful. Well, we were just saying Our team was saying, have a good time. And we're saying we are going to have a good time because that's one of the great things about a webinar. It's a great way for us to connect with each other and for us to connect with you, for you to post in the chat. And as you say, Jerry, the convenience, if you can't come live, then you get the option to have the recording.

Speaker 05

Absolutely. And I love that because I like to listen in my bunny slippers sometimes. Yes, just Relax.

Speaker 06

And you can wear anything from the neck down that you want. That's right. You have to add that to the tips. All right. Well, let's see. It is pretty much the top of the hour. So why don't we start the official part of the program? And welcome, everyone. I'm Lisa Schmucke, the founder and CEO of EdWeb.net. And I'm here with Jerry Kimball, National Academic Advisor and Evangelist for ClassLink. And we do a lot of work together with doing webinars together. So we wanted to talk to you about that because we think one of the things we really want to emphasize is the value of partnerships and working together with others to do this. And right, Jerry, we're excited to just show some examples

Speaker 05

of that. Yes. And I was just thinking this morning, Lisa, about this. And I thought we've been on webinars for quite a while now, but sometimes you need a refresher, right? Because we can get into bad habits sometimes, or we forget some things that we need to remember. So I hope that this can be a refresher as well for people that know most of this and just remind them of great tips that they can use.

Speaker 06

Well, and we gave this presentation originally at ERDI, which is a conference. We did it this summer in person as an executive briefing. And then we said, well, let's do it as a webinar. And then we realized by doing it as a webinar, we need to add a few more bells and whistles to take advantage of the things you can do in a webinar that you can't necessarily do in a live presentation. Like get the chats and comments from you all during the presentation. When you're in a live room, you're looking out at the group, but you don't know what they're thinking.

Speaker 05

Exactly. And one of the things that I think makes it so good, and some people are already using it, the clapping hands coming across the screen. That's analytics to me. They like what we're saying, right? Yeah. I love it when people put the smiley face or the clapping hands or even the thumbs down. It lets the people know. We

Speaker 06

don't want any of that.

Speaker 05

No, we don't. But it does. It's analytics for us. It lets us know what the audience is thinking. So that's great.

Speaker 06

Well, before we get started, actually, Mary is our program manager and helping us today. Let's take a poll to see who's in the room and what roles you have in education. Because one of the things that's great about a webinar is to have a you are, you know, in participating so we know a little bit more about our audience. So, oh, not surprising, marketing and sales and educators.

Speaker 05

I was hoping it would look like this because I think more educators are doing webinars than ever before. And I love that because they can share across the world what they're doing and empower each other.

Speaker 06

Well, and you know, we do them for professional development, right? So our presenters are educators. Absolutely. It's not marketing and salespeople. So the marketing salespeople benefit from posting it and being in the chat. So this is great. All right. We'll close the poll. Great. Terrific. And let's just do a brief introduction. I'll just, no, we'll do our webinar tips first. So this is one of the things you want to do in a webinar is give everybody some tips. So post in the chat, which is, you know, when we started this 10 years ago, people didn't have open chats. People didn't often turn on webcams. So, you know, you want to use all those tools. So we like to have an open chat post there. There's also a question mark at the top of your screen where you can put in a specific question. But our team, Mary, in the chat will copy your questions from the chat if you post them there. Close any other applications that might use your bandwidth. If you're having audio issues, you can refresh your browser. And there's some other tips here that the team will post in the chat so you have a good experience. Another thing that's a good webinar tip is, you know, have a place where your audience can get additional resources and follow up afterwards. So EdWeb is a professional social network. You can join us. You can get your CE certificate for participating today. And then you can join our community, which has a lot of other recordings in there, particularly around marketing and sales and industry issues. So join that there.

Speaker 05

And I want to say the certificates are so important. That was a teacher back in the day we didn't have this opportunity and so now you can tune into the things that you want to hear about you want to learn about and getting that certificate is really important and i hope most districts honor that i i believe they do but

Speaker 06

it's really accepted in 42 states um and then by most districts yeah which is really which is really one great yes absolutely so um Just a little bit about me. I am the founder of AdWeb. Most of my career was in marketing and publishing and media. But when my daughter showed me Facebook 17 years ago, I said, I saw, I don't think we get a crystal ball very often, but I felt like I had a crystal ball and saw that we would use these kinds of networks to connect just like we're doing now. And it was a little while later before we came up with the idea of integrating webinars into the network. I combined it's all social media and pulling that together, the network and the webinars was great. So we've been doing that combination and work together for 10 years. So we and our team have really learned a lot. So we hope these tips can help you. And so that, you know, makes it easier and better for you. All right,

