Best Webinars of 2014

By Gini Dietrich

On the fourth day of Christmas, Spin Sucks gave to you… four free webinars, three strategy games, two Crazies secrets, and the PR win of 2014.

We stopped charging for webinars this year and we hope the content you’ve received has been valuable, executable, and fun.

If you happened to miss any—or all—of them, Lindsay Bell-Wheeler (and I agreed) thought you would appreciate knowing the top four webinars of the year.

And, as it turns out, they are all available on demand so you can spend your holidays getting your learn on!

Best Webinars of 2014

I went through the webinars of 2014 and chose the “best” based on number of attendees and the percentage of people who watched it all the way through.

(As much as I would love it if 100 percent of all attendees stayed for every webinar, I realize that’s not realistic.)

And so, in order of the most popular, here they are!

1. Crisis Management in the 21st Century. Melissa Agnes, of Agnes + Day, killed it with this webinar on crisis communications. There were at least nine practical “how-tos” included in the 45-minute session, along with some great case studies. If you keep putting crisis planning on the back burner, spend a few minutes with this. You’ll walk away with an outline draft to get you going.
2. Neuromarketing: The Brain Science of Web Marketing. It’s really no surprise a webinar by Andy Crestodina is in the top four. He always provides really valuable information and makes it easy for all to understand. Plus, he’s super charming with his bed head and changing his shirt halfway through the session. He talks you through the five types of neuromarketing and how you can use one or all of them on your website. Since watching this webinar, Lindsay has been all about social proof for everything we do.
3. Strategy 101: Planning for Success. If you’ve never written an entry for a PRSA Silver Anvil award, this webinar is for you. (If you have, you’ll notice Benson Hendrix follows the format precisely because it’s the gold standard for our industry.) I keep quoting something he said, “Communicators tend to get really excited about the tactics so they jump there first. They forget about the planning part.” It’s, unfortunately, true. So watch this and let Benson help you through your 2015 plans.
4. Intranets, Internal Communications, and Building Social Capital. Shel Holtz, in my opinion, is one of the very best when it comes to internal communications. In the fourth of the best webinars of 2014, he helps you build a case to get your organization to adopt social media as part of a company-wide culture shift. Call it employee communications. Call it social business. Whatever you want to call it, this will be helpful as you get ready to hit the ground running on January 5.

So there you have it! The best webinars of 2014.

This Week’s Webinar: An AMA

Well, until I host this week’s webinar. Clearly that one is going to beat everyone because I’m competitive and the webinar is going to be super fun.

We’ve actually decided to change the format of it. We were asking for questions ahead of time so that I could record the video and participate in the chat during the webinar. But we’ve decided to do it live.

Here’s why: We’re doing an AMA (ask me anything) and sort of the whole point of it is to see if your community can catch you off-guard. There isn’t a single question off-limits (assuming it’s work appropriate).

If you’ve already submitted a question, don’t worry! I’ll still answer those (and you’ll get priority).

But during the webinar, Lindsay will take questions from attendees in the chat box and Ellie will take questions on the social networks. Use the hashtag #spinsuckspro if you’re on Twitter and use that as your communication method.

And we’ll go at it live. Lindsay said, “What if you get caught off-guard…or something?”

So be it! Bring me your best shot and let’s see if we can have some fun and learn a thing or two.

Webinar Details

The webinar is this Thursday, December 11, at noon ET (that’s 11 a.m. CT, 10 a.m. MT, and 9 a.m. PT, for those of you who can’t do time zones).

It is free and it’s a two-step process.

First, go to Spin Sucks Pro and click the blue “purchase” button at the bottom of the page.

Click “checkout.”

Either create a new account or login to your account.

Click “download purchase” and click the link on the confirmation page (you’ll also receive an email with this information).

Register for the webinar on that page and you’ll be good to go!