Online Event Planning and Support

Partner with Marcom and OIT teams to plan, produce, and promote a webinar for your program, department, office, or special project.

Virtual events allow you to deliver content – stories, interviews, panels, lectures, interactive sessions – to an audience through an online platform such as Zoom. Utilize webinars and online events to connect your target audience, engage participants in discussion and question-answer sessions with invited guests, interview experts in the field, deliver informative panel sessions virtually, and more! We can work with you to plan and develop your idea(s) for a webinar or series, provide marketing support for the event(s), and help coach you through the technical details and resources available to make it a success.

What's Included

A team member in the Marketing and Communications will work with you to determine your individual needs, but our services include (but are not limited to):

• Registering your webinar in the college's event database and calendar
• Technical coaching in webinar/video platform features
• Guidance on getting high-quality audio and visual from speaker(s) or guest(s)
• Production planning assistance in the form of a producer’s guide template document
• Pre-roll presentation template used for early arrivals, housekeeping, and introduction to the event, guests, and the platform
• Assistance with obtaining Zoom webinar license if over 300 registrants (less common)
• Support in setting up Zoom registration system and other administration features
• Guidance with accessibility concerns (per OSU’s digital accessibility policy, live ca­ptions are required for all public-facing webinars, for example)
• Walkthrough test prior to ev­ent
• Information on recording options within Zoom
• Recommended participant feedback form (template)

What you are in control of:

• Creative control of your webinar
• Planning and scheduling of guest(s)
• Securing closed captioning services from an approved vendor­
• Marketing and promotion of event
• Registration of participants
• Hosting and moderating the event
• Downloading, hosting, sharing event recording

Special Considerations

Will your event have more than 300 participants? Do you want participants to engage with each other? Should participants be able to communicate via chat, video, or audio when you want? What types of interactions do you envision for your speaker/panelists? What interactions do you see between them and your audience? Is this a meeting that you would normally hold in person without outside audiences? These questions are a critical step in determining direction and format of your webinar.

The following resources may be useful when preparing for your webinar:

• Zoom Meetings vs Webinars Comparison Chart to see what type of Zoom session you need
• CarmenZoom Webinar Request form, necessary for online events above 300 participants
• EHE-branded PowerPoint templates and other graphics for a consistent, professional look
• Look and Sound Great in Videoconferences to present your best self
• Meeting and Webinar Best Practices and Resources by Zoom
  • Zoom Webinar Training Reference Guide (PDF)
  • Zoom Online Event Best Practices (PDF)
• Event Planning Resource Guide
• Pre-roll presentation (PPTX) [link to come]

Assistance with presentations and storytelling:

• TED’s secret to great public speaking video by TED
• 10 ways to have a better conversation video by TED
• The 22 Rules of Storytelling, According to Pixar by Gizmodo
• A Blueprint for Storytelling Projects by NPR

Timeline

The time from request to consultation is no longer than 2 weeks. We recommend planning a webinar (or series) at least two months out to allow time to effectively plan, schedule, secure live captioning services, and adequately promote the event.

How to Get Started

Use the request button to get started. A team member will connect with you to learn more about your individual needs.