Speaker 05

Jerry. Yes. Well, I am Jerry Kimball and I call myself a recovering superintendent. I was in education for 38 years. And, you know, I first got integrated into webinars in 2010 when I started the Kansas Online Learning Program, which was a virtual school. And that was the way that we were connecting with our kids and giving some resources to them. So webinars have been a critical part of what I do all of these years. But it has been wonderful at ClassLink to be part of the webinars because we can team with you and Kosen and other Yes, absolutely. And so I actually did that this year. And I have the badass firefly effect coming out in late September. Yes, so we're excited about it. And it's just a chicken soup for the soul kind of leadership book. But it also has reflection points in it where you can reflect on your own feelings and, and what you're doing in leadership and the kind of leader that you want to be as well. So, but that's The

Speaker 06

webinars have, I also know that you are an amazing illustrator. So have you done illustrations for the book as well? Yes, I have. I'm known for doodles and they're much more

Speaker 05

than doodles. Well, well, one of the things I want to say about it is you can even use your skills like that, like doodling, or if you're a photographer to promote your webinars. I think that's a great way to doodle about or promote what happened on the webinar on social media. So using your skills to do that is really a good thing to do. So I

Speaker 06

think it's all about making it personal and authentic and people appreciate that so much these days. Oh, and I forgot one thing. I

Speaker 05

am. on the Linked Up Breaking Boundaries Education Podcast. And we do it over YouTube. So it is kind of like a webinar each week. And we have incredible guests on. It's so much fun. I have enjoyed it so much. It started in the pandemic when people couldn't get together so that we could share ideas and help each other through that pandemic. But over the years, you see so many things And so some of our reflections are going to be as well for the podcast or our podcasters out there could

Speaker 06

use them as well. Yeah, I do think like people use, you know, a podcast and be video now too. So I think it's very similar to a webinar. It applies. The same kinds of things and advice applies if you're doing podcasting as well. So what we thought Jerry and I would do here with you all is go over a little bit of our experience with hosting webinars, which... It leads directly to the tips that we can give you, go over some of the benefits of marketing as a media, webinars as a media channel to reach educators, help show you a little bit about how webinars can help build partnerships, give you 10 best practices and tips, and then answer some of your questions. Sounds great. All right. So just a quick overview with AdWeb. So 17 years ago, I created a professional social network, AdWeb.net, and that is the umbrella and the platform that we use to house everything we do. So we have online professional learning communities on many, many topics, and that's where we host all of our webinars. We've done 5,000, 4,500 webinars in 10 years with 5,000 presenters. And we issue PD hours and CE certificates for educators for attending. Each one of those is an hour long and they will receive an hour of hours for this one as well.

Speaker 05

Lisa, you are the queen of webinars. I can't believe those. Those are. It takes

Speaker 06

a village. It does. It does. So those 4,000 programs that we have available on demand. Oh, we're getting a little bit of feedback, Jerry. So I'm not sure if they have a tip there, if there's, maybe take a minute and let's just see if we, okay. All right. There's a little bit of feedback on your end, but I think we'll just

Speaker 00

kind of, is it when, it's when I, all right. So we'll let, let's, we'll just pause for a second here. Lisa, Jerry just needs to mute when she's not speaking.

Speaker 06

Okay. All right. Thank you, Regina. This is why we have our program managers in the background helping us. Thank you. So we're demonstrating everything, including a tech glitch. So we have 4,000 programs on demand in over 100 topics. So it's a really wide range of professional learning for all educators. And And these are some of our 500 solution partners and sponsors that have worked with us to host these, which is really, we are all about partnerships. And I think that's a really important thing is you don't have to do these alone or by yourself. You can partner with an association. You could partner with another partner company. You could partner with an educator to do this work together. And it makes it more fun and it makes it easier. And frequently, then you can extend your reach when you're working with a partner because you may have your own lists and networks that you're going to go out to. But that partner, as we're going to see with what Jerry's going to talk about with what ClassLink does, can really extend how you can bring in more people into your program. These are EdWeb statistics. So we do reach a very, very large audience. So we do 400 live programs a year with an average registration of 1,000 per program, 300 average live on our live chat, and 700 folks tend to watch that on demand. So those are really pretty big numbers, over 400 programs a year. And Jerry, we've just seen that webinars have really become sort of a go-to media channel. This was pretty new 10 years ago, I must say. And when we had the idea of at scale, having companies and partners do webinars for marketing, for lead gen, for things like that was a relatively new concept. People were more familiar with doing it as a sales demo, something like that, or maybe for training. But we really tried to advocate for doing this as a way to provide valuable information and support. not tied to the purchase of a product, but aligned with whatever your expertise is as a company to show your thought leadership and your expertise. And particularly, Jerry, you alluded to the pandemic. I mean, with the pandemic and COVID, when everything was shut down, we really saw how these are mini virtual conferences that anybody can attend from anywhere at a lower cost. They're for anyone, all education roles here, our audience is maybe 50% educators today. 50% industry folks, which we love. Great source of leads and sales for marketing. Helps you build relationships. So we talked about that a little bit earlier. When you're inviting someone to present, getting ready for the show, on the show together, you're building incredible relationships around the topic that is your area of expertise. You all are experiencing the live chat. And that's almost a little folk group.

