Webinars and live streams are a fantastic way to connect with your audience, showcase your Actor's capabilities, and gather feedback from users. Though the term webinar might sound outdated these days, the concept of a live video tutorial is alive and well in the world of marketing and promotion.

Whether you're introducing a new feature, answering questions, or walking through a common use case, a live event can create more personal engagement, boost user trust, and open the door for valuable two-way communication.

But how do you get started? Here's a friendly guide on where to host, how to prepare, and what to do before, during, and after your webinar.

Why should you host a live stream?

Here are a few reasons why live streams are ideal for promoting your Actor:

• Demo. You can show your Actor in action and highlight its most powerful features. You can tell a story about how you built it. You can also show how your Actor interacts with other tools and platforms and what its best uses are. A live demo lets users see immediately how your tool solves their problems.
• Building trust and rapport. Interacting directly with your users builds trust and rapport. Even showing up and showing your face/voice, it's a chance to let your users meet you and get a feel for the team behind the Actor.
• Live Q&A. Users often have questions that can be hard to fully address in documentation, README, or tutorials. A live session allows for Q&A, so you can explain complex features and demonstrate how to overcome common issues.
• Tutorial or training. If you don't have time for complex graphics, this is an easy replacement for a video tutorial until you do. Remember that some platforms (YouTube) give an option of publishing the webinar after it's over. So you can reuse it later in other content as well as a guide. Also, if you’ve noticed users struggling with particular features, a webinar is a great way to teach them directly.

Webinars help build a community around your Actor and turn one-time users into loyal advocates.

Where to host your webinar or live stream

It all goes back to where you have or would like to have your audience and whether you want to have the webinar available on the web later.

1. Social media:
   1. YouTube: ideal for reaching a broad audience. It’s free and easy to set up. You can also make recordings available for future viewing.
   2. TikTok: same, ideal for reaching a broad audience, free and easy to set up. However, live video will disappear once the broadcast has ended. TikTok does allow you to save your livestreams. You won't be able to republish them to the platform (we assume your live stream will be longer than 10 minutes). But you can later re-upload it elsewhere.
   3. Twitch: Known for gaming, Twitch has become a space for tech demos, coding live streams, and webinars. If your target audience enjoys an interactive and casual format, Twitch might be a good fit.
   4. LinkedIn: If your audience is more professional, LinkedIn Live could be a good fit to present your Actor there. Once a stream is complete, it will remain on the feed of your LinkedIn Page or profile as a video that was ‘previously recorded live’.
   5. Facebook: Not recommended.
2. General platforms:
   1. Zoom or Google Meet: More personal, these are great for smaller webinars where you might want closer interaction. They also give you control over who attends.

Pick a platform where your users are most likely to hang out. If your audience is primarily tech-savvy, YouTube or Twitch could work. If your Actor serves businesses, LinkedIn might be the best spot.

Webinar/live stream prep