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Getting Started With Readytalk

Getting Started With Readytalk

Whether you're new to web conferencing or just new to ReadyTalk, we'll make it easy to get up and running.

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Getting Started

Welcome to ReadyTalk! New to our service? Learn the basics including how to get started and find answers to frequently asked questions.

Tips for New Users

ReadyTalk’s audio and web conferencing services are easy to use, but to help you get started and keep you on the path to success, we’ve put together a series of best practices and tips.

There are many resources and experts available to help you get started using ReadyTalk’s services for meetings and webinars:

Ready to get started? The series of tips below will help you navigate from novice to expert.

Using the Web to Manage Your Audio Conference

Audio conferences can be difficult to manage if there are a lot of participants—people forget to mute their lines, forget to join the call, etc. ReadyTalk’s web interface is a useful for tool for managing audio conferences. There’s no charge—access to these tools are included with every audio conferencing account. Through the interface you can:

  • View the number of participants on the call and their dial-in numbers.
  • Mute or unmute an individual or all participants.
  • Disconnect unwanted participants.
  • See who’s speaking or whose lines have disruptive background noise.
  • Dial out to new participants and connect them to your audio conference.
  • Put your conference in listen-only mode or set up call continuation.

Ready to get started? Download our guide to Using the Web to Manage an Audio Call.

Did you know? In the web interface, it is easy to adjust preferences for entry/exit tones, call continuation and more? It’s all available in the Options section. 

Chairperson Best Practices

As a chairperson, you can take steps to ensure attendees focus on the content of your meeting or webinar and not on the technology.

Here are a few suggestions:

  • Eliminate distracting background noise by muting participants’ phone lines
  • Turn off entry tones and announcements so late comers don’t interrupt the flow of the meeting
  • Have speakers and co-presenters join early
  • Use a wired-network connection (wireless can be unreliable)
  • Don’t call from your cell phone

For additional suggestions, visit the ReadyTalk blog for tips, tricks and insight from ReadyTalk’s experts.

Ways to Engage the Audience

Can you hear me now?  Ever wonder if your webinar audience is listening?  ReadyTalk can help.

Every ReadyTalk account comes with tools designed to engage your audience:

  • Polling: Engage the audience and qualify prospects by conducting a poll. Share results and capture individual responses.
  • Markup Tools: Use annotation tools to focus attention and highlight important details on uploaded content.
  • Share Applications: Share one or more applications or your entire desktop with meeting participants so that everyone can see exactly what you want to share.
  • Grant Control: Increase collaboration by letting a colleague edit your document when you grant control of your desktop or applications (and vice versa).
  • Chat: Chat with an individual participant, privately with co-presenters or to the entire group.

In the white paper, Best Practices for Making Your Webinar a Success: Engage the Audience, a leading growth consulting firm offers key best practices for conducting a successful and engaging webinar.

The ReadyTalk Blog also has several posts on polling best practices. Check them out now.

Maximize Your ROI with Post-Meeting Tools

Your webinar or meeting is over. Now what?

ReadyTalk offers a suite of post meeting tools to help you get more out of your investment of time and resources.  

After your meeting, you can solicit attendee feedback with customizable post-meeting surveys. Creating a custom meeting archive page is a great way to make your recording and other documents available to attendees. A variety of reports makes it easy to track the success of the webinar or meeting, follow up on questions and review poll results.  Available reports include:

  • Invitee List
  • Registration Details
  • Campaigns
  • Web Participants
  • Audio Participants
  • Polling
  • Chat
  • Post-Meeting Survey

Creating and Managing Recordings

Recording a webinar is a great way to develop quality content for marketing, sales and training programs.  ReadyTalk makes it easy as 1-2-3 to record and edit recordings:

  1. Record - Just click ‘record’ with the in-meeting conference controls or use your touch-tone phone.
  2. Edit – Want to take out the extra “ums” and “ahs” out of the recording? That’s easy with the ReadyTalk recording tools.
    or
    Download -  ReadyTalk recordings can be downloaded  in a variety of formats (.mp3, Flash, .wav, or high-resolution .mp4) so you can edit and share them as you wish.
  3. Share - Make it easy for customers to find your recording after an event. With a couple of clicks you can post it on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs or on a ReadyTalk archive page.

Download the recording management guide for step-by-step instructions on how to manage and use ReadyTalk recordings.

Leveraging Social Media

Blogs. Facebook. LinkedIn. Twitter. Social networks are a great forum for attracting webinar attendees and sharing recorded content, but it can be time consuming to post content on all of these sites.

ReadyTalk makes it easy to leverage the power of social media to drive registrants (and leads) and continue the conversation after the event:

  • When you schedule the webinar or meeting, post the details to multiple sites quickly.
  • Allow attendees to share webinar details with their friends, fans and followers.
  • Share recorded content to multiple sites with just a few clicks in the “Manage Recordings” section.

Take 60 seconds and see how easy it can be to share content with your networks. You can also connect with ReadyTalk:

Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
LinkedIn

Where to Go for More Information

On-Demand Collaboration vs. Scheduled Webinars

Hopefully, you’ve had a chance to host your first meeting with ReadyTalk.  If you haven’t, we think you’ll find that ReadyTalk makes it easy to host on-demand meetings as well as scheduled meetings:

On-Demand Meetings are quick and easy to start, making it simple to collaborate with colleagues. You can edit documents in real-time, provide a product demo and more. Watch a recording.

Scheduled Meetings are a great choice for webinars, trainings and recurring meetings. Scheduled meetings give you the option to create custom registration pages, branded email invitations, and campaigns to track registration sources. Watch a recording.

For some scheduled meetings, you may want to use operator-assisted audio:

  • If you have more than 150 participants.
  • If you want to provide your participants a Broadcast Audio option, which allows them to listen to the web conference over the Internet or dial in with their telephone.
  • If you want personalized operator services for a more polished experience, including  custom greetings, Q&A support, and additional in-event support.

Both options give you access to ReadyTalk’s full suite of tools including desktop and application sharing, polling, markup tools and chat so you can present the information in the most effective way possible.

Feel free to contact us directly if you have any questions about how to start or schedule a meeting.

PLAN: Best Practices for Planning Successful Audio and Web Conferences

Your meetings and webinars are important and need to be flawless every time.  A little planning can go a long way to ensuring success. Here are a few tips:

  • Send out meeting invitations well in advance and send a reminder the day before.
  • Double check that you have provided everyone with the correct numbers for dialing into the audio and joining the web.
  • Log into ReadyTalk the day before and upload your slides and images. This will ensure that your materials are there and that you are comfortable with the service.
  • If you are hosting a webinar or training, conduct a dress rehearsal. Practice makes perfect.

Check out Best Practices & Tips for additional ideas on how to ensure a successful meeting.

Don’t forget: The chairperson plays an important role in the success of a webinar. An unprepared chairperson reflects poorly on your brand and can lead to a poor participant experience. Review the best practices and tips below and be prepared.