Speaker 05

Yes, I wanted to add to that. I spent a lot of my career in rural America. And sometimes I felt like I didn't get the opportunities that people in the cities got. And so when the webinars came around, it really democratized the learning for me. I think it does it for people that are in rural areas that don't have those opportunities to maybe drive an hour to see someone or hear someone talk or go to a conference. So they really do democratize what we're doing in education. And that's one thing I really like because it helps with equity.

Speaker 06

Yeah, I absolutely love that. And as you pointed out too, it's great videos, podcasts, you can write articles about them on your website, blog posts, all kinds of things like that. So, you know, in the chat, we'd love it if you'd all participate a little bit and tell us what do you use webinars for or what have you appreciated about them? Have you hosted them or is there something in particular why you like to attend them? So we'd love to get your input in the chat on any of your experience with it and share with everyone here while we're doing the presentation.

Speaker 00

All right.

Speaker 06

So, Jerry, I'm going to let you kind of lead a little bit of this talking about the Empowered Superintendent Leader Panel Series. This is for superintendents that ClassLink has hosted. Now we're going into the eighth year of hosting this on a regular basis and would love to have you talk about why this partnership is valuable. And anyway, take it away.

Speaker 05

Yes. Well, the first thing that brings value to it is that we partner with COSEN and AASA for this leadership panel series. And each time we have a panel, we have a panel of superintendents and people love hearing from superintendents. But more importantly, being a former superintendent, I know superintendents love to share about their district and the work that their people are doing. So that's what makes these panels really special. special. So we bring on the superintendents. And, you know, I know a lot of people want to have an opportunity to talk to a superintendent. One of the things that we do here with Ed Webb is we come on early and we get to chat with them ahead of time and talk about what's going on. Actually start building relationships online with the superintendents. And it's a really great opportunity to get them, get to know them on a personal basis, right? And then we talk about topics that are important to them. And since we're focusing on superintendents, we allow them to help drive what is going to be discussed and what they're going to talk about. It's been wonderful experience to hear what they're doing. And one thing that I love, Anne McMillan, she drives this for us and she is so good about bringing together superintendents from all parts of the country and all kinds of school districts. So sometimes, you know, I mentioned earlier, I was from a rural area and sometimes I would think, oh, we only have these problems in rural areas, but you find out we're all kind of experiencing the same kinds of things. And so while they may share a solution that they're using, many times it can be tweaked to work in another district as well. So, and I think the other thing is ed leaders need professional development too. Webinars are a great way for them to get that professional development because they can view it when it's convenient for them. And so I love that, that you can pull it up when you want to watch. And that's been an important tool as well. But the partnership is great because it brings in people People from COSEN that would want to listen. People from AASA are coming in. Classlink customers and people that are interested in Classlink. So it brings together a whole group of people that you probably wouldn't bring together if you were doing this solo. So those are some of the things that we have really enjoyed about working with Ed Webb and our Ed leaders.

Speaker 06

And, you know, I think something we didn't talk about before in executive briefing is the role of the moderator in this. And we are very happy that Anne is here with us. She is in this picture right here in this image. She is the moderator of this leader panel series. And Deary comes on and plays a role too in that. And I always say, I always compliment Anne as the moderator because I say a good leader asks good questions. Doesn't have to have the answer, but asking the right questions. So anyway, that's important. And your ability to play the role of the moderator, you don't have to be an expert on the subject, but you can be there as a support and ask good questions. And it just increases your opportunity to build the relationships with the presenters, the superintendents or the teachers or whoever you're inviting on to that presentation to build that relationship with them. I love seeing the comments in the

Speaker 05

chat. They're terrific. Well, you're looking at the chat. Looking at the comments, I'm going to say, I know that Anne puts in a lot of time behind the scenes and she gets the guests together and they actually talk about what they're going to talk about ahead of time. Not every detail, but just having a good global sense of what is going to be discussed. If you are a vendor, that's important because you want to know what people are going to say. You don't want any big surprises while you're on the webinar. It doesn't have to be scripted. That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm just saying you have to know the direction that you're going and a little bit of practice really goes a long way.

