Webinar vs Virtual Conference – Everything you should know
Virtual interactions are here to stay. Statistics show that the presence of these online contacts has grown more than 50% in business environments, making Webinars and Virtual Conferences trendy in corporate environments. Webinars and Virtual Conferences are similar to a large extent. In this post, you’ll discover everything about webinars vs. Virtual conferences.
What is a Webinar?
Do you remember the seminars you had either in school or at your workplace? A Webinar is a digital seminar where you can get in touch with different and relevant topics in a short period. The dynamic in Webinars is very fast, and it must be engaging so your attendees pay full attention to your presenters, which can be from one to multiple.
What is a virtual conference?
On the other hand, Virtual Conferences can be interactions delivered in one day or even more, requiring more content and usually more interactions since the networking moments are crucial in this type of interaction.
Webinars can be a type of Virtual Conference or Virtual Event. Still, they will address you better if you want an educational and informative session about one or more specific topics.
How can we differentiate Webinars from Virtual Conferences?
As mentioned earlier, Webinars are virtual seminars that need to be very dynamic and engaging due to the short time. They are very informative, so you must keep your attendees paying attention to your content.
Even though Webinars and Virtual Conferences are similar because both use internet connections and online places to happen.
Virtual Conferences can be more collaborative, and the attendee can interact with each other or with the presenter more often. To get the best out of this opportunity, having face-to-face experience, even online, is core to achieving a great virtual conference, so looking toward this when picking up a feature or platform is very important.
Also, Webinars can last only a couple of hours and include more specific topics that teach something to the attendees. With InEvent, you can even hold this kind of experience with the TV-like experiences it provides, as Sony did with its Webinars.
In addition, these kinds of virtual interactions can be pretty different depending on your purpose; that’s why you need to set a goal and have an evident ambition to choose the best one.
What do webinars and video conferences share in common?
Despite being more interactive, video conferencing events can also be made available as recorded VoD content after the live event. This may serve as a reference source for attendees or a possible revenue source for your organization, like webinars.
A similarity between webinars and video conferencing is that they allow access to information. They can be public events that anyone can attend or private events restricted to members of your organization, guests, and/or those who register in advance.
What are the best features for Webinars?
To hold successful Webinars – which should be your primary goal -, these are the best features that can help you with that:
- Pollings and Questions tab: You can use attractive features and eliminate the zoom fatigue time by answering the poll questions and even asking their questions in a tab where they can communicate with the presenter.
- Real-time content editing: With an easy drag-and-drop interface, you can have real-time customizations and impress your attendees with the dynamics on screen.
- Reactions: Today, most platforms allow the attendee to react to what they are seeing and experiencing. This can leverage the engagement rate of your Webinar and guarantee that the attendees are enjoying the moment.
What are the best features for virtual conferences?
Furthermore, we believe that to achieve a great experience in your Virtual Conference, and you will want to have these features:
- Speed Networking: Face-to-face experiences in virtual interactions will make your conference remarkable due to the conversations and collaboration that can appear during these moments, which are very important to developing good virtual meetings.
- Files sharing: Since virtual conferences are very informative and most have plenty of activities and sessions, having a file sharing tab in your online meeting can guarantee that everyone will access it. They can even save those documents for themselves to see later.
- Virtual Lobby: One of the essential strategies to achieve a good result in your virtual conference is to have a tremendous virtual lobby. Your attendees can navigate through the sessions and understand more about the event.
How can you choose the best solution for you?
By now, it is possible to realize that Webinars and Virtual Conferences are great ways to evolve your virtual interactions and leverage your corporate strategies.
If you want to have an event focused on educating your public with quick training and workshops, Webinars will be the best for you. On the other hand, if you want to have a networking event with informational sessions and more time to develop a collaborative experience with your attendees, the Virtual Conferences will not let you down.
Virtual interactions are here to stay, and you need to get ready for it with new possibilities. To use that best, you need to set your goal, decide which virtual interaction is best for you, and pick a tool that will help you with that.
Conclusion
Webinars and virtual conferences are both virtual interactions that can be essential to your business or marketing strategy. Still, they have some fundamental differences that we must know to make the best decision.
About the Author / Ana Almeida
