How do you foster interactivity on a webinar?

I agree with Patricia that contests or even non-reward competitions can help to keep people engaged. You can also use tactics like in-line polls (available on many webinar platforms) to poll your audience in real-time - letting them direct the conversation with their responses. In other cases, you can take live questions through the webinar software - having people type in their questions for you to answer live on the call. (For this type of interaction, I recommend having a "co-pilot" available to screen the questions and feed them to you ... too easy to get distracted and disrupt your presentation if you're trying to be both the MC and the gatekeeper.

Beyond the specific "tips and tricks," though, keeping people fully engaged really comes down to delivering content the audience REALLY cares about in a dynamic and entertaining way. You need to use visuals and metaphors, tell stories, present the material from the perspective of your audience so that they can easily connect with what you're saying. And you have to be human - have a sense of humor, talk in a conversational way. For god's sake - don't read the presentation. Kiss of death. As we discussed in yesterday's roundtable, it's often a good idea to have multiple presenters so that you can create some "banter" - this type of exchange will help people to stay tuned in.

Good luck with your webinars!

I encourage the use of the chat feature, and I address questions received using the chat as soon as possible. If I think the audience is losing interest, I either (1) unmute the phones indicating I want to make the dicussion more interactive or (2) announce that I want to make certain that this program is valuable to them and ask that attendees bullet point the issues they feel are critical in the chat area... "so that I can be sure to cover them in the time remaining today."

Michael Dennis

Chat and polling are great ways to engage the audience. Additionally, there are tools available to speakers—voice inflection, presentation speed, technology—to ensure that the audience is fully engaged. The Event Managers at ReadyTalk suggest the following to customer who our hosting webinars:
• TALK the TALK: deliver your message in a conversational manner so that audience members are engaged and remember key points.
• Balancing Act: With many tools available (polls, chat, and your presentation) learn how to balance which tools to use and when.
• Moderator vs. Speaker: You can be one but you can’t be both. Learn how to use a moderator to improve interaction and event flow.
• Engage the Audience by Disengaging: Overloading participants with too much information or too many questions can be a problem. Balance the presentation with tactics that allow the audience to temporarily disengage.

Is this helpful? I would be happy to send you additional info that our team frequently shares.

I follow a guy named Don Campbell at Expand2Web and he does it well. On camera, he asks questions about the group's knowledge base to find out what their starting point is. Attendees respond and he tailors the the content based on the responses. This helps prevent info overload and makes sure most of the info is right for most of the recipients. For larger webinars, polling could accomplish this same thing.