Speaker 06

And we know that many of the districts say we don't want a vendor, we want a partner. So this is a really outstanding way to do that. Yes, absolutely. So as sponsors, Jerry, ClassLink has connected with 20 superintendents and ed leaders during the whole year because that's how many have presented the program they host each year. And each one of those programs are on average have been viewed by 1,000 educators, about 30% of them being administrators. Great comment. So it really has a very big impact in multiple ways.

Speaker 05

That's a reach that we may reach people we wouldn't normally reach. And that's very important that we can reach all of these people. So a thousand views per program. Wow. That's

Speaker 06

amazing. know that building relationships with superintendents really takes time and experience and so you know any opportunity you have to create a touch then the next time you meet with that leader or or anyone who you're trying to do work with or partner with you've got a touch in there and particularly around content and topic so you have something meaningful to talk about we love talking about the weather when we open a webinar which is great where's the webinar all over the world um But, you know, this gives you the topic of the program in which you can really make a more meaningful connection. All right. So let's see. What is next? Oh, now we're right up to the top 10 tips. Oh, I love this part. This is so much fun. I know. We had fun coming up with these. And we always say when partners come to us and want to know what's going to make something the most successful, number one, it's always the topic. It's not the time of day. It's not trying to think of the other things. It's not the month. It's not the season. Webinars work any time of year, even on snow days and holidays. And, you know, it's all good. Those are all good times. But the most important thing is your topic. And so that's key. Now, the programs that have the top topics right now are going to do the best. So we get 3,000 registrants at times for things on science of reading, some of the mental health topics. Some of the behavior topics, those are ones that are really, really very top of mind right now. Math is moving up fast. We have more and more programs on math coming in. Behavior is, when we look at what educators themselves pick to watch, mental health and behavior really is really high on what they're watching. AI has come up really quickly. MTSS, autism, early childhood. Mary is posting in the chat a list of our top 10 programs, top 25 programs last year, the webinars, and then also the leadership ones. So you can kind of see what some of those topics are that really do the best. But again, on average, we're getting 1,000 for those 700 programs. So if you have questions on that, yeah, just let us know. Go

Speaker 05

ahead, Jerry. Yeah, I think it'd be fun for them to put in what do they see as the top topics right now. Yes. If you have it, please. Yeah. And Valerie had a great comment about participating in a winning on LinkedIn. Yeah. And she used the strategies. And I wonder how I could get more information on that. Valerie has some, but she has piqued my interest.

Speaker 06

Yeah. Well, I mean, that was Alana Leone coming on and presenting on. We're using LinkedIn a lot more. So it's just a great way for us to learn together. Great. Yes. Tip number two, then, is that you want your presenters to reflect the audience you're trying to reach because Because it's peer-to-peer learning. Everyone likes to learn from their peers. That's the number one... way educators find other resources is by asking their colleagues and listening to their colleagues, right? So it's great if you're a company person to be, as we mentioned, the host and the moderator and ask the questions and facilitate the program. But you generally want your presenters to be the person you are really trying to make the connection with. So, right. And you can hear about what if it's behavior in classrooms Yes, that's all. Experts in the field, you know, absolutely. I should have said that as well. If it's a topic, an expert on the topic, and then pairing them, you know, with somebody who is dealing with what the issue or the problem is in the school together so they can talk back and forth. That's a great combination.

Speaker 05

And I wanted to add in, I think that it's important, you know, education is one of those places where we are working with all generations, right?

Speaker 00

We have

Speaker 05

children to people that are well-seasoned. And so I think it's important that we have intergenerational voices on. Sometimes we have topics like AI and we think, well, let's see what the young people think. We need to hear what everyone is thinking, not just one group or one generation. So I think it's very important to do that. I also think that we can highlight our shared values when we talk about topics and empowerment and innovation. And so I think that our presenters can really reflect all of those things for us as well.

Speaker 06

Yeah, and I can't emphasize enough how great it is to have students come on and speak. We've had several with students talking about AI. It's their future. We need to know what they think about this. And in the slide here, Julie Evans is here So she's the CEO of Project Tomorrow. And they do an annual briefing on the state of education. And she has students on EdWeb. There's a whole panel of them that talk about their experiences with technology. And it's great. It's really wonderful. So the promotion does matter. Now, with EdWeb, we do a promotion for all of our sponsors and partners. But I think we see the strength of the program when our partners also have a good marketing program. And so we're co-marketing what we're doing ahead of time. And it's before and after. You do your pre-promotion. You want to start about four to six weeks ahead of time. And just in terms of the promotion is also a little bit related to how you're crafting that title, how you're writing your description. One thing that's very important is that, I mean, Jerry, we all know this, you're a couple of months out and you're planning this and you kind of write your title and your description, but as things evolve, things sometimes maybe change as you go along, maybe you've swapped out a presenter and all that. But it is important in that whole process that what you've promised and what you've described, you're going to do is what you deliver. So that's key. And also being clear. What's the purpose? What are the benefits going to be that somebody's going to get out of it? If you want to address one specific audience, then make that clear. But we always think it's great that most topics can be relevant to an administrator, a teacher, a librarian, different roles. And so we think it's great to broaden the your topic to see how it can appeal to the widest educator audience as possible. I don't know, Jerry, what do you think about this topic?

