So you’re hosting your very first webinar but aren’t looking to pay a ton of money for webinar software from companies like WebinarJam or WebinarNinja, I totally get it! I’m in exactly the same boat and don’t host webinars often enough to justify spending 300+ a year on webinar software. I kept scouring the web to find out how I could host my webinars without having to pay an arm and a leg and finally found the solution. Continue reading for more on how to host a webinar for free.
How to Host a Webinar for Free
The solution to my problem was live streaming with YouTube Live (formerly Google Hangouts on Air). First, you login to YouTube and then navigate to the “Creator Studio”. Once you’ve selected the Creator Studio tab, you’ll find your way to the live streaming tab. Then you will select “new live event”. From here, you’ll set up your live event with a title, date you’re planning on going live, add a description, and some tags. After you have done all that, you’ll select create live event and alas, you have scheduled your live event and will easily be able to live stream the day of your webinar with no issue.
When you’re ready to live stream, you’ll select the button that says start Hangout on Air and then you’ll be live and able to host your webinar complete with slides. Although just live streaming on YouTube is fine, you will probably want to have a way for your audience to interact with you and ask questions during the webinar. You can do this all on your website, crazy right?
What you’ll need:
All you have to do is take the embedded code after you set up your live event and then you take that code and put it on a new page on your website or within a landing page using a landing page software like LeadPages to create a beautiful landing page to host your webinar in no time. You’ll also need a chat box to embed on your landing page so that your audience can communicate with you during the webinar. I recommend using something like Chatroll or Chatango because they can easily be customized to fit your branding and embed nicely on a website.
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Your Turn:
If you’ve ever hosted a webinar before, what software did you use? Please feel free to let me know down in the comments.
