Is a Webinar Online or Offline? How Webinars Work

Key takeaways:

• A webinar is a live or recorded presentation that takes place fully online. The name combines "web" and "seminar", and attendees join from their browser without travelling anywhere.

• Webinars let you reach a large group at once. Teams use them for product demos, training, onboarding, research results and customer Q&As, not only for lead generation.

• Interaction is what sets a webinar apart from a video. Chat, polls, Q&A and viewer analytics show you who watched, what they asked and where attention dropped.

You’ve probably seen the term before. Webinars have become a standard way for companies, big and small, to share knowledge, train people and stay in touch with their audience. Chances are that you have at least once received an invitation. Maybe you have even watched one.

We’re talking about webinars, of course!

Are you thinking about organizing a webinar, but are you not sure whether you should? Perhaps you just want to know what a webinar is. Whichever the case is for you, after reading this blogpost, you will have an answer to your question.

What is a webinar? And where does the word ‘webinar’ come from?

Let’s start with a definition:

A webinar is a presentation, for example a workshop or a lecture, that takes place completely online.

You can view a webinar as a meeting where information about a certain topic is shared. It’s the same as what happens at a seminar. The only difference is that people don’t go to a physical location, but attend a webinar through the web. Everyone who is involved in a webinar participates online. Including the audience.

It doesn’t take much effort, then, to find out where the term ‘webinar’ originated. As you may already have guessed, it’s a combination of the words ‘web’ and ‘seminar’.

Prefer to watch? This video explains what a webinar is and where the word comes from.

Is a webinar online or offline?

A webinar is always online. The word combines "web" and "seminar", so the web part is built in: the presenter broadcasts over the internet and viewers join from their browser, wherever they are. There's no physical venue to travel to.

What people sometimes call an "offline webinar" is usually one of two things. It's either an in-person seminar or workshop at a physical location, or a hybrid event, where a live audience sits in a room while the session is streamed online at the same time. A recorded webinar you watch later, often called an on-demand webinar, is still online too. It just isn't live.

What is the goal of a webinar?

A webinar gives you the opportunity to reach a large number of people in a short period of time. It often focuses on one particular subject and is used to share information (or) to get more clients.

Some examples:

• A Q&A session for potential clients to eliminate worries about your new product.

• A promotion of your new book.

• A discussion of the results of your research project.

How does a webinar work?

Just like any event, you decide in advance when your webinar will take place. Viewers subscribe and when the webinar is aired, they (and you as the presenter) all log in at the same time.

You give your talk by using your microphone. If you want to, you can also use your webcam to let the viewers see you. You can even support your presentation with a PowerPoint presentation, images or videos.

By default, participants see and hear you as the presenter, but not each other. That keeps the focus on your story, much like an offline seminar where everyone in the room listens to one speaker. When you want more interaction, you can invite viewers on stage to ask a question or share their experience, or host an interactive session where every participant can join the conversation.

One of the great benefits of a webinar is that you can use interactive tools to measure your audience’s behavior. By chatting and asking questions, your viewers give you loads of useful information. But you can also initiate interaction by using specific tools. For example, use a poll or ask the audience a question. You can even measure viewing behaviour. This data can be incredibly useful!

Who can organize webinars?

That’s easy: anyone can. We see this every day when we talk to our clients. They are from all workfields and countries. The days in which webinars were only hosted by large organizations, are in the past. Webinars are highly accessible for both organizers and viewers. They provide an easy, inexpensive and safe way to communicate with a large group.