White Paper

The Video Webinar

Adding the Rich Media Capability to Engage with an Increasingly Demanding Audience

MediaPlatform, Inc. 8383 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 750 Los Angeles, CA 90211 (310) 909-8410 www.mediaplatform.com info@mediaplatform.com

Copyright © 2011 by MediaPlatform, Inc.

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Introduction The webinar remains a remarkably effective way to connect with potential clients and other audiences. However, the newness of the concept has worn off and audiences are now expecting a higher level of engagement in the experience. To make the connection with your audience and keep them tuned in, you will need more than just a great topic and well-presented content. Rich media, which includes interactivity and the ability to show high quality video from multiple sources, adds a degree of presence and reality to the traditional webinar format. This paper looks at some of the advantages and challenges inherent in adding the rich media capability to your webinars.

The State of the Webinar The acceptance of the webinar as a standard form of business communications presents a double-edged reality for webinar producers. Yes, webinars are routine, meaning that it’s not a huge hassle to convince people to participate. Virtually everyone has watched a webinar, so at least you’re not facing a battle getting people just to tune in. However, the routine nature of webinars is also a big negative. Traditionally produced webinars, with telephonic audio and a static PowerPoint® slide on the screen, have become, by and large, a bit dull.

We’ve all likely experienced a tedious webinar, and the theme of disappointment is now running through the marketing blogosphere. Peter Klein, a marketing consultant, commented on webinars in his blog, saying, “In the past year, I’ve probably registered for 30 Webinars, shown up for 12 of them, and lasted to the end for none of them. What could be an effective marketing tactic often falls flat. One of your Webinar selling points—Conveniently attend while in your office at your own computer!—becomes one of your weak points. Listeners get bored, switch to their email, or Word document, or Web browsing, or go out to lunch.” Debby Kenny, a sales and marketing executive who blogs about marketing communications, notes, “Some [webinars] have kept me interested from beginning to end. Unfortunately, the large majority have been pretty boring. When things start to get dull, I take a quick look at a slide, read the key bullet points, and then go back to my e-mail… I’m willing to bet that most other Webinar attendees do the same.”

The audience has clearly outgrown the novelty of hearing a voice and watching a slideshow at their desks. They need a lot more to stay engaged and respond to calls to action. This is all very bad news if your job relies on connecting with audiences through the webinar medium or you make your living selling webinar services to others. What can be done about this problem?

The Potential of the Video Webinar As webinars face pushback from a bored, demanding audience, a number of solutions emerge that can help address this challenge. At a basic level, it is possible to improve a webinar without doing anything different to the format, but rather just making the content itself better. More interesting voices, better topics, presentation flow and more imaginative graphics can do a lot to stimulate the audience.

Improvements to content and delivery style are a given. However, if you’re serious about making your webinars a more effective channel for communication, a rethinking of the whole webinar medium is also in order. We live in a world of rich media: streaming video at the corporate desktop, hundreds of television channels at home as well as YouTube. When you present a webinar, you’re competing for audience mindshare with far richer forms of media.

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Many of our clients have begun to offer webinars that feature video of the presenter instead of just audio. If done right, a video webinar of this type can be far more engaging to the audience than a standard audio and slide approach. There is immediacy to video and a potentially much deeper connection with the presenter, whom the audience will see less as a disembodied voice and more as a person. Good video hooks the viewer and provides fewer opportunities for the eyes to drift off to nearby emails or Web pages that can be so distracting during audio presentations.

Challenges in Producing a Video Webinar Making the move from the conventional audio and slides approach to rich media in a video webinar can be challenging. An easy fix is to add a limited video capability to your existing webinar tools. In this case, the voice of the presenter is typically replaced by a relatively small, low definition moving image. Several webinar tools have this capability available. However, the problem is that the audience is expecting a more compelling experience.

Ken Molay, a noted expert on webinars, states, “Web conferencing vendors have been in a rush to add live video capabilities to their platforms. Webcams and casual video conferencing are appropriate and useful for team meetings, collaboration with peers, and ad hoc communications with employees or business partners. But in the context of a larger, more structured Web seminar this type of video conference can be problematic. Potential customers, investors, or clients may get a negative impression of the hosting company if the video presentation and the on-screen presenter are not perceived as professional and business-quality.” As any performer who’s made the transition from radio to television can tell you, video makes any presentation a bit more complex. This is particularly true if you’re using built-in PC video equipment. There’s a wide range of video quality available from different types of input devices. Audio alone can be a big problem if you’re relying on built-in PC microphones instead of professional gear. Lighting for web video is a distinct craft. Presenters, for their part, are also often skittish about appearing on camera. And, if you don’t have the right tools, connecting several remote presenters, all of whom need to be on camera, can create a logistical headache.

On the audience side, video again adds complications. Not all streaming video formats are compatible with multiple operating systems and browsers. Windows Media, for example, does not play on Macs or Linux machines. Then, as more and more people are watching webcasts on mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets, the need grows for cross-device compatibility.

Finding the Right Video Webinar Tools and Partners Advances in streaming media and online presentation technology make possible a new, parallel toolset to conventional Web conferencing products. These webcasting tools offer high quality streaming video, including high definition, synchronized PowerPoint slide presentations, and interactivity. Audiences interact with the live video presenter through question and answer, polls, surveys, and embedded social media interfaces.

