Month: December 2015

How Budding Musicians Can Leverage The Potential Of Webinars

Webinars are taking the world of digital marketing by storm. They have gradually transformed from being overlooked and their potential disregarded, to becoming an integral aspect of B2B and content marketing strategies. Perhaps the biggest advantage of webinars is that they transcend all geographic boundaries, allowing the dissemination of information to users and influencers all across the world, at almost no cost whatsoever.

A large crop of people assume that webinars are used solely by marketers or professors for sharing their content; au contraire, a large number of unconventional professionals, such as musicians, social activists and dancers have also been leveraging the potential of webinars to promote their content.

If you’re a musician hoping to reach out to a large audience, webinars can be your ticket to fame! Here are a few ways in which you can harness the potential of webinars to increase engagement with your audience —

  • Live streaming gigs — almost every musician dreams of performing live someday. And webinars can breathe life into your flights of fancy – all you need is a computer, an internet connection and a microphone. You can stream your gig as a live webinar and invite followers to tune into it. With due promotion, your webinar has the potential to be heard by thousands the world over. If well-received, your music might spread like wildfire all over the Internet.
  • Online workshops — you can broadcast your music tutorials and workshops as a live webinar. It proves to be a more interactive option as compared to a regular video, as it allows for feedback. It helps drive traffic to your website, and ultimately results in an increase in the number of your followers.
  • Q&A with audience — fans are what make a musician, a musician. So it’s always good to get the fans and the audience involved at some ‘stage’, and a Q&A session is the perfect way. It helps address fans’ questions about the music, the musician, his methods, as well as makes them feel that the musician actually cares about them and considers them important. Holding a Q&A session every month greatly increases engagement and word-of-mouth promotion for you and your music.
  • Behind-the-scenes access — giving fans and audiences a rare glimpse into what goes on behind the making of the music proves to be a great way of increasing engagement. The trick here is to give them just a glimpse that’ll leave them wanting more, a look into new music you have been working on. This keeps the audience on their toes, and will definitely make them tune into your next webinar.

These are a few ways in which budding musicians can harness webinar services, and reach out to audience world over.

Does Your Brand’s Marketing Strategy Really Need All Digital Media Platforms?

Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, you name it and your brand has an official account on the platform. However, the conversion ratio that you had anticipated is missing. Wonder why?

Businesses spend a sizable chunk of money and intensive man power, dedicated to mastering their marketing strategy. Inevitably most businesses decide that a presence on each platform will convert into sales. Truth to be told, this is not the case.

Generally a business posts and shares content that is repeated over various platforms or just cross promotes the same content according to the mediums format. This just results in your consumers getting bombarded with repetitive content that makes them lose interest and also often discourages them. It is also likely that they unfollow your brand page.

Stop and take a moment or two to understand what it is that each social media platform offers and how you can avail them or not avail them to maximize your social media marketing strategy.

Micro-blogging manners

 

Twitter:

This medium is best suited if you have a considerable amount of content to go around each day that ties up to current event topics or even industry matters. Just having a presence on Twitter and tweeting only one generic post a day will do your brand no good. Twitter is all about brevity, so content that is timely and packs a punch needs to be made available via this platform.

Instagram:

Even though this format of social media is increasingly gaining popularity, the content that can be shared here is very specific, namely vivid photographs. People who have an Instagram account usually share very personal experiences via this medium, they share photos of themselves, the food they eat, their pets, families, vacation spots, etc. Just spamming your followers with pictures that hold little relevance to your brand will do you no good. Even if you still insist on having an account on this platform, please ensure that the content that you share adds value to your brand.

Social networking etiquette

Facebook fan:

As a medium that helps you get the reach and gives you the freedom to share multiple formats of information, Facebook is an ideal choice. Not only can you reach out to potential clients and influencers for your brand but also keep your current patronage engaged via this medium. This medium is not limiting in the sense that you can share pictures, videos, data and analytics and other information in real time without a glitch. People can further share the content you post. This medium also has an active call-to-action facility which overall helps your marketing strategy.

LinkedIn likes:

Content that should be created for LinkedIn should cater to primarily the team that you employee, the potential employees and your competitors. This is one platform where customers take a backseat and what comes into focus is what you do as a brand. Content that you share on LinkedIn should be in complete sync with your brand image.

Webinar ways

Webinars are being labeled as the game changers where marketing strategies are concerned. Their USP lies in them being a platform that lets you collaborate all formats of content and share it with your actual target audience. Another good thing about webinars is that they give you the scope to really put together valid and unique content over an extended period of time and then share it. They allow you to communicate with and engage with your actual audience and potential clients in real time. A further advantage of webinars is that you get to measure the results and success instantly.

