A Step by Step How to for Global Webinars

Speaker

Before you talk to your potential speaker, FIRST get in touch with the Webinar team about your suggestion and timing thoughts: comms@democratsabroad.org.

Next, reach out to your speaker. Once you have agreed with your speaker to a global webinar, and worked out a time and date for the call, it's time to drill down to specific requests. Please ask the speaker:

We generally advertise our webinars via global emails, our social channels, and our website. Please let us know if there are any issues with this comms outreach.
Will you be joining the call by video or audio?*
Will you be presenting a powerpoint or other presentation during the call?
May we record/stream the Zoom webinar simultaneously on Facebook live and/or Youtube live?**
If FB live isn't an option, may we record the call and post it later on our website? We are able to trim recordings prior to posting in this case.
Would you prefer that we send questions ahead of time or are you comfortable with our moderators fielding questions from the floor?
If we field questions from the floor, are there topics we should avoid?
When can we do a sound and light check ahead of the call? (We recommend running the check 30 minutes ahead of the call, and then ask speakers to join at the 10 minute countdown point. We strive to go live exactly on the hour to avoid audience concern.
(Side question: can you do a 30 second votefromabroad.org video prior to the call?)

* If a speaker can use a computer with webcam to join the call, it is a much more interactive experience, and offers more opportunities for members to connect. We prefer audio and video for all webinars for panelists, but if schedule and technology issues arise, a backup of audio only (with a photo submitted by the speaker/guest/staff) can be used.
**Since Democrats Abroad members are in every time zone, we reach a bigger audience when a recording is available publicly.

Timing

When you get in touch with the webinar team, include a few dates for the call. Check the webinar calendar to make sure there is no other conflict.

Advertising

1. Website event - start here, by creating a website event which describes the call and let's you start collecting rsvps as soon as possible. Check out the language of other events for models of what it should say.

2. Global email - we suggest sending a global email out a few days ahead of a call.

How to:

Talk with Comms well ahead of time to let them know your date and make sure there is no conflict.
Notify the helpdesk (helpdesk@democratsabroad.org) a few days ahead of the global email schedule to make sure they have it planned in their schedule and are prepared to send it out.
Send a sample to the Comms team (comms@democratsabroad.org) for approval before sending to helpdesk.
The evening before the email is scheduled to go out, send the final copy to the helpdesk for them to mail out.

2. Contacts with ccs - It's really useful to get in touch with country committee leaders and ask them to schedule the notice in their monthly news letters, etc.

3. Email reminder to other members of your caucus/team. Follow the same process as sending a global email.

4. Social media messaging - do consider creating a social media event for this on your facebook page (if applicable) or on the DA global facebook page, and also coming up with blurbs to use (and share) advertising the event. =

Correspondence

1. Work on Intercom* answering member questions, collecting questions, closing automatic answers. This starts as soon as any email goes out and needs to be attended to until two days or so after the event. You'll need a volunteer who is comfortable with Intercom. and who can be sure to answer all messages within 12 hours, or more quickly the day of the call.

*Intercom is the system we use to answer emails, chats, etc that come in from global emails and the website. Global emails usually bring in a few dozen to a few hundred messages to deal with. Please ask your team who might be interested in helping with this and we can train them.

2. Organize people who are willing to write back to members who agree to donate following the call.

Pre call prep on technology

1. Work with the webinar team to organize moderators to help with the call, and any member issue.
Webinars need moderators who can answer questions on facebook, questions on Intercom and questions on Zoom.

2. Organize a 30 minute time slot with the speaker and any moderators to get on Zoom ahead of time and become familiar with the moderation of the system, plus test connections, lighting and sound. This is also an excellent time to talk about audience expectations and describe the typical Democrats Abroad webinar audience.

3. 15 minutes before the call, the moderators and speakers should all be online. The moderators should be checking their assigned channel and handling questions/concerns coming in from members.

Pre call prep on questions for the speaker + surveys

Consider gathering questions from attendees, work with caucuses and policy teams to provide your own and send them to your speaker. Decide ahead of time if there are any questions you want to pivot away from, or if there is anything you definitely want to ask. Line up a first question that you know the speaker is excited about, or is very ready for, to help warm up the call.