Speaker 05

Yes, I have seen some really fun promotions that people put out, maybe just a little video or maybe even a video clip or something or an emoji they put out to get people excited about what's going to happen. happen what's going to go on and posting that on social media can really get things going also a lot of times someone will see it even on LinkedIn or Facebook and send it to someone they know that might be interested in that webinar so promoting ahead of time is really a good idea and to do it often because not everybody sees it the day that you put it out there so it's really fun to do those kinds of things and get get your audience excited about what you're going to be talking about

Speaker 06

well and as we talk about this you know peer-to-peer learning we do find is that and you know as we said before you know have your presenters reflect who you want to attract so we always this is an example of ours we always feature the presenters as as the primary image in our promotions and their titles because um you might have a nice illustration about the topic or something but we feel people are coming to hear from people so we've generally found that putting your presenters forward is your primary images um and content is the best yes yes i would agree i think that's a great tip now we offer those certificates so in that description if you can offer something you're going to give away something free um anything people love educators love additional resources so anything you can sweeten your presentation with um It's great. And we have a special offer for today. So if you've not done a, well, even if you have done a webinar with us, we'll give you $500 off on a new booking if you want to try a webinar with AdWeb. So that's our offer for today. That

Speaker 05

is amazing. I also think things like giving them, people love to hear like 10 tips. They love to come away with something. They know that when I finish, I'll come away with something. And some of the tips might be things you already know, but but maybe you need to be reminded. And Peggy, I can't agree more. $500 off. That is pretty nice, Lisa. That's great.

Speaker 06

Yeah, we're happy to do that. But you're right. You're right, Jerry. Like three ways, five strategies, 10 tips. I don't know those. And keeping that title short is important. And we always say like frequently they come in and it might be a 10 word title and the word math is the last word Right. And that's what that program is about. So we always coach on getting if you're if it's a math program, get get the word math in the first few words of that title before you add. A lot of people tend to do like kind of a catchy little phrase to begin with. And then the main topic is in the subtitle. And we always almost always suggest just flip it.

Speaker 00

Yes.

Speaker 06

Make your your first thing because everybody I heard so me say one time, we don't read, we skim. And so we have to write, you have to write for skimming. And so if you're looking at all of our offers in our newsletter or on our calendar or whatever, we all go and skim just those first few words and you want to grab their attention in those first few words.

Speaker 05

Absolutely. Great ideas.

Speaker 06

So this is just, you know, your marketing plan, right? Pre-plan, post-plan, start six weeks in advance. We do all this promotion for our sponsors, but, you know, when you're doing this, you know, you want to do it as co-promoting, or if you're doing this on your own, you want to put the information on your website, create an email campaign, create a social media campaign, add it to your newsletters, give it to your salespeople, send, you know, send a personal announcement, put it on LinkedIn, send it to your send announcements, have that call to action, and be sure you've got ahead of time how you're going to nurture those leads afterwards. Are you going to go through the data and send some of the top leads to your salespeople, put some into your marketing plans, and have your strategy set out ahead of time for how you're going to follow up as well? Because doing it quickly is really important.

Speaker 05

Absolutely. Yes. And you can't put it in too many places because you never know who you're going to reach. It's like throwing a pebble in the water. People spread it for you. And I think that's what they do with Ed Webb because you have such a large audience.

Speaker 06

Well, the ripple effect is really great. I mean, we have some of those numbers we showed before. So, you know, 70% of the audience watches it afterwards and you can keep promoting that. I mean, people love to do that. Yeah. It's not a one and done. For sure.

Unknown

Right.

Speaker 06

All right. So this is the topic of making presentations fun and engaging. And there are so many ways to do this now. So we used webcams from the beginning and open chat from the beginning when most people did not do that. I think sometimes people are still worried about open chat. I'm on a lot of industry things, particularly now in our polarized environment, people are afraid to have it be open, but we do really want to be committed to open chat. We opened the room early. We want to say hi to folks. We want to see where everybody's coming in from. There's a lot of different tools you can use, one of which is showing video clips. So, Jerry, let's demonstrate an example of how far we've come from the early days of online presentations. So, Mary, roll the tape.

Speaker 04

Scandals happen all the time. The question is, how do democracies respond to those scandals?

Speaker 03

And what will it mean for the wider region? I think one of your children has just walked in. I mean, shifting sands in the region, do you think relations with the North may change? I would be surprised if they do.