You can either choose webinar platforms that offers paid services and a support team that will help you organize a good webinar, or you can choose a free webinar platform. The complimentary tools help you collate your research, manage your invites and attendees’ data, contact them and send reminders. Incorporating your organizations blog, also becomes easy.

Chasing after large number of people will not pay off unless you offer quality content to match. Sometimes doing less is more. So choose a balanced mix of platforms to add to your marketing strategy.

Tell us what kind of content you share on each platform and your intent of doing so.

Become a Webinar Wizard: 5 Keys to Success

Become a Webinar Wizard

Have a Plan

The first step to a successful webinar is to get a strategy in place. You need to ask yourself several key questions. Why am I hosting a webinar? Who is my target audience? What are my goals? What am I going to cover and how? While your ultimate goal may be to make a sale don’t use your webinar as a hard sales pitch, you’re likely to lose your audience. Providing useful content that is relevant to your audience will keep them coming back.

It’s All About the Title

Your title is critical in getting people to attend your webinar. You want your title to be engaging and give a clear picture of what someone will gain from coming to your webinar. When crafting your title you should consider; Who, What, Where, When, Why and How. While you want your title to be informative you should also keep it brief. A brief catchy title that is informative is a must for a successful webinar.

Timing is Everything

You want to strategically schedule your webinar to maximise attendance. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are usually the best days of the week to host a webinar. Try to avoid holidays and the day before or after a holiday.  You will also want to consider what else might be going on in your space at the same time as your webinar. For example, if there is a trade show happening that your target audience is likely to attend it’s not the best time to host a webinar.

Time of day is also a key factor. You’ll want to think about where your target audience is located. Lunch time is usually a good time to maximize attendance. If your audience comes from multiple time zones try to choose a time that would be convenient across time zones. For example, Noon Central is late enough on the West Coast and early enough on the East Coast to be convenient for all attendees.

Promotion is an Imperative

Those seats aren’t going to fill themselves! It’s critical to promote your webinar.  While social media is a low-cost way to reach a large audience it’s not a magic bullet and shouldn’t be your entire promotional plan.  You should  also advertise it on your website, utilize emails to reach your target audience, write blog posts and encourage others to share your content.

Content is King

A webinar should consist of 3 parts; introduction, key points, conclusion. It should be informative and engaging.

Make it visual.  A slide full of text is going to bore your audience. Use visuals to punctuate your points. Visuals will keep your audience much more engaged in what you are saying.

Keep text to a minimum. Your presentation should not be you reading verbatim from your slides.  Slide text should be short and highlight the key point you are making.

Engage with your Audience! People attend live webinar because they want to engage with the presenter. Poll questions are a great way to engage your audience and make your presentation interactive.  Saving time for live Q&A is also important.

Three Webinars To Watch On BigMarker

Webinars can be fun and informative. However, if you are new to the webinar world, you might want to start watching some recorded webinars to get a better idea of what is in store for you. If you are invested in making your Sunday a productive one, we have a list of webinars you should catch up on.

Here are three trending webinars on BigMarker,

1. Technology and our Brains: The Good, the Bad, and the Unknown.

The age old debate about the effects of technology is being fueled by this webinar. It’s time to take a stance on this topic and watch what hosts Betsy and Sara have to say about it. They shed light on the effects of video games, cell phones and other technology during different stages of child development. The positive and the negative sides are explored along with strategies to elicit positive effects and minimize the negative ones. It’s a one of a kind webinar and you can catch the recording right here:

https://www.bigmarker.com/BrainsandLearning/Technology-and-Our-Brains-The-Good-The-Bad-and-the-Unknown

2.  10 Social Media Tips for Your Business.

Social media is an important tool in the business world and being a new business in today’s market demands a basic understanding of social media. Social media has become one of the key marketing spaces, due to the rising popularity of the internet. Every company would have a presence on social media forums to reach out to their target audience on a personal level. Master the art of social media with this webinar.

https://www.bigmarker.com/Space_Studio/10-Social-Media-Tips-for-Your-Business

3.  Step Into Your Mindful Life

An interesting insight into mindfulness is coming your way. This webinar is about being in the here and now. Molly knight begins the session with meditation and then explores the themes of awareness and self-observation. She stresses the importance of being mindful and explains its importance in daily life. It’s a webinar worth your attention.

https://www.bigmarker.com/molly-knight-forde/Step-Into-Your-Mindful-Life

Make the most of free web conferencing! Start binge watching today.