There has been an increased focus on engaging people in live sessions. And justifiably so, because it is the need of the hour.
People come to attend webinars to learn from experts and gain valuable knowledge that can help them advance their professional careers. But simply providing them with knowledge is not enough to fully engage them and hold their attention throughout the session.
People don’t just want long presentations with slides. They want to interact and communicate with the speaker, host, and other participants during the event.
During the session, attendees need to be able to pose questions, network with other participants, engage in breakout sessions, play exciting games & win prizes – all in a virtual setting. Only then will your webinar effectively engage your audience and offer them an unforgettable experience.
So you need a webinar platform that offers robust engagement features and transforms the session from a passive, one-way lecture to a two-way conversation and highly engaging session overall.
Let’s look into the top webinar platforms with their engagement features and capabilities.
1) Airmeet
Airmeet is a virtual, hybrid events, and AI-powered webinar platform that creates highly interactive experiences for virtual audiences through its rich set of engagement features and delivers immersive experiences in a virtual environment.
In fact, it gives your audience several high-impact capabilities to connect and engage with the speaker, peers, and other participants during a live session.
Airmeet has 4.6 stars on G2 and 4.4 stars on Capterra.
Engagement Features that Airmeet Offers:
1. Interactive Virtual Stage
Airmeet offers a dedicated virtual stage where webinar attendees can interact and engage with speakers in real-time. After the main presentation, if attendees have any concerns or questions, they can “raise their hands” virtually. After the speaker has approved, they will be invited to the stage to communicate and clarify their questions directly with the speaker.
2. Breakout Rooms
With Airmeet’s breakout room, you can make the session more interactive and boost your attendees’ engagement. Airmeet allows you to divide larger audiences into smaller ones (up to 30 participants per room) where they can interact, network, exchange ideas, & engage in deep discussions on the webinar topic.
3. Live Chat
Live chat can encourage your participants and make the webinar session more engaging. Attendees can ask direct questions, express their opinions, react with emojis, and share feedback or resources during the session, helping attendees stay active and more involved in the conversation.
4. Real-time Poll
Airmeet allows you to create polls to foster engagement during a live webinar and break the monotony of long presentations. Polls allow you to capture audience attention, gather their responses, and allow them to vote for the poll you create. A live poll can help maintain attendees’ attention and encourage them to vote on the speaker’s question.
5. Interactive Q&A
Airmeet offers a dedicated Q&A feature where attendees can submit their questions to the speaker, upvote others’ questions, so the speaker can address them in real-time. When the speaker addresses attendees’ questions in a webinar, they will feel heard, and the session becomes more interactive and engaging.
6. Social Lounge
Airmeet offers a social lounge where your webinar attendees can move around and sit at any virtual table to interact & engage with others at the table.
As an organizer, you can set the seating capacity of each table to a maximum of 8 (free plan) or 15 / 30 / 125 participants (depending on the paid plan). Your speakers can also join any virtual table at the social lounge to engage with the audience.
7. Speed Networking
This feature allows webinar attendees to meet one-on-one with many like-minded people during the event for a limited time. With speed networking, your attendees can connect with others, exchange contact information, discuss webinar topics, and build a meaningful network at the live event.
8. Fluid Space
Fluid space allows you to create multiple rooms so your webinar participants can engage in stimulating and lively conversations. Each room is allowed to have up to 60 participants (depending on the plan you have chosen). Attendees can enter any room, move around, and join any conversation they are interested in.
9. AI-Matchmaking
Airmeet’s AI-Matchmaking can make the networking session much more meaningful for all participants. AI-matchmaking assesses participant profiles, such as interests, job role, skills, and behavior, and recommends to each attendee the best people to connect with during an event, helping to create a personalized networking experience.
10. Gamification
Airmeet offers gamification functionalities such as a leaderboard, points, badges, and challenges that can boost your session participation and engagement. These features allow you to gamify your webinar, allow attendees to engage in some healthy competition and win prizes, making the event memorable for them.
2) RingCentral Events
RingCentral Events is an AI-powered virtual & hybrid event and webinar platform that offers a range of engagement features that boost event participation during a live event.
It enables businesses to create webinars that engage the audience, generate leads, and drive real ROI, helping to grow your business. RingCentral Events helps you set up engaging webinars for lead generation, workshops, and town halls.
RingCentral Events has 4.5 stars on G2 and 4.5 stars on Capterra.
Engagement Features that RingCentral Events Offers:
- Live chat
- Poll
- Interactive Q&A
- Emoji reactions
- Screen sharing
- Breakout rooms
- Speed networking
- Virtual whiteboard
- Gamification
3) Zoom Webinars
Zoom Webinars is an all-in-one event management platform that has a user-friendly interface, a vast feature set, and large-scale broadcasting capabilities.
It is a popular platform for webinar hosting, allowing you to customize your webinar environment with your unique brand and tone, to enhance your branding and give your audience a professional event experience.
Zoom Webinars has 4.4 stars on G2 and 4.6 stars on Capterra.
Engagement Features that Zoom Webinars Offers:
- Live Q&A.
- Poll.
- Chat.
- Hand raising.
- Screen sharing.
- Breakout rooms.
- Hand raising.
- Survey.
- Networking.
4) Remo
Remo is a webinar platform that allows you to host seamless webinars and create an engaging environment where attendees can connect, interact, and move as if it were a real-life event.
It creates an immersive experience using various tables, floors, and buildings, allowing attendees to move around easily and start “hallway conversations” on the spot. Remo offers a set of engaging features that make the session feel less passive, one-sided, and more interactive, visually immersive.