Speaker 04

Pardon

Speaker 00

me.

Speaker 04

My

Speaker 03

apologies. Well, where is this going to be for the region.

Speaker 04

My

Speaker 03

apologies.

Speaker 06

So many of you have seen that one before. That's from about 10 years ago. But now, and actually, you know, there is a satire version of it. We should have found that one too, which is a woman doing the presentation and the kids come in and she puts the child on her lap. She starts cooking on the side. She's like doing everything at the same time you know multitasking on a webinar but you know we just we're happy if a pet walks across your laptop or it's not great when the fire alarm goes off in schools you know some of those things but right but I

Speaker 05

think people are used to it it's the world we live in and Yeah, you just have to. Someone said, do it with grace. Just

Speaker 06

keep going. Right. And I

Speaker 05

was just reading a book last night about your digital presence. And, you know, when we're together, we make eye contact and I can see you in the eyes. But we have to recreate that here on screen. And so we really need to be aware of it. And I would think that we would all know all these things. but I think they're worth saying. First of all, you want to be about as far from the camera as you would be talking to someone, right? You don't want to be in your personal space. They can't see you. It's really important. So make sure that you're about that distance. Also, you want to make sure that your background is not too distracting. You know, things going on that could distract people. Another thing that's important and I do this naturally, is that you see people's hands. You know, the psychology behind this is if someone can see your hands, they trust you a little bit more. And that's from our just evolution of our brain back in the day when people would put out their hand for a handshake to show that they weren't going to harm you. And so that's just ingrained in our minds. And so we like those kinds of things. But we have to be very aware of our environment and making sure that we're putting out a professional look, but yet it needs to be authentic and about who you are. So I think it's important that you pay attention to all of that and that you think about the environment, go on ahead of time, make sure things look right. Lisa knows I was up and down and moving things and trying to get everything the way I needed it because I hadn't been on a webinar for about a month. So my office had changed. And so you have to reconnect and get ready for that again. So those are just tips to think about as you are getting ready to be on camera.

Speaker 06

Well, and I think our next tip may be about getting ready. Let me see. What's our next? What's number six? Number six is yes, prepare ahead. So I'm going to invite Mary, our program manager, who is on here with us today, to come on and talk, Mary, a little bit about this importance of preparing for a successful webinar. We were saying we love it when the TV shows flash on the people in the production room who are running the event, whatever. We're inviting Mary on to talk with you a little bit about all these kind of ideas of how to get ready. Mary, the value of the tech check ahead of time Right. Like so we actually had a little bit of a glitch today and we didn't work ahead of time. And so it just is it was an actual demonstration when you skip the step of, you know, not doing that. You never know. So. So anyway, Mary, you do such a great job. Talk to us a little bit about this step.

Speaker 01

Yeah, so kind of breaking the fourth wall a little, I feel like, getting a glimpse behind the scenes. As a program manager, I mean, my job is just to support everything start to finish and pull everything together, which I think really lets the hosts and the moderators, the presenters to focus on the content and their presentation. And that's what we want to do is make it an easy lift for them. So, you know, having a program host who also is just focused on that moderation piece from your organization and they can be on camera during the beginning and end of the whole thing but they can facilitate that Q&A and kind of curate it too because you definitely know your organization and your presenters best so I think you can help them with what they're going to be ready if they can answer things on the fly and maybe they're not quite ready to answer things on the fly so you're feeding in the background so sometimes to our presenters. We're kind of feeding those questions when they have a minute so that they can prepare themselves for that Q&A time at the end. So definitely having that host. Also, they might be monitoring the chat too. But as program managers at EdWeb, I think it's useful that we're able to do that so that we can really make sure those tech questions are handled, anything about our platform, of course, and that we can push those into you know, our private chat in the background, again, kind of behind the scenes info there, and also the Q&A tool so that they don't have to worry about it because these chats can be so engaging with educators giving tips and a presenter doesn't have time to pay attention to all of that. So, you know, having team and program manager to be able to make sure that all of that is taken care of is just another way to take that lift off of them. And similarly, you know, giving those instructions and deadlines to the presenters so they have a clear idea of what they need for the presentation and also what their options are for the presentation in terms of if they can add videos and what those videos need to look like and then sticking with them on those deadlines I was a third grade teacher so really good at reinforcing those due dates and you gotta make sure that they have those and they're ready to go and then you know also that tech check like lisa said is so important a week or two before just to make sure everyone's good to go with the platform even if it's a familiar platform like zoom zoom webinars can be very different than zoom meetings but also they're always updating those features and so it's great to be able to just go on beforehand and make sure that everybody's set and to be able to to just make sure that you know Even getting the background information of if they're on a Mac or a PC or what browser they're using lets us be able to help better if something does go wrong right before the live show so that we can troubleshoot and having all that information ahead of time. But still, even with a tech check, logging in that 30 minutes early. We always say you don't need it until you need it, and then sometimes you really need it. And so making sure that everything is good to go. And that gives you time for a quick run of show. And also, like I said, I was a third grade teacher and I would do anything in front of my students. But adults, presenting to adults was a different story. And so I think that that's the case because we have so many educators on our webinars and they might not always be totally comfortable presenting to adults because they are in the classroom and this isn't maybe what they're doing all the time. So calming those nerves beforehand and trying to get everybody excited and ready to go for the presentation during that 30 minute time is also super useful.

