Creating the Best Online Experience for Your Next Virtual Event
The on-going effects of Covid-19 have called for businesses in the events industry to find opportunities to bring people together in new ways which lead to many companies and organizations hosting virtual events.
The good news is virtual events can be highly successful and offer exceptional audience engagement if done right. Connect Dot Management has been part of events spaces both in-person and virtually for over 15 years.
We want to share five key tips for hosting a virtual event to help you set up your next virtual event for success.
1. Increase Your Audience Without Losing Sight of Keeping Them Engaged
Finding a suitable date, venue, and location is crucial in organizing an in-person event. In a virtual event setting, location and venue availability is no longer a factor as attendees can login from the comfort of their homes or anywhere in the world, as long as they have a computer or mobile device and Internet connection.
What is crucial with online events is the platform you are planning to use to host your event. We now have to consider; how will we engage the audience during our event, what ease attendees have when navigating the event to keep them online and participating and how do we get our message across to virtual attendees.
When choosing a platform, keep in mind there is plenty of fun and effective tools available to keep your audience engaged throughout the event such as gamification, social walls, activity feeds, and public chats. These are great ways to enhance the audience’s experience and have them collectively doing something together even though physically apart.
2. A Move to Virtual Can Help Improve Your Brand
Spirit, resilience, and innovation draws new audiences and engages existing audiences while navigating the new world of online events. Being able to quickly embrace change can position your brand in favourable light among your audience and virtual events ensure you don’t skip a beat in reaching your audience.
In addition to being a leading example in your industry, hosting a virtual event helps you improve your brand strategy, as people are drawn to fresh and new experiences. Virtual events provide an opportunity to connect with your audience and maintain these connections as people are looking for new ways to engage with companies and people.
3. Virtual events give you fast and valuable data
Data is crucial in decision-making for the future. Virtual events allow you to collect useful information such as which sessions had the most attendees, how many unique users attended the event, which files were most viewed and more. This allows you to develop an audience profile and think of content or campaigns that will meet their needs in the future as you continue to pivot in the virtual or hybrid event space.
The vast amount of information collected is available instantly and can be accessed throughout the event and exported for reporting post-event.
4. Virtual Events can Go Live without a Live Presenter
Virtual events provide opportunities to create lively, on-demand sessions with live chat, polling, and more. Pre-recorded sessions allow you to tap into speakers who may not be available the day of your event and it
also ensures your content is available online without a glitch.
It can also allow presenters to interact with the audience live as the content plays and helps reduce speaker stress and improve and perfect the overall production of the event.
5. Investing in Your Virtual Event Can Make a Huge Difference
We know virtual events can cut costs significantly, so it is no surprise that many events are loving the transition to virtual, purely for cost-saving reasons. Although virtual events do reduce the costs associated with venues, food and beverage, printing, name badges, signs, lanyards and more, it’s not the time to cut down on all costs.
Here are three ways you should invest in your virtual event:
- Platform: creating an online “experience” is what matters most in the success of a virtual event and investing in a platform that can ensure your attendees are engaged and that you are creating an online experience for your attendees is crucial to its success.
- Virtual Speakers: invest in speakers who can do an outstanding job with a virtual audience.
- Production: investing in quality production for your event is more important than ever. Watching a speaker with bad audio and visuals vs. investing in production that will ensure your main stage shines can make all the difference in keeping your attendees online and engaged
Bonus #6: Consider an Event Management Team
Utilizing a great event management team will help you choose the right platform that works best for your event and ensure your stakeholders from sponsors, speakers, and all attendees will leave your online event feeling engaged and impressed.
Want to know more about hosting a virtual event? Contact our offices today at 519-204-2499.
Tori-Lyn Hill
Event Coordinator | Connect Dot Management