Technology and the COVID pandemic have collaborated to drastically change how professional events are held over the last few years. Technology such as Zoom has made virtual meetings and presentations easy for attendees to join from anywhere with an internet connection. Moreover, pretty much everyone is experienced and comfortable with this technology – and they have come to expect that it will be available for conferences. Much of the adoption of this technology has been accelerated by the COVID Pandemic, which moved work from offices to homes and initially forced people to work remotely. Now, professionals expect it to be an option for meetings, presentations, and conferences.
Virtual and hybrid events are no less than actual events in person. As event organizers, you require the same attention and critical thinking to host a virtual and hybrid event.
According to Aventri, an event management software company, “Almost 89% of event organizers have claimed that virtual or hybrid events will remain a critical part of their event strategy even when in-person meetings resume post-pandemic.” So, virtual and hybrid events are here to stay despite the strain and battle for attention.
Content management strategy is an essential element of your overall event planning. This blog post will examine some proven ways to maximize audience engagement and what’s needed to implement a robust content strategy across all three stages of the event life cycle, i.e., before, during, and after the event.
1. Asking the right questions even before you get started.
The first step in planning a successful event is answering some fundamental questions about who your audience is and your goals. Specifically:
- Can you define your audience by profession, geography, age, or education?
- Do you know what outcomes this audience wants from participating in your event?
- What are the main attractions of your event or conference to your target market? For example, is it learning specific tools, receiving professional credits, networking with colleagues, learning about employment opportunities, or just having fun?
- How will we define success (or failure) after the event has run?
Once you have covered these areas, you can get more specific. For example, by starting to sketch out a rough plan:
- Creating a rough outline of the program, including main topics, key speakers, and social events.
- Do you know what outcomes this audience wants from participating in your event?
- What are the main attractions of your event or conference to your target market? For example, is it learning specific tools, receiving professional credits, networking with colleagues, learning about employment opportunities, or just having fun?
- How will we define success (or failure) after the event has run?
2. The Main Content Formats
There are many different digital content formats that you can explore. However, here’re three main content formats or types that you should consider meeting the needs and interests of your audience:
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Research
Research brings your audience the latest information and practices in their fields of study or work. For example, if you are holding a conference on a medical topic, your attendees will want to feel that they are fully up to date on treatment modalities. They will need to hear from respected researchers who have created new knowledge to inform practitioners to obtain this information. This is true in almost any field. If you are running an event on community composting or coaching high school sports teams, the attendees will want to leave feeling they now know the latest and greatest information to help them be the best at their jobs.
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Thought Leadership.
Pick an area: climate change, yacht construction, or remote workforce management. Interviews with thought leaders and visionaries in their field will provide virtual viewers with deep, insightful thought-leadership. Interviews can be recorded, repackaged, and posted to the event microsite.
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Professional Interaction
Attending an event either in-person or virtually is an opportunity to interact with others in your field. For dentists to learn about practicing in different states, teachers to learn about the latest online teaching tools, or just to meet new people. Facilitating this professional and social interaction takes planning opportunities for people to meet in a relaxed setting such as seminar-type meetings, cocktail hours, or gala dinners.
3. Pre-Event Content Creation
Creating relevant and interesting content before you even begin promoting your event can enhance your organization’s credentials in the area and build interest. Here are some examples:
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Interviewing a key speaker.
If you plan to have a thought leader in your area speak at your conference or event, you might do a virtual interview with them and post it to your social media channels or email it to your members or a list of potential attendees. The message this communicates is that this person has a lot of information to share, and you should register for the full event to hear more.
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Writing an article and posting it online.
Write an article that will add depth and context to the topic covered at your event. For example, it might be profiles of people in the field, the latest developments, or a history of an aspect of the area. This will demonstrate that your event will be relevant and informative. Find a topic that will interest this target audience and share it in every modality: email, Facebook/LinkedIn groups, professional associations – anywhere your target audience is likely to see it. Be sure to clarify that you are an organizer of an upcoming event on this topic and provide a link to conference or event registration.
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Use pictures!
Create and share social media posts on Instagram, your organization’s website, LinkedIn, and any other digital channels that you think would reach your target audience. Perhaps you have pictures from previous events, a board meeting, and trips from people well-known to your membership. The message that such posts transmit is that your event will be fun and that it will be an opportunity to socialize.
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Create a Promotional Kit.