Speaker 05

One of the things I appreciate from you is about two hours ahead of time, you send us an email with all of the links, what to do, where to go, because everybody is so busy. You sent it before, but it could be buried and you understand that, that to have it at the top of that inbox is going to be really nice for the people coming on. I appreciate that very much. I also appreciate when you put links in the chat because we don't always have time to go get that link or find it and you all find it, pop it in there and we're ready to go. So very appreciated the work you do.

Speaker 06

Thank you, Mary. This is great. All right. What is next? Number seven. We kind of alluded to this before, following up immediately afterwards, right? So when we do a webinar, we always go out to everyone who's here is going to get an email tomorrow with information if you want a certificate and the recording. And if someone registered but wasn't able to attend because we had double the number of our attendees here who registered who are interested in this, they can watch the recording So doing that right away and we do that the day after. And then we send all the lead information to our sponsors that next day. So you just want to be prepared with a thank you. What's your call to action going to be? What can you offer folks? What are you going to do with those leads? You take that chat log and go through it for quotes and ideas and messaging. And then it's also really great if you can invite people to your next event. right there. We have our open rate on the day after email is like 60 to 70%. So you get huge opens on that. So that's an opportunity to put like a really important message in there that you want to get across. Jerry, what do you think?

Speaker 05

Yes. One of the things that our podcast producer has started doing is putting out shorts from the podcast, just short little video clips. And I think they're like 15 seconds long to show what was said and then generate more interest in what was done on that podcast. I think that is very good. And posting afterwards, because like you said, it's not a one and done. People can still come in and listen. And so I think that's important to pull out the key pieces and let people know what they missed, but what they can still get.

Speaker 06

Yeah. Yeah. We have a question in the chat about AI impacting this, and that is going to be one of our tips. So coming up, not sure which one it is. I don't think it's quite the next one yet. Well, I mean, sort of because AI can be used to help you edit and modify and generate content. So the content you're creating here through the chat log, through the original recording, the MP4, the MP3, transcripts that you get from it. I mean, you have an enormous amount of content and then you can take that and do different things. But I think Mary's going to post a link in the chat to, we create an e-publication out of that. for leaders with our leadership content. And we put articles and recordings in there and advertising in there. So you're really creating an asset when you do one of these and you want to think about all the ways you can do it. But I mean, Jerry, the way that you all do your podcasts and everything you do with that is a great example.

Speaker 05

Right. And also, if it's a topic that you don't know so much about, you can use AI to kind of catch you up. on what it is that you need to know about that topic, especially if you are the moderator and you need to think about that topic a little deeper than you have before. So I know that helps on our podcast. And then I think our shorts are actually created by AI. I think they are.

Speaker 06

Yes. So I think our next tip is about AI. Yes. So, I mean, I think we're just at the beginning of everything. you can do here. I mean, somebody asked me today, how are you using AI? And I said, the way we're using AI is this. Because our main website, we've posted everything about every single one of our webinars that we've ever done, and it's all there. And you can go to Google on your phone and say, please give me a list of ed webinars on MTSS, and it will give you a list of all of them with the links, and you can watch them right here. So I mean, that's really pretty phenomenal. But I've gone in and asked it to come up with topic ideas, title help, descriptions, ask for topics that would be, you know, put in, you know, what your audience, who your audience is and ask it to suggest topics. Summarizing chat logs, writing a blog post or, you know, this content, you know, using the content. This is really, we're just at the beginning of how AI is going to help us with all this. It's pretty exciting. Well, and your leads. Did I put that? Yeah, on your leads, too. Go in if you want to go in and find out. Ask AI to give you your top leads.

Speaker 05

Yes, and I love it going in and looking at the chat and see what the important topics were, what people were saying. There's just so much it can do so quickly and give you so much information that you wouldn't have had before.

