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10 Best Webinar Tools To Host Online Meetings

Best Webinar Tools To Host Online Meetings

Today, more and more people are starting to take advantage of webinars for marketing and training. They’re not only quick and inexpensive but also extremely efficient. Who would have thought that using personal devices such as desktop computers, laptops, tablets, or smartphones for online meetings – which wasn’t possible just a decade or two ago – would become a regular thing?

And it’s not difficult to see why people have chosen to take this ever-improving technological route. Just take a look at some of the reasons why you might need to host or join a webinar:

  • For teaching or enrolling in an online course
  • For hosting online events (ideal for participants in distributed locations)
  • For panel discussions and knowledge sharing
  • For training people (i.e., employees)
  • For running workshops

Truly, a webinar does wonders for both businesses and individuals for various purposes. And as a result, webinar providers have also increased by a tenfold. With that said, here’s a compilation containing 10 of the most commonly used webinar services available in the market. Each one has its strong point, especially when you try to look at it based on your specific need.

GoToWebinar

From the creators of popular screen sharing and meeting service GoToMeeting comes GoToWebinar, which is basically the webinar counterpart of the oft-used application. Because it is designed to suit bigger audiences, it offers a full-service registration function so that you can keep track of your attendees and generate reports out of the information you’ve gathered, among other key features.

Livestorm

Livestorm works within your browser; meaning you don’t need to download anything. Packed with a clean, professional interface that is mainly composed of powerful analytics and reporting tabs and easy to navigate webinar settings, the smooth setup and logic make the service a really tight option. The customization options are also equally exciting. 

The host can customize the link to the webinar or create a custom registration page via a sharp and fast WYSIWYG editor. These simple little touches can really make your webinar stand out without forcing you to focus on the technical stuff.

RingCentral

Top cloud phone service provider RingCentral was also able to come up with a webinar solution to round up its robust communications suite for business. Users can take advantage of a seamless webinar experience, available for up to 10,000 attendees and 500 presenters during a live session across many devices. 

Since it will be connected to your RingCentral account, the experience of hosting your webinar would be akin to extending your regular cloud business phone capabilities to cover video, audio, and screen sharing (among others).

Skype For Business

Many people use Skype for online meetings, but what many people don’t know is that for a meager fee, the solution can be extended to accommodate a bigger number of participants. Since a lot of people are already familiar with the Skype interface, they can easily host or join webinars and enjoy other familiar Skype functions at the same time.

Join.me

Initially a software that needed to be installed on your machine, Join.me now offers browser-based capabilities (while remaining as powerful as the installed version). More advanced features such as window sharing, presenter swapping, meeting lock, and more. 

The meeting lock is particularly interesting as it allows you to control who can join your meeting. Participants need to ask you first if they can enter your meeting.

BigMarker

If you need a solution specific to webinar marketing, then you should take note of BigMarker. It helps businesses create more engaging webinars through good design options, reporting, and built-in marketing tools. I

t even aids users in increasing attendee activity while on the webinar. Best of all, it also allows you to list your event on its webinar marketplace and displays it like a YouTube channel so your webinar’s discoverability will be better (especially when you fill out the metadata fields properly).

Adobe Connect

Say you’ve prepared your slides, uploaded the needed documents, and successfully shared them during the event – everything went smooth. So, what happens then? Webinars or online training usually go like this. Once the event ends, you won’t be able to pick up from where you left. You have to repeat the entire process if you want to hold another webinar. 

You need to generate another URL, send out another invite, and so on. This is why Adobe Connect stands out from the rest. It offers persistent meeting rooms. The room you already created – together with its URL, customizations, features, and permissions – will remain intact even if you end the session.

Google Hangouts

As you might have guessed, this service is particularly useful for heavy users of applications on the Google platform since it’s the easiest to integrate with the said services. While not entirely marketed as a webinar service, people have found ways to use it for this purpose. 

Alternatively, the G Suite version called Business Hangouts offers advanced webinar features while requiring minimal training. Users can enjoy superior full-screen HD live broadcast, interactivity, one-click registration, and top-notch customer service, among others.

Zoom

While it is known for video conferencing, Zoom also offers a reliable webinar hosting service. Although it offers a lot less than the maximum participants allowed by its contemporaries, it still remains unique in that it allows the webinar to be broadcast live on Facebook and YouTube. And because the product is known globally for its reliability when it comes to video, you can expect that your webinar broadcast will be crystal-clear, no matter how video-heavy it is.

AnyMeeting

Out of all the webinar solutions available on the market today, AnyMeeting is perhaps one of the more straightforward options. Boasting of having hosted over 2 million webinars, the company prides itself on allowing users to spend more time focusing on their audience and content rather than learning how to get their web events up and running. Suffice to say, it offers a great way for marketers to get acquainted with new webinar software.

Webinars are truly a great way to engage audiences. There are a lot of options available out there, but in the end, the choice for a software or service will ultimately boil down to which provider will make the best fit for your current requirements and goals for the business.

Can you think of other similarly outstanding services that didn’t make this list? Please take a moment to share it in the comments section below.

Klaris Chua is an online content specialist who frequently participates in conversations about unified communications and collaboration. After several years in broadcast and print media, she decided to jump into the digital world because she found the unique and fast-paced environment too enticing to pass up. Connect with her on LinkedIn or Twitter.

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