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No More Pre-Recorded Webinars

posted on February 22, 2011

I give a lot of webinars and have a bit of a love hate relationship with them.

As someone who thrives off the energy of a crowd, I prefer to present on stage and in person so that I have that direct connection with my audience. But, I also love that I can do multiple webinars in a week from anywhere in the world and it doesn’t require myself or the participants to travel to be part of it. Thus, the love hate.

But, I’m seeing a trend in pre-recorded webinars and I’ve made a decision that I am no longer going to pre-record webinars. The safety net of these makes them not as good as live ones.

I can back this up from years of doing theater productions. While you can do a million dress rehearsals and press runs, there is nothing like the energy that happens on opening night. It is the first time you are doing the show in front of a live audience and everyone knows that they have to be “on” and deliver the best performance of their lives to make it enjoyable for everyone in the audience.

The same thing happens when you do a webinar. You have to be on, animated and fully ready to talk to the crowd as if it is the first time you’ve ever given it.

With Content Rules being out, we are averaging at least one webinar a week. A lot of the content is the same, but each time we give it there is a unique feeling to it based on when and where we give the presentation and no two are ever the same.

Last week Ann and I were together for the first time giving one and we had a caterer making veggie plates ready in the background (photo taken during the webinar). Talk about a live audience! Best part though was that everyone on webinar commented about how they loved the energy level of the webinar compared to many they have ever attended. You can get the recording here.

But, recently I’ve been asked several times about pre-recording a webinar and then doing the question and answer portion live. This is not fair to the people who sign up to take part in the webinar. It is also not smart when this industry changes so frequently and any presentation should always include the most up to date information possible.

I was just asked to pre-record a webinar on Facebook Pages. Talk about a topic that changes every week and I am currently trying to change the organization’s mind. When I agreed to give the webinar, I did not know they wanted to pre-record it. Now I’m going to always ask that up front to any company that approaches me about doing a webinar.

Webinars are powerful content. They are smart things that companies should do. Heck, we dedicated one of the biggest chapters of the book to helping people conduct them better.

I will continue to give webinars and continue to have mix emotions about them.

But, I won’t be pre-recording them for anyone who asks.

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Categories: Rants
  • http://www.facebook.com/ajvsell Adam Sell

    I agree with a caveat: recording a live webinar for archive and publishing on a client’s website only makes sense. The webinars my company hosts don’t always attract a huge number of attendees, so we always offer to record them at the time and pass along the file to the client for reuse.

    • http://www.cc-chapman.com/ C.C. Chapman

      FOR SURE!

      Recording a live webinar for archive purposes so that more people can view
      the content is a MUST.

      If you are using webinars at your company and NOT recording them then you
      are missing out on the whole point! *grin*

  • http://twitter.com/SmartWoman Vicki Flaugher

    I agree, from seeing you present live, that live is more energetic. It’s like razor edge living – you never know for sure what’s going to happen and the inspired moments show up unexpectedly. Kudos to you, C.C….by the way, LOVED the book and will be doing a review on it very soon for http://bit.ly/socialmediazone – thanks for signing it!

    Vicki Flaugher
    @Smartwoman

    • http://www.cc-chapman.com/ C.C. Chapman

      Thank you!

      Plus, by doing it live it insures that every single time it is different,
      unique and appropriate for the audience.

      Last week when Ann and I did the webinar we were answering questions on the
      fly as they came in from the audience and if we had pre-recorded it that
      would not have happened.

  • http://jennifernavarrete.com Jennifer Navarrete

    I completely agree. There is a definite energy to going live. You as the presenter can feel it and so can your audience.

    • http://www.cc-chapman.com/ C.C. Chapman

      See, you said it much more compact then I could get out! Thank you!

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  • http://www.inflectionmethods.com Joel Capperella

    I love the category: Rants one of the best webcasters I’ve ever heard is this old time cold calling expert Steve Schiffman. The dude could field questions poping up in the chat window as fast as they were typed in – he’d call out the name of the person who asked the question and just answer it (didn’t read the question).

  • http://www.facebook.com/blyth Warren Blyth

    I’m not clear on the nature of your webinars. But find this very interesting from an online learning perspective.

    I work for Oregon State University’s “Extended Campus,” finding ways to translate campus courses into 24-7 web page courses. We often encourage instructors to come in and record audio over their ppt slides (using Adobe Presenter), since it so easy.

    Usually steer clear of trying to record their lectures in class, Live, due to chaos of audio concerns and FERPA regulations (about student confidentiality).

