Zoom Webinar Hosting Guide

Zoom Webinars are a powerful tool for presenting to large audiences. Unlike standard Zoom Meetings designed for collaboration, Webinars offer a "listen-only" experience for attendees, minimizing disruptions and providing a more controlled environment. This guide provides a comprehensive overview of how to effectively host a Zoom Webinar, covering everything from initial setup to post-webinar tasks.

Webinar Settings: Laying the Foundation

The initial settings you configure for your webinar are crucial for a smooth and successful event. These settings control various aspects of the webinar experience, including registration, security, and audio/video options.

Topic and Description

Use a descriptive name for your Webinar in the Topic field. This helps attendees understand the webinar's purpose at a glance. If this is a recurring webinar, do not put the date in the Topic, as the topic repeats for every recurrence.

Time and Date

You can schedule the webinar for a specific date and time, or make it a recurring event, reusing the same link and ID for multiple sessions.

Registration

Requiring registration allows for you to require your participants to fill out a form before entering the meeting. The forms can be customized for your meeting’s needs. This is a valuable tool for collecting attendee information and tailoring the webinar content to their interests.

Read also: Comprehensive Zoom Webinar Guide

Security

A Webinar Passcode may be set as an additional security method. This adds an extra layer of protection against unauthorized access.

Video and Audio Options

Video options set whether cameras are on for the hosts or participant as soon as they join the meeting. These are recommended on, as this will only affect the Host and Panelists. Audio settings let you choose whether participants can use Phone, Computer Audio, or Both. Both are recommended.

Webinar Options: Enhancing Interactivity and Control

Zoom Webinar offers several options to enhance interactivity and control during the event.

Q&A

Q&A is a Webinar feature that allows the attendees to submit questions moderated by Panelists. It is the most efficient and controlled way for attendees to participate. This feature allows attendees to ask questions, which can be moderated by the host and panelists.

Practice Session

Practice Session allows for the webinar link to be used without being “live” to attendees. This is very useful for practice runs, hardware tests, and setup. Enabling Practice Session in the webinar’s settings is highly recommended. This will allow your panelists to join the webinar, setup, and test before going live to Attendees. This is a crucial step for ensuring all presenters are comfortable with the platform and that all technical aspects are working correctly.

Read also: Audience Limits in Zoom Webinars

Authentication

Require Authentication to Join is recommended. Use UT Austin if your event is exclusively for UT affiliates. Sign in to Zoom allows non-UT affiliate Zoom accounts. This ensures that only authorized individuals can join the webinar.

Alternative Hosts

Alternative Hosts are your backup hosts for managing the webinar. Assign as least one Alternative Host if possible. Alternative hosts will automatically become co-hosts when the host enters. Alternative hosts can launch and end the event in case the host has an emergency such as power or network outage.

Understanding Roles: Host, Co-host, Panelist, and Attendee

Successful webinar hosting relies on understanding the different roles and their respective capabilities.

The Host

The Host, by default is the licensed creator of the webinar. If you need somebody else to host, you can assign an alternative host in the Webinar settings before it begins. The host has ultimate control over the webinar, managing participants, settings, and overall flow.

Co-hosts

Co-hosts can be assigned once the Webinar begins and will assist in keeping the webinar flowing. Some best practices regarding co-hosts:

Read also: Mastering Zoom Webinar

Ensure you have AT LEAST one co-host assigned. If an issue causes the host to drop from the webinar, a co-host will be promoted to host to allow the meeting to continue.
Co-hosts can help the host moderate the Q&A and launch/edit polls. If you anticipate heavy traffic in the Q&A and chat, we recommend including additional co-hosts to help.
NOT ALL presenters need to be co-hosts, as mistakes can happen when more people have host privileges.

Panelists

Panelists are the presenters for the Webinar. You can allow all Panelists to share screen by clicking the ^ icon next to Share Screen, going to Advanced Screen Share Options, and allowing All Panelists to share. Panelists will typically be the speaker sharing their video for the attendees to see, and they are invited with a unique panelist link by the host. Some best practices for Panelists:

Plan to arrive 15 minutes before the start time to test your camera, microphone, and content to be presented with the other panelists.
Decide when questions from Q&A will be asked by the moderator. In informal events, it may be easier to manage your own questions, but for higher production, it’s best to clarify if moderated questions will be asked during the presentation or held until after.

Attendees

Attendees are the audience for your Webinar. Attendees cannot share video, and they can share microphone audio if requested by the Host. Although intended to be "listen-only" for Webinars, attendees can interact with panelists in the following way:

In-meeting Chat
Answering Poll questions
Submitting questions to Q&A
Raising Hands

Inviting Participants: Panelists and Attendees

Inviting Panelists

Panelist invites are managed in the Panelist list of each webinar. Panelists receive a unique invitation link.

Inviting Attendees

Your attendees will only need the Join link or Meeting ID to join. Distribute the join link or meeting ID to your intended audience.

Practice Session: Rehearsing for Success

The Practice Session allows Hosts to start the webinar with Panelists without launching the event live for Attendees, and it can be a useful tool for ensuring a well produced webinar. You can launch and end the Webinar in Practice Session any time in advance of the actual event.

Use practice sessions to test any microphones, cameras, and presentation materials (PowerPoints, videos, etc).
Any Webinar settings changed from their defaults during practice sessions will reset once you End the Webinar whether in practice session or live.
Hosts may click Start Webinar to allow attendees to join and start the webinar. There is no confirmation when clicking Start Webinar.

Going Live: Managing the Live Webinar

When it is time to go live:

Make sure your panelists are ready with cameras and microphones either muted or active as necessary. (recommended on)
Allow Panelists to Rename Themselves - Allows panelists to change their displayed name. This is commonly used by interpreters or support (recommended on)
Play sound when someone joins or leaves - This plays an audio notification when a new panelist joins (recommended off)
Lock Webinar - This will lock your webinar from allowing any new participants to join. This can be enabled as a security member after your intended audience is present.
Allow panelists to start video - Allows panelists to share their camera video (recommended on)

Allowing Attendees to Interact

Raise Hand - This is useful to allow attendees to unmute microphones and verbally ask questions.
View the Participant Count - This allows attendees to know how many other participants are in the webinar

Changing the Layout for the Attendees View

By default, the Attendee's view will follow the layout that the Host is seeing. Layout can be changed to either Active Speaker or Gallery View. More information on layouts can be found here. Typically, we would recommend Gallery View, but this is dependent on the format of the event. NOTE: Non-Video Participants will NOT show up for Attendees.

After the Webinar: Gathering Data and Archiving

If you are using a temporary webinar license, your license will be automatically removed 16 days after your initial activation request date. Please make sure to gather any registration, attendance, poll, or Q&A reports after the webinar ends. You can only access your statistic reports within the 16 day period of your license. Webinar recordings will still be accessible after your license is removed and will follow the 1 year retention policy.

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