Ask your session speakers to spread the word about your event by sharing details about their participation in the event. Provide them with branded visual posts and write-ups to post on their social profiles.
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Create a Countdown.
Create a non-invasive social media countdown timer or email campaign that runs as the registration deadline approaches for the event. FOMO, or the fear of missing out, is a powerful consumer motivator.
4. Use Every Promotional Channel Available.
Before the Internet made advertising and promotion very complex in ancient times, event planners would send mail and perhaps advertise in professional publications. Those days are long gone. Yes, you can still do those two, but you can add emails, Tweets, blogs, and social media. As you plan, you need to constantly be asking how you can make the best use of each promotional channel. There are even some important channels beyond those. For example, if your event has sponsors, they have their promotional channels. You should work with them to promote your event or conference on their website and social media.
And don’t forget your attendees themselves. You can ask them – even give them financial incentives – to recruit their colleagues to attend.
Finally, you need to treat your marketing campaign as a learning exercise. One of the great things about digital advertising and social media is every action produces a measurable result. For example, send out a thousand emails and see how many people respond, post on LinkedIn, see how many views you receive, etc. As you see the results of each of your actions, you can adapt and tailor your subsequent efforts to gain an even greater response. This might mean changing a headline or a picture, trying a different message, or putting a deadline to encourage faster action.
5 The Event Itself: Improve Speaker Content and Appeal
Now the event or conference has started. Attendees have registered, presentations have begun, and the burden is on you to create the most engaging and scintillating program possible. Here are some pointers to make sure this happens:
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Rehearse, rehearse, and rehearse more.
Your event may not be a Broadway show, but it is, in many ways, like a show. And performances are better when the performers rehearse. Have your speakers try out the stage and the technology before they speak. Have your technology crew test all the equipment. Meet with your panels to discuss who will be a moderator and what key topics should be covered.
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Script it out.
You created a detailed program and schedule. Now, look at making it more explicit by actually scripting out introductions, outlining discussions, and asking your speakers to script or at least create detailed outlines of their speeches. Again, these events are better when your speakers prepare as much as possible.
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Facilitate Audience Interaction.
Your attendees will be engaged, learn more, and be generally happier if they are involved in the programs they attend. This interaction could take the form of asking questions, making comments, introducing themselves to other attendees, participating in polls, and having an opportunity to express their views. Work with your speakers and panels to build in such opportunities.
6. Using Technology Tools to Facilitate Audience Interaction.
The introduction of technology tools to facilitate interaction is booming. Choose an event management or meeting software with a program schedule and ways to solicit attendee feedback and participation. This could be polls, questions for speakers, comments, or feedback on the value of each program they participated in.
#7. After the Event: Repurpose the Content You Have Created.
Here is the big payoff for running an event that merged virtual and in-person attendees and created a digital library of content from your most prominent speakers’ events to your most minor seminar-type meetings. You have many hours of this valuable content, and you can use it to make it available to your members, use it in certificate programs, create or add to your library of video content. In any of these formats, this content can create interest, generate revenue, and, in every sense, meet the needs of your members. While there are many ways to do this, here’re some exciting ways that you can try;
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Turn your event into a blog post.
First, download the recording, transcribe the audio, and build a blog-style draft, complete with intro and conclusion sections. Finally, embed the source video in the final post so that any interested parties can give it their time and traffic.
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Create a conference compendium and embed video clips on your website
Catalog and host your recorded conference video sessions on a video platform like StepUp Your Events by Lumos Learning and embed it on your website. It leverages machine learning advances to enrich your video content with automatic searchable transcripts, table of contents, summaries, closed captioning, topics, and Q&As.
Another reason to embed the sessions on your website is to make your professional content discoverable on Google and other search engines. This helps you bring highly qualified prospects to your website to engage with your content. In addition, you can capture their details to nurture and convert them into members or subscribe to your content.
Offer on-demand videos
Give your event registrants the content they signed up for by providing on-demand access to videos of past events using a branded and searchable event video library. Just upload or import your videos and share via URL, embed them on your website with access code, or control access by users.
Create an educational web series
Since most webinars are educational by nature, another great idea is to repurpose them for training or learning purposes. You don’t have to stick strictly to your webinars for this; for example, you could compile resources like interviews, Q&A sessions, blog posts, and video events into a series of short online courses. Monetizing the content by re-broadcasting sessions further helps you drive revenue and engage your audience.
