What are the best practices for designing and delivering engaging podcasts and webinars for students?

1 Know your audience

Before you start creating your podcast or webinar, you need to know who your audience is, what their needs and interests are, and how they prefer to learn. You can use surveys, interviews, or analytics to gather information about your audience and tailor your content accordingly. For example, you can choose topics that are relevant and appealing to your audience, use language and examples that they can relate to, and adjust the length and pace of your podcast or webinar to suit their attention span and learning style.

2 Choose the right format and platform

Depending on your learning objectives, content, and audience, you can choose different formats and platforms for your podcast or webinar. For example, you can choose between audio-only or audio-visual podcasts, live or recorded webinars, or a combination of both. You can also choose between different platforms that offer different features and functionalities, such as recording, editing, hosting, streaming, sharing, or interacting with your audience. You should choose the format and platform that best suit your purpose, content, and audience, and that are easy to use and access.

3 Design for engagement

Keeping your audience engaged and motivated throughout a podcast or webinar is one of the main challenges. To design for engagement, you should have a clear and logical structure, with an introduction, main body, and conclusion. Additionally, transitions, summaries, and signposts should be used to guide your audience through the content and highlight the main points. The content should be clear and focused on a specific topic, objective, and message. Credible sources, examples, and stories should also be included to make it more interesting and memorable. Finally, the delivery should be clear and confident with a suitable tone, voice, and pace. Varied and expressive language as well as humor and emotions can help connect with your audience and convey enthusiasm for your topic.

4 Incorporate interactivity

To enhance engagement, you can incorporate interactivity into your podcast or webinar. This can help create a dialogue with your audience, spark their curiosity and participation, and assess their understanding and feedback. Interactivity can take many forms, such as asking questions to activate prior knowledge or test comprehension, designing activities to apply learning or practice skills, and sharing resources to enrich the learning experience. You can also invite your audience to ask questions or share resources with each other, either verbally or through chat or polls.

5 Evaluate and improve

To evaluate and improve your podcast or webinar, you can use different methods and tools. Request feedback from your audience, either verbally or through surveys or ratings, to measure their satisfaction, engagement, learning outcomes, and suggestions for improvement. You can also give feedback to your audience, either verbally or through certificates or badges. Collect data from your platform, either automatically or manually, to analyze your audience's behavior, preferences, and performance. Additionally, collect data from yourself, either through recording or reflection, to assess your own strengths and weaknesses. Finally, use the feedback and data you collect to improve your podcast or webinar for future sessions as well as your own skills and knowledge as a podcast or webinar creator and presenter.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?