Can you imagine that your face-to-face courses are not tied to a fixed space? Where people around the world can participate in your sessions? Are you looking for your online courses to be more interactive and participatory? Webinars are the solution you are looking for.
As its name suggests, a webinar is a web seminar that is, a class taught over the Internet. Unlike online courses, they are not pre-recorded videos, but rather consist of a live broadcast of the session, where the teacher and students connect at the same time through a streaming platform to develop the classes. In this way the students and the teacher can interact without the restriction of space.
In addition, the function of webinars has been evolving. They are not only used to make classes, they are also used to make product demonstrations, train employees, conferences, presentations, etc ...
In Foxize Cloud you can manage registrations and communications through the LMS platform, creating an online course with a specific date. In addition, later you can upload the recording of your webinar as an e-learning video in the course materials, for other users. If you still do not have your own training platform, we offer you 1 free month to try Foxize Cloud, without any obligation!
A good webinar platform should allow interaction between teacher and students through text or voice chat, multimedia sharing, participant roles, etc. In the market you can find a wide variety of tools to create your own webinars. We propose 7 paid tools and 3 free alternatives so that you can take your first steps in the world of webinars.
7 tools for Webinars
Zoom
Zoom is a corporate tool for holding conferences with large crowds of attendees. Up to 10,000 people can participate in the webinar. In addition, Zoom is integrated with Facebook Live and YouTube so that you can broadcast your classes openly and to a much larger audience.
The chat incorporates a question and answer system so that the teacher or the moderators can answer individually and do not get lost in the chat history. Also, the chat and video recording are also saved together.
Zoom has tools for managing and registering users so that you can take control of your attendees from the same platform. It also integrates a payment platform to market the webinars. In addition, one of the most outstanding features of Zoom is its detailed and live reports of the Webinars.
It should be noted that Zoom allows you to customize the webinar platform to adapt it to the look & feel of your brand.
The plans range from € 11.66 per month to € 158.25 per month. In addition, for different quotas you can expand the number of attendees, add more rooms or add more storage in the cloud for the recordings of the webinars.
Foxize Cloud integrates Zoom, so your students can visualize your webinars without the need to go to external platforms. Moreover, all the data collected (communications, number of attendees, time spent, etc) will be also available in your platform’s backoffice.
Webex Meetings
Webex Meetings is a Cisco program created primarily for meeting and teamwork, but it offers many useful features for webinars. It has a free version that allows meetings with up to 100 people for 24 hours. The plans for companies range from € 12.85 to € 25.65 per month per host.
With Webex you can share your screen and annotate on it. In addition, to interact with your users, you have a chat sidebar where they can comment, and even use the question and answer function, and ask for a turn.
Communicating with the user with Webex is quite simple. It allows scheduling webinars and putting an entry code. In addition, it automatically sends reminders and creates an event in the calendars of those who use gmail or outlook.
And if you later want to upload the webinars to your LMS platform, Webex allows you to record the webinars and store them in your cloud, which you can later download. The free version has 1GB of storage.
Something that makes Webex stand out from other webinar tools is that it has a very useful and functional mobile application.
GoToWebinar
GoToWebinar is one of the oldest and most established tools in the world of webinars and is 100% dedicated to it.
When planning a webinar event, a landing page is automatically created where your attendees can register. Communications with users are also automated so you can focus on preparing a good seminar.
Apart from doing live courses, it also has a function that allows you to upload pre-recorded videos and broadcast live, that is, simulate a webinar. This is very useful if you don't have a good internet connection to share video, but you can be active on your computer.
Other functions of GoToWebinar is that it allows you to share presentations directly from the tool, without the need to share a screen. It also includes a previous room so that the teacher can practice and check that everything works as it should. It also includes a report, but this is accessible after the conference.
Its main con is the price. The basic plan (Starter) is $ 89 and only allows 100 participants per session, something that other tools also offer for a much cheaper price.
Demio
Demio is a tool specifically focused on webinars and it shows in its functionalities. Demio's price ranges from $ 34 per month to $ 163 / month and allows up to 500 attendees per room, somewhat limited for large corporations but adjusted for start-ups.
Demio has a simple, elegant and intuitive interface, which stands out from the other tools and can be customized according to your branding. In addition, the distribution of the chat is clean, so that users can easily access the questions, surveys and downloadable material of the webinar.
During the webinar, you can launch calls to action, very useful to share offers or links so attendees can register on your training platform, for example.
Something remarkable about Demio, and surely many users will appreciate it, is that it is not necessary for attendees to download applications to watch the webinars, they can access it directly from their browser.
