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How To Organise A Virtual Event – Virtual Event Ideas And Best Practices

How To Organise A Virtual Event - Virtual Event Ideas And Best Practices

A virtual event is an event that is held in a digital presence. Unlike in-person events, participants can attend a virtual event while being physically present in any part of the world. The demand and the rise of digitals events have grown exponentially since the 2019 pandemic. Since then, we have adopted virtual event practices to conduct most of our events.

Virtual events practices are held with the help of integrating technology, software, and social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook LIVE, Instagram LIVE, Zoom, etc.

Many event companies allow for the integrated use of social media platforms along with their own software for people to view their events. Many event companies also have their own landing page where they upload the entire event to view it in the future.

The change from having an in-person event to having virtual events wasn’t much of a task. In fact, we learned that many people preferred a setting of this kind. Virtual events did change a lot about how events function, moreover, how people show up at these events.

Virtual events practices have recorded more attendance compared to physical events. This doesn’t imply that physical events are going to go forever. In fact, events having both a physical and virtual setting are what future events will look like. In this way, people can decide if they prefer watching an event in person or from their homes.

While planning your next virtual event, ask yourself these questions

How do you want to make your audience feel?

What do you want your audience to learn from your event?

How do you want your audience to remember you?

What can you offer your audience that someone else cannot?

Following are some of the examples of different virtual events ideas

Online Conference: 

An online conference is where you can have a virtual conference or a series of virtual conferences. You can have a series of speakers lined up, talking about different topics. The attendees can view the schedule of the event beforehand and then decide which talk they would like to attend. This is one of the best practices for a virtual event where your audience can choose when they would like to join in the conference.

Webinar: 

A webinar is a two-way street. It is a virtual event practice where the host or the speaker will talk on a topic relevant to the audience. A webinar can last from anywhere between 1 hour to 3 hours, depending upon the content. A webinar even has a live chat where the audience can ask the speaker any questions or doubts about the topic. This is one of the best practices for a virtual event where you want to better understand your audience’s perspective.

Online Workshop: 

Do you remember attending a bake-a-cake workshop, or making a DIY showpiece, or a dress. This is basically the same thing. The only variation is that this time you are learning it online. This is one of the best practices for a virtual event where your audience can learn more regardless of their geographical location. 

Live