Speaker 06

Yeah, I mean, so we can a lot of people who are suggesting additional resources in the chat. And AI summarizes that, right? So we're using it in so many ways, particularly to analyze data and information and summarize things. It's really remarkable what it can do in that way. We are working with a lot of school districts now who are watching our webinars and are making our webinars available for professional learning for the staff. And then we have all the data on the programs the staff is watching and their reflections and their ratings of all that. And then we We can give that back to a district and it's crazy. I mean, we can answer any questions they want about it. We have a lot of districts who are giving comp time. If they watch, you know, four webinars, they get out of a PD day and then they want to let us know who did it. And we can tell them like in seconds who qualifies for that. So it's really, AI is really, I think, very, very exciting.

Speaker 05

Oh, it is. And we're just using it for everything. Yeah, my husband needed to get new eyeglasses and he had a special look he wanted and we couldn't decide. So I took pictures of him and I popped it into chat GPT and said, this is what he's looking for. And it analyzed all of them and gave us a suggestion. I mean, you just don't know. I'm going to do that. It was great. It was great. So with Maddie's recommendation.

Speaker 06

So fantastic. So it's fun. to submit your request for that. And we'd be really happy to do that for you. Only available to attendees today. But there are other organizations that do it, Education Week, eSchool News, Tech and Learning. And certainly encourage you to go out and ask for their media kits and find out what it is to do with them. And people have slightly different audiences. And so you want to get the partner who's got the right audience for what you're what you are trying to do. And then if you, you know, depending on what your budget is, but if you've done something with one company and you've got the webinar set up and your presenters or whatever, you know, do it again. Don't feel like you have, you know, do it in a different environment so that you leverage that effort and try it in different places. And you can use it for so many different purposes.

Speaker 05

Well, and one of the things that ClassLink has done is it's focused on education and empowering students educators first

Speaker 01

and

Speaker 05

talk about ClassLink second. So we really are focused on making sure that you're learning and moving forward. And then we talk about how we can partner with you and be a good resource to make life easier for you in your district. But we don't lead with that. And that isn't the reason that we do these webinars. It's really to empower. So I think that's important as well, because nobody wants wants to go to a salesy thing, right?

Speaker 01

Right,

Speaker 05

right. They just, yeah.

Speaker 06

So. And let's see, I think we have come to, oh, I think just to end on just the point about how, you know, everybody's learning. Sometimes I say it's like 3D learning. It's really incredible how, I mean, Jerry, I'm learning from you in the middle of this presentation, right? And then I've learned some things from the chat and what people are posting in the chat. And hopefully those- All of you who are here have learned from some of the things we've said and the information we've shared. So it's really, and if we had a sponsor, they'd be getting all their insights out of what we've said here and figuring out how to help that improve the work that they do. So it's really enjoyable and it is very, very much a way to have a great time.

Speaker 05

Oh, it really is. And I just love that being a former social studies Thank you.

Speaker 06

come in from everywhere. You know, sometimes it's difficult, particularly in social media, to feel good. There's a lot happening in social media that's so negative. But, you know, I must say I'm very happy that our communities are so positive and that educators are so positive and so passionate about helping their students and helping each other.

Speaker 05

Okay, Peggy, I love your comment. Retired educators that want to stay connected. You are so right. And I have to share, I took personal days this week so that I could go help my daughter set up her new classroom. It never gets out of our system, does it, Peggy? We just love it. And staying connected with technology is true. I am going to look up tech for seniors and see what that's all about. But you're Right. It's not always just the people in the trenches. It's the people that have been there and they want to stay connected. I love that comment. Thank you for that.

Speaker 06

And some of them come back. Some of them retire and find other ways to participate. Yes, exactly. And we need that. It's wonderful. So Q&A, here, let's go look and see if there is anything in audience questions. Looks like nobody posted anything in the Q&A box, but does anybody have a question that they'd like to, we're almost at the top of the hour. We're big talkers. Oh.

Speaker 05

And I have had a great time on top of all of this. Yes, it's been great sharing all of these ideas. And is there, oh, I know, but in the chat, if there's something we missed, a tip.

Speaker 06

What did we, did we miss

Speaker 05

something? There's always another tip. There's always another tip and we're always here for the learning. So if there's something that you've seen in webinars that you love that we didn't hit on, tell We would love to know.

Speaker 06

Yes, absolutely. Thank you, Jerry. It was so fun to do this with you in person. The executive briefing we did together and it sparked the idea of us doing this online. So I love that. And now we can share this with the world.

Speaker 05

And I hope more people take advantage of this and do more webinars because it just really makes us all better. We learn more. from each other. And I like that.

Speaker 06

We do. Well, thank you all for being here. It was really great to connect with you. Hope it's been helpful and you'll receive the recording tomorrow. Share it. Thank you. All right. Bye

Speaker 02

everyone. Bye-bye. We hope you enjoyed this EdWeb podcast. If you'd like to receive a CE certificate, you must watch the video recording. Recordings and quizzes can be found in the EdWebinar archives. Please visit home.edweb.net podcast for more information.