You can can host virtual meetings and events using Zoom Meetings and Zoom Video Webinars. The two solutions can support a variety of engaging and interactive online events, but there are a few key differences when using Zoom for meetings and Zoom for webinars.

Whether you are hosting your first webinar or looking to get more out of your next meeting, join a live training to learn the ins and outs of using Zoom for meetings and webinars. To get expert tips for hosting virtual events using Zoom solutions, check out Zoom's on-demand webinar “Best Practices for Hosting Online Events.”

Meetings

Meetings are for connecting a group of people for two-way discussion and collaboration.  Meetings are best for group collaboration, team meetings, sales demos, online learning and trainings, and office hours. Meetings allow all participants to easily interact and share with each other and the host.

• Up to 300 participants (expandable to 1000 with paid licenses' add-ons)
• Participants can interact with video, audio, screen share, annotation, chat, and use breakout rooms.
• Best for group collaboration 

Here are the key features you can leverage in your meetings: 

• Waiting Rooms – In addition to requiring a passcode, the host can enable Waiting Rooms to screen participants and ensure only those invited to the event can join.
• Registration – You do have the option to schedule your meetings and require registration for participants. Customize your registration page to capture your desired fields.
• Screen sharing – The host of a meeting can share valuable content and permit attendees to also share their screen. When sharing your screen, you can also share your computer sound, which is great for playing music and videos. 
• Whiteboarding – When sharing your screen, you have the option to share a whiteboard. This allows you to share a blank white screen that you can annotate on. Just like a whiteboard in the classroom, you can draw, type, and put stickers on it. The meeting host can allow participants to co-annotate, meaning they can also draw on the shared content.
• Breakout Rooms – The Breakout Rooms feature allows you to divide your meeting into as many as 100 separate sessions, creating individual spaces for close collaboration and small-group discussion.
• Chat – In-meeting chat supports 1-to-1 private chat as well as group chat. The meeting host can choose who the participants can chat with or disable chat entirely.
• Polling –  You can set up and launch up to 25 polls in a single meeting. Launch single-choice or multiple-choice polls to engage with your meeting attendees. 
• Streaming – Zoom Meetings users have the ability to stream to YouTube Live, Facebook Live, or a custom streaming service to expand their audience reach.
• View management – The host or co-host can spotlight up to nine video participants as the primary active speaker, and participants will only see these speakers. 

 

Webinars

Webinars are best for presenting to a large audience where the host wants more control over the experience and audience members can join without their audio or video turned on. The focus for webinars is on the presenter or panelists.  The audience joins to listen and learn, and then ask questions at the end. Zoom Video Webinars supports large internal and external events, such as company all-hands, city council meetings, product announcements, customer conferences, concerts, and even religious gatherings. Webinars are a paid add-on license that must be assigned to an individual active Yale staff or faculty member.

• Large audiences & attendees are unknown to host
• Attendees can view, listen, and use Q&A to ask questions of the presenters
• Best for public events

Here are key features that will make your online events engaging and impactful when using Zoom for webinars:

• Registration – When scheduling your webinar, you can require registration. Like meetings, you can customize your registration page to capture your desired fields. 
• Branding – Customize your webinar registration page with a color scheme, title, banner, logo, and speaker information.
• Source tracking URLs – Within Zoom’s webinar product, you can create unique links that allow you to see where your registrants are coming from if you share the webinar registration page in multiple locations. For example, you can share one source tracking link on Facebook and another on Twitter to see which performs the best.
• Q&A – The Q&A feature allows attendees to send in questions during the webinar. The host, co-hosts, and panelists can answer questions submitted. Additionally, if the host enables it, attendees can answer and upvote other attendees’ questions. After your webinar, you can download the Q&A report and review the questions that were submitted. 
• Post-webinar survey – When scheduling your webinar, you can set up a survey that will appear post-event. You can create the survey yourself or have your attendees be redirected to a third-party survey solution. This feature is great to gain feedback on how your event went, how your content was received, and so on. 
• Attendee view management – With webinars, you have three-screen support to show panelists, the active speaker, and the presentation at the same time. What’s more, the host can spotlight multiple users’ videos, allowing attendees on desktop to see this. A webinar host and panelists can also rearrange the order of the Gallery View. 
• Streaming – With Zoom for webinars you also have the ability to reach an even wider audience by streaming to YouTube Live, Facebook Live, or to a custom streaming platform.