Remo has 4.5 stars on G2 and 4.4 stars on Capterra.
Engagement Features that Remo Offers:
- Live chat.
- Poll.
- Q&A.
- Screen sharing.
- Virtual tables.
- Breakout rooms.
- Shuffle guests.
- Virtual whiteboard.
- Gamifications.
5) Livestorm
Livestorm is a webinar platform that supports live, on-demand, and automated webinars. It is a browser-based webinar software, eliminating the need for downloading, allowing your attendees to have a hassle-free webinar experience. Livestorm is built with ease-of-use in mind and especially for large-scale webinars. The platform supports 24 languages, connecting users all over the world.
Livestorm provides a range of engagement features to make the webinar session more interactive and engaging in a virtual environment. Plus, it enables you to personalize the style and feel of your webinar room, registration pages, and email messages, making it a powerful solution for representing your brand in front of your audience.
Livestorm has 4.4 stars on G2 and 4.7 stars on Capterra.
Engagement Features that LiveStorm Offers:
- Invite to the stage.
- Live chat.
- Q&A.
- Screen sharing.
- Speed networking.
- Breakout rooms.
- Emoji reactions.
- Virtual whiteboard.
6) BigMarker
BigMaker is a no-download webinar software that provides an end-to-end webinar solution. It empowers marketers to host highly customized, personalized webinar experiences that drive engagement, capture data, and achieve business results.
BigMarker is built with an extensive suite of interactive features that boost audience engagement during live webinars.
BigMarker has 4.7 stars on G2 and 4.8 stars on Capterra.
Engagement Features that BigMarker Offers:
- Live chat.
- Q&A.
- Real-time poll.
- Handouts.
- Virtual whiteboard.
- Emoji reactions.
- Screen sharing.
- Breakout rooms.
- Networking.
- Gamifications.
7) GoTo Webinar
GoTo Webinar is an all-in-one webinar platform that enables you to host professional webinars. It offers a quick setup, initiative dashboard, and a full suite of powerful tools so you can run sessions seamlessly.
GoTo Webinar provides you with a suite of interactive tools so you can engage your audience and get the most out of your session.
GoTo Webinar has 4.2 stars on G2 and 4.5 stars on Capterra.
Engagement Features that GoTo Webinar Offers:
- Live chat.
- Poll.
- Interactive Q&A.
- Screen sharing.
- Emoji reactions.
- Breakout rooms.
- Hand raising.
- Virtual whiteboard.
8) Demio
Demio is the webinar platform that allows you to host live, on-demand, and automated webinars. The platform is built with powerful engagement features designed to elevate your audience interactions and transform your webinars into interactive experiences.
Demio offers a variety of interactive tools designed to keep audiences fully involved and engaged throughout live or automated webinars.
Demio has 4.7 stars on G2 and 4.7 stars on Capterra.
Engagement Features that Demio Offers:
- Live chat.
- Q&A.
- Real-time poll.
- Virtual whiteboard.
- Screen sharing.
- Emoji reactions.
- Handouts.
9) Webex Webinars
Webex Webinars is a scalable webinar platform that creates a highly interactive experience for the audience in a virtual environment. It easily accommodates a larger audience and connects with a global audience with real-time translations in 100+ languages, enabling you to deliver virtual webinars with confidence.
Webex Webinars allow speakers to rehearse the entire presentation with their co-panelists before going live on stage.
Webex has 4.3 stars on G2 and 4.4 stars on Capterra.
Engagement Features that Webex Webinars Offers:
- Live chat.
- Poll.
- Q&A.
- Emoji reactions.
- Screen sharing.
- Hand raising.
- Breakout rooms.
- Networking.
- Virtual whiteboard.
- Gamifications.
10) vFairs
vFairs is a great webinar platform that allows you to host live, semi-live, and on-demand webinars. The platform enables you to plan, manage, and run webinars with ease, whether you are hosting a multi-day conference, internal training, or a product launch event.
vFairs allows you to build branded registration pages with our drag-and-drop website builder to capture attendee details. You can present live and semi-live webinars that engage your audience in a virtual environment.
vFairs has 4.7 stars on G2 and 4.8 stars on Capterra.
Engagement Features that Vfairs Offers:
- Live chat.
- Poll.
- Q&A.
- Screen Sharing.
- Emoji reactions.
- Hand raising.
- Interactive networking.
- Breakout rooms.
- Gamifications.
- Virtual whiteboard.
Final Thoughts
In today’s marketplace, the best webinar platform is the one that offers engagement features. When it comes to engaging an audience in webinars, interactive tools matter as they not only fully involve participants in the session but also give them a memorable interactive experience.
The webinar platforms discussed here all come with the ability to create highly interactive and networking-driven webinar experiences. But among the platforms discussed, Airmeet stands out as the leading webinar software for product demos, educational webinars, and marketing webinars, as it is built with attendee participation in mind.
Frequently asked questions
Attendee engagement matters in webinars because it keeps attendees active and holds their attention, which helps them improve & retain their knowledge during the session. When attendees get fully involved in the session, they are more likely to stay until the end.
When you fail to engage participants, their attention span drops, which increases the likelihood of them getting distracted and multitasking, such as checking their mobile phone or opening another tab on their laptop screen. Sometimes participants don’t feel the session is worth it, leaving the session early.
The following engagement features engage the attendees most in a webinar:
- Live Chat
- Real-time Poll
- Interactive Q&A Session
- Breakout Rooms
- Networking tools like speed networking, networking lounge & expandable tables
- Gamification
- Interactive virtual whiteboard
- Raise hand & emoji reactions
