Zoom Meeting vs Webinar: Key Differences and When to Use Each

With Covid19 running rampant, most of us have had to change the way we do business. Many of you are or have been working remotely for quite some time. While companies like Skype, Teams, Google, and GotoMeeting offer remote conferencing tools, Zoom has become the product of choice for most people. It has grown from being fairly unknown to widely used. What changed out there?

People are using Zoom not only for online meetings but also to lead fitness classes, socialize, podcast, and much more. For years now, my organization has held webinars to discuss and share important topics with our community.

Lately, we’ve shifted more towards podcasts, but occasionally we still hold webinars. Zoom meetings are great, but they are just that — meetings. In a meeting, everyone can participate and interact freely. But what if you want a proper webinar experience like what GoToWebinar offers? What if you want a format where just a few people are on camera, with more of a one-way communication style?

Zoom actually has a tool for that — their webinar platform. It’s not included by default and requires an additional subscription, but it works similarly to other webinar platforms.

Unlike a Zoom meeting, which has a host, cohosts, and participants, the webinar format has attendees, a host, and panelists. In a webinar, only the hosts and panelists appear on camera. Attendees are in a view only mode. You can allow attendees to speak with panelists temporarily, but without being panelists, attendees do not have camera or microphone access by default.

Webinars also include a Q&A feature, which offers better management options than the chat feature in Zoom meetings.

The desktop or web client you use to run a meeting or webinar is basically the same. If you are familiar with one, you’ll be comfortable with the other. The key differences are in the roles, the Q&A feature, and some additional settings unique to webinars.

I hope this helps clear up some confusion about the two Zoom offerings. Think of it this way: it’s basically the same product, but only panelists are on camera during a webinar. That’s the biggest difference and a reason you might choose it. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out.