Whether you’re offering a digital component as part of a physical meeting or a standalone digital event, you should spend as much time working out the details of the virtual event as you would a physical one. Use these four tips to ensure your attendees remain absorbed, entertained and involved.
1. Take advantage of low-cost streaming
The industry is quickly reaching a place where a great majority of meetings have at least some portion of their events live-streamed. Until monetization strategies for this practice are more solidified, however, costs will continue to be an issue — especially for video — and more organizations will take advantage of low-cost streaming technologies such as Ustream, YouTube and Facebook. The reliability and quality of these technologies are all up. If you haven’t at least looked at these options, now might be the time to check them out.
2. Short sessions
Learning specialists have derided the 60-minute conference session for years, and as the YouTube generation joins the workforce, the shortening of sessions will be even more critical — especially online. Expect to see more 15- to 30-minute online sessions. Ask your speakers to record 15-minute video summaries of their session on-site, and use those as the online programming throughout the year, as opposed to rebroadcasting the session as audio and PPT.
3. Monetize content
Plenty of organizations are successfully charging for digital content just as they charge for on-site registration, but others are significantly challenged in this area. Consider the value of your content and to whom it’s useful — and when. If you’re presenting research, for instance, does it have value after the event, or does its value drop once it’s been shared? Build a content plan based on the content and the audience, and then decide what can be monetized.
4. Train your speakers
Monetizing content will only work if the content’s engaging, and many organizations would be hard-pressed to brag about the quality of their online content — not because their speakers aren’t delivering good material, but because they haven’t been properly trained to engage and interact with an online audience. The more you can do to train your speakers, the greater chance you have of succeeding with digital events.