The figure below shows the kind of graphically sophisticated, interactive interface that is available with new rich media webcasting tools. In this case, the browser-based player contains a live, high quality video image and PowerPoint slides. Tabs under the slide enable the viewer to take a survey, download files or get on-screen help. The speaker’s bio is present on a tab, along with a Q&A box. The player is

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branded with the presenter’s logo. Buttons at the bottom of the player let the viewer expand the video to full screen or do the same with the PowerPoint.

The video webinar, shown here in MediaPlatform WebCaster, offers high quality video and PowerPoint in a custom-branded player with interactivity from polls, surveys, and Q&A.

In our experience working with webinar producers, webcasting software does not usually replace standard Web conferencing tools. Rather, the webcast software is a separate tool that producers can selectively offer to their webinar clients. In some cases, the introduction of video webinars is done through a specialized partner firm. Ken Molay states, “Web conferencing providers and resellers would benefit their customers by offering the option to involve technology and service partners who specialize in video webcasting for business use. Such specialists know how to deal with lighting, sound, set dressing, high-end camera operation, video encoding, and other factors that showcase the presenter advantageously.” As Molay’s comment suggests, you will probably need to train your people or add vendors to help you with the challenges inherent in webinar production when you introduce live video. It is necessary to think through the areas where you will need help:

Physical Production: A live video webcast is like a live TV show. To make it look right, you need professional grade lights, microphones, cameras, and so forth. This equipment need not be excessively costly, but you do need the right tools. In some cases, you may want to outsource the production aspects of the video webinar to experienced video producers.

Presenters: With a video webinar, you will likely be coaching your presenters on how to look good on camera. Indeed, some of your presenters may not want to be on camera at all, but they need to be.

Testing: A video webinar often splices together a number of different technologies, some of which may be out of your direct control. For example, if you have one presenter at a remote

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video studio and another one on a webcam, you will have to test those connections well before the event itself.

Encoding: Video needs to be encoded before it streams to the audience’s video players. Encoding is a very broad and complex topic, but what you need to know is that it is an essential aspect of video webinars that needs to be nailed down and tested before you produce your event.

Production controls: In a live webcast you need to be able to cut back and forth between different presenters, some of whom may be remote, and pre-recorded clips. All the while, you will be managing Q&A, surveys, and polls.

The MediaPlatform Solution MediaPlatform WebCaster helps you engage the audience with sophisticated video webinars. The software provides a simple solution to the challenges that arise in producing video webinars. Many large companies and media producers use WebCaster to power high-impact presentations for lead generation, corporate communications and training. The company offers organizations the ability to take advantage of scalable cloud-based computing, as well as on-premises deployment, to present and manage rich media.

MediaPlatform’s solutions link phases of the complete webcast production process through a series of best-in-class offerings. We call this “performance webcasting.” WebCaster manages the webcast guest invitation and registration processes with rich customization characteristics. The back-end production control interface allows producers to manage a live or on-demand event with a full complement of professional options, including dynamic survey, poll, and Q&A functionality. The signal streams from the most scalable, redundant infrastructure available on the market today. End users see the presentation on a custom-branded player that can be designed to match corporate branding specifications. Post-event, powerful analytics and reporting tools enable event owners and business stakeholders to gain insight into the success of the event and the return on investment for the production process.

The figure below shows WebCaster’s producer console, which is used to run a live or on-demand webcast. WebCaster is designed for professional audio-video production, with the ability to switch between multiple presenters in remote locations. It is possible to mix in pre-recorded video clips as

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well. From this console, you can serve polls and surveys to the audience in real time, as well as answer audience questions.

The producer of a video webinar needs to control multiple video feeds from remote presenters and pre-recorded clips, flip slides, push polls and answer audience questions. MediaPlatform WebCaster’s production interface, shown here, gives producers these capabilities, as well as the ability to delegate them to a multi-person production team.

The WebCaster viewer interface can be customized to match your webinar client’s branding, as the examples below show. The interface can also include custom elements such as Twitter and chat that can lead to enhanced audience engagement.

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Post event, WebCaster automatically provides numerous reports that you can use to analyze audience engagement, as shown in the screen captures below.

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About MediaPlatform, Inc. MediaPlatform, Inc. delivers best-in-class webcasting and media management technology to global enterprises and digital media producers. MediaPlatform’s webcasting software enables high-impact presentations for lead generation, corporate communications and training. The company offers organizations the ability to take advantage of scalable cloud-based computing, as well as on-premises deployment, to present and manage rich media. With media management tools built on its platform, the company helps clients derive long term archive value from their investment in media content. MediaPlatform is known for excellence in engineering, with a host of superlatives and “firsts” accompanying our product offerings, including:

Most scalable webcasting solution, reliably used to stream live video to simultaneous audiences in the tens of thousands.

Most customizable viewer experience, enabling completely custom branding of the media player and alignment with corporate branding standards.

Most dynamic and professional-class back-end production management system, with the ability to manage complex live events with multiple live presenters and a large production team assigned separate roles.

Highest level of potential application integration, realized through a 100% Web services (SOA) approach to solution architecture.

First pure software-as-a-service enterprise webcasting solution.

www.mediaplatform.com

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