Webinar, Online Meetings, or Virtual Summits? What’s the Difference?

Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, everyone is now at home working out their things using some helpful online tools. These tools can be used to make conferences, meet-ups, meetings, and so on. 

These tools are also affordable whereas you don’t have to pay for the meeting place and it reduces travel costs. It is accessible for everyone as well and very easy to use. These kinds of online tools are ideal for remote employees due to the current situation we are in right now. 

Either you are a manager who wants to have a team meeting, a business owner that needs to speak to their employees or a corporation who wants to reach out to people or an influential person who to do seminars or conference,  this article will help you to deeply understand what you need and where to get started.  So let me breakdown those helpful virtual tools that will make your life easier. 

Is there a difference between Webinar, Online Meetings, or Virtual Summits?

Webinar

The word webinar is short for web-based seminars. This means that any conference, meeting, or training transmitted using the internet can be a webinar. 

This online tool is ideal for giving presentations or even lectures because of its main purpose, to do a large scale communication. As we all know a  webinar is a lecture, presentation, or a seminar that is broadcasted over the web using video conferencing software or applications that you need to download on your computer/laptop. 

A webinar is an exclusive training or session in a one-to-many approach style. Its key feature is it can give, receive, and discuss information amongst attendees. Webinar also allows the presenter to connect with large audiences and discuss and share information online. 

By using a webinar app or platform like JetWebinar, you are allowed to share audios, documents, and applications with the attendees as well. Nowadays, lots of webinar services also offer live streaming options or allow you to record your webinar and publish it to Youtube. 

Online Meetings

The next one is what they call online meetings. Online meetings are also known as virtual meetings, online conferences, or web conferences. It’s like your conventional meetings but online.

In online meetings, you’ll find the host who organizes the events or meetings, while others are called guests or participants. They are the people who are invited by the host. Both of them can do presentations simultaneously, that’s why online meetings are most commonly used for those that are doing weekly or monthly reports. Users can also share their screens, poll attendees and so much more during the meeting.  

Online meetings are held using a video conference platform/application. Online meetings are team meetings online by using audio or video conferencing software. With this,  people in different parts of the world and time zones can jump in the meeting and communicate and discuss work online. 

The only thing you need to have is a desktop/laptop or a smartphone, a stable internet connection, and a reliable online meeting platform. Now you can have an online meeting with your colleagues, workmates or even with your friends. 

This online meeting tools made communication easier and efficient for employees and business owners. 

Virtual Summits

And last but not least is the virtual summits. Virtual summits are private events or most of the time involve live streaming. They are ideal for e-commerce businesses because virtual summits are usually used as part of their digital marketing strategies.  

Think of it as a normal conference or talk. It involves an emcee or a host, a group of speakers, and a room full of guests. This is the same with virtual summits, but it’s done online. The host will include a few speakers to interview during the event and usually, interactions are also present.

That’s why virtual summits usually are paid conferences and seminars due to the renowned speakers that are mostly involved. 

Now, why does this impact e-commerce businesses? Because Virtual summits are the best way to get real and solid leads online. It’s effective when it comes to generating traffic, opt-in, and sales. It has many benefits and it is indeed an effective marketing tool for the entrepreneurs and for those who are planning to make business. 

Virtual Summits can help you gain more profit opportunities, for instance upselling another product or even subscriptions and networking with successful people.

There are two types of summits; Free and Premium. Virtual summits are commonly used to get leads from attendees. Anyone is allowed to attend the summit for free, just enter your contact information and you are now can attend the summit. 

The next one is what they called “Premium” or paid summit. This is where anyone who wants to attend must need to pay first a fee to get access. The virtual summit is not like a live streaming app can do on its own. You can create a virtual summit through a reliable platform that can host a large number of attendees.

That’s why JetWebinar’s JetStream technology plays a big role when it comes to successful webinars and virtual summits. They can host at any scale and there are no limits when it comes to the number of attendees. All this, while producing high-quality video streaming. 

When should I utilize them?

Everything has its advantages so let’s see what are the advantages of each online tool are?

Webinars lets you gather people to connect, inform, update, and discuss together while using only your laptop or smartphone. It can be used for teaching or doing seminars in a focused environment in which you can concentrate on what you are doing without distractions. 

Helpful for businesses as you can also offer products and services. That’s why it has become a big part of digital marketing, especially during these times. Webinars also reduce your travel costs, make your life easier and cheaper. There’s also a lot of ways to increase your attendees when you want to host webinars for your business. 

If you want to communicate with your friends, colleagues, or team, you can use an online meeting. They are mostly used internally by companies or businesses as it replaces traditional weekly or monthly meetings. 

You can use it to discuss some business strategies, some discussions, and other issues as if you’re dealing with the participants face to face. It can be used in work meetings, group conversations, gathering and even witnessing some important celebrations like weddings, graduations, and many more. 

Also, online meetings make it easier and cheaper to get all the stakeholders in one place without any travel expenses. Everyone can attend these meetings just by making a few clicks on your computer/laptop.

And of course, we have virtual summits. In virtual summits, you are able to learn without any travel expenses, a long flight/drive, and without booking a hotel. It is also a good opportunity and an effective tool for entrepreneurs who are building up their own business. 

The advantage of the virtual summit is: it can run the entire event online because it can still be collaborative and the speakers are interviewed by a host. You can choose for it to be a live one or a recorded session. 

Running your summit live means more collaboration between the host, speaker, and the attendees. It’s more interactive than having a recorded Virtual summit where the conversation between the host and the speaker is prerecorded and will be viewed on the event. 

What are the Cons? 

A webinar has its own disadvantages. One of those is technical difficulties, which is also the most common issue. For a successful webinar, you need to have a strong internet provider and a reliable platform. These can lead to webinars to start late or worse event cancellation. Sometimes it can even prevent participants from joining in the meetings or in the forum. 

For online meetings, the disadvantages are the lack of social interaction. As we have discussed before, online meetings tend to replace traditional office meetings. Collaborations, trust, and synergy are achieved smoothly as it is done face to face. However, online meetings tend to struggle with it. Most of the time other attendees are left out during the discussion and some may be left out due to some technical issues. 

Lastly, virtual events. One of its disadvantages is that you need to make sure you can protect sensitive data, email, and credit card information that you have collected. You need to assure your customer that their sensitive information is safe with you. 

In addition to its disadvantage is the technical challenges, if your internet is down or slow, it might affect your live stream. It may cause delays or may not connect at all. Remember, a virtual summit consists of a large number of attendees, a host and a handful of speakers, a fast internet connection and a reliable platform is a must. 

The Smart Solution

Now that we are facing a pandemic, all of us are encouraged to stay at home. It doesn’t matter if you’re an employee, a manager, a business owner or you run a company, you should jump into the online bandwagon. 

Thankfully, there’s a lot of online tools we can use just like virtual summits, online meetings, and webinars to help us be business as usual. A platform like Jetwebinar will help you and your business grow online. 

JetWebinar’s high quality, limitless and ultrafast broadcasting platform lets you host smooth webinars, online meetings, and virtual summits smartly. May it be a small meeting, a webinar, or a pretty large scall virtual summit, you are covered by its reliable technology. 

There’s no need to download any software or bulky applications. If you’ll be hosting an online meeting or webinar it will easily be downloaded in the cloud and it can be accessed by both your desktop or smartphone anytime, anywhere.

Ready to host your own webinar? Click here.