WebinarJam
WebinarJam is a conference and webinar tool for employees and corporate clients. Their prices range from $ 499 per year to $ 999 / year and each session can accept between 500 and 5000 users.
WebinarJam stands out for having different types of rooms according to your needs: in situ, for one-time sessions or recurring sessions, or permanently open rooms.
It also has different layouts during the webinar so that you can distribute the different windows according to your interest: Give more importance to the presentation, your webcam, the participants ...
It is one of the platforms that allows you to directly share presentations and videos during the webinar without the need to share screen, so you will not lose quality in the images. Other useful features for presenting are the drawing board or sharing live downloadable material.
Interestingly, in case of technical problems during the webinar, WebinarJam has a "Panic Button" that creates a new room and directly exports all users to it so that you can continue with the session as if nothing had happened.
Livestorm
Livestorm is a SaaS dedicated to corporate communication as well as webinars. Rates range from € 89 / month to € 268 / month depending on the plan and the total number of attendees, which can be up to 1,000. Livestorm also has a free Basic version with limitations of attendees (10) and session time (only 20 minutes).
Being a Software as a Service (SaaS) all the management and development of webinars can be done from the web, without the need to download any application, something really comfortable and that increases participation.
In addition to screen sharing, presentations can also be shared during the webinar and it has the basic chat and survey functions.
One of the best features of Livestorm is that it allows integration with more than 1,000 external applications, such as Slack, Google Analytics, Stripe, Hotspot ...
Webinar Ninja
Webinar Ninja makes it easy to use the tool, so you can focus on offering the class and not managing the platform. In fact, their motto is that you can create a webinar in 10 seconds. Everything you need is integrated into its interface, so you will not have to manage different tabs while you are live, and, what is better, your audience can access to the webinar directly from the browser. In addition, it also allows you to change the distribution of the webinar images according to your convenience.
A unique aspect of Ninja Webinar is that, unlike the other tools, the chat and the question and answer section are not in the same column. This makes it more difficult for users to get confused and write important questions in the chat. For the teacher it is also more useful since they can always have both tabs open and be attentive at all times to the needs of the participants.
Pricing plans range from $ 39 / month to $ 199 / month and with a maximum attendee capacity of 1,000 users.
3 free alternatives for Webinars
If you're on a tight budget and can't afford to invest in paid softwares for your webinars, we want to share with you 3 popular free streaming conference tools.
Keep in mind that these communication tools are not specialized for webinars, so much of its Management and communication of the event must be done through an external LMS platform. Even so, they have the adequate functionalities to stream your classes.
Meet Google
Google Meet is a tool for holding meetings and video conferences, but it can also be used for webinars. The features it offers are limited: webcam, screen sharing, and file sharing. It is accessible directly from the browser and up to 100 people can participate.
There are two ways to create a Google Meet meeting. The first is creating an event from Google Calendar. When you invite people, an event invitation will automatically be generated with a link to a Google Meet meeting.
The second option is to create the meeting room directly from the Meet Google website. When creating the meeting you can get the link and share it with your attendees by copying the link and sending it by email through the Foxize Cloud email marketing tool.
Keep in mind that this tool does not automatically record conferences, so you must use an external app.
Discord
Discord was initially created as a communication tool for gamers, but lately its use has spread and many use it to collaborate online or as a meeting point for a community.
Discord is a very useful communication tool, since it allows you to create different servers, make video calls, private channels and a long etcetera. It can be accessed through app and browser.
To prepare your own webinar from Discord, you can create a private server and share the link with the people who have registered for the event from your training platform through a link in the course materials or through an email.
They recently added a version that allows streaming in a group. You can share your window while other people on that server see and listen to you, and you can interact with them through voice or written chat, you can share multimedia documents, and create different channels according to your needs: questions and answers, surveys, documents ... .
Its main disadvantage is that it does not have an automatic recording system integrated, so if you want to take advantage of the session to upload it to your training platform, you must use a screen capture program.
Youtube Direct
Youtube Direct is very useful for conducting webinars to a large number of people without the need to worry about the capacity. It has quite limited functions but very easy to use: you can broadcast your webcam or share your screen and watch the chat during the broadcast.
If you decide to do a webinar through YouTube, keep in mind that you will not be able to restrict visits. Users can enter through the search engine or with the link you provide.
On the other hand, YouTube automatically records and stores all the live shows and they are saved on your channel so that you can later decide to put it in public, or upload it to your LMS platform.
These are our 10 recommendations for tools to create your own webinars. We encourage you to investigate each of the options so that you can choose the one that best suits your needs and budget.