    Very curious about methods to bring the energy of live performance into a controlled environment.
    -is an audience of one enough? (do they need to be engaged? or could I just sit in the room reading a newspaper?)
    -is anyone experimenting with creating a fake audience, using biometrics and video game engines? (Picture a laptop setup nearby, that displays a virtual audience, offering cues to trick the presenter into being engaging).

    • http://www.cc-chapman.com/ C.C. Chapman

      I am part of the distance learning program at USF where I’m an adjunct
      professor. We recorded our lectures ahead of time since they are given to
      the students on DVD, but then there are weekly live classes to supplement
      them and to keep it timely and relevant. This makes sense and in a learning
      environment I can see this happening a lot.

      What I’m talking about is where the webinar is sold as live (yes in at least
      one situation I’m referencing people paid to attend the webinar) and because
      of that I think pre-recording it is less then genuine.

      A remote virtual audience. Hmmm….THAT is an intriguing idea. I wonder if
      anyone is doing studies on that. Could be interesting for sure.

  • http://www.ricardobueno.com Ricardo Bueno

    I do live weekly webinars though to a smaller audience (on average ~10 people). It’s mostly product training but it’s neat when a client you recognize signs up and you can chit-chat with them a little bit. It’s conversational, the energy is there and if you need to discuss something (a specific idea) a bit further, you can.

    Sure I can pre-record a ton of webinars, host the videos and slap them on our site. But that kinda defeats the purpose of that personal touch I was going for ya know? I want clients to love our work, value our product and love our support. I can only do that by showing…I mean *really* showing up every day.

    • http://www.cc-chapman.com/ C.C. Chapman

      BINGO!

      And I’m not saying that there might be some situations where pre-recording
      is a good idea, but for me both personally and professionally I don’t want
      to do it.

  • http://chrisbrogan.com Chris Brogan

    I’ve got mixed opinions on it. I think that there’s a place for “canned” video and canned webinars, but I totally agree that live has a much better feel.

    I did a webinar where the Q&A section was WAY better than the webinar, and I ended up feeling that people who stayed around for the Q&A were better served. And yet? Almost every webinar, when we go to Q&A, over 50% of people drop off. This is mind-boggling to me, but it’s a stat I’ve seen again and again.

    I’m not 100% opposed to canned webinars such as it were, but only if I can be there live during Q&A to get it all jazzed up again.

    Now, as a PERFORMER, such as it were, there’s nothing like live. It’s utter love. : )

    • http://www.cc-chapman.com/ C.C. Chapman

      I hear what your saying and there is indeed a PLACE for them. Heck, just
      yesterday I was in a brainstorming meeting with a client where we talked
      about this exact idea.

      I’m just not into people advertising people to tune in live at 2:00 for a
      webinar and then that webinar being recorded. It makes no sense to me.

      I’ve never understood the stats showing people dropping off during the Q&A
      either. That is where some of the best stuff happens, but I watch the
      numbers drop every time I give one.

      Thanks for chiming in!

    • http://www.wordandmouth.com Dave Thackeray

      Hey Chris.

      I hear what you say about Q and A drop-offs – I’ve encountered it myself coaching folks how to harness business broadcasting to help their enterprises rock customer engagement levels.

      So I went back to basics, and turned my webinars on their head – literally. I started delivering webinars with the Q and A section FIRST, to sense the mood and ensure the content was accurate to my audience’s needs.

      Not only did I have far better feedback stats, but I was able to make sure that all of the content was laser-focused on what my community really needed, right off the bat.

  • http://www.killerwebinars.com Shelley Ryan

    Hey, C.C.! Love ya, but I’ve got to respectfully disagree with your position here — for MOST people.

    Did you see the webinar I did in MarketingProfs “Crash Course” on Content Marketing? If not, I hope you’ll take 19 minutes to watch it. I’ll make my point briefly here, too.

    There are very few “keynoter” quality speakers out there who can do a live webinar without losing the audience’s attention. In fact, most webinars suck because they use presenters who think they are fantastic speaking live… or they don’t give presenters the chance to pre-record.

    Most webinar presenters are experts in their subject — but they are NOT professional-level speakers, and they don’t do well with an invisible audience. For them, it truly is best to pre-record the presentation to make it PERFECT, with live Q&A immediately after the recording ends. This way, the webinar producer has confidence in the content she promised to the audience, the speaker looks /sounds fabulous and unflustered, and the audience gets what they came for.

    I realize that pre-recording seems like more work. But the results are so much better, and the audience DOESN’T CARE that it’s not 100% live. I know because I asked them. :)

    p.s. When the presentation itself is lousy, people don’t stay for Q&A.

    • http://www.cc-chapman.com/ C.C. Chapman

      Thanks for chiming in on this. I know you know more about this topic then most. Do you have a link to the webinar you are talking about.

      All that being said I am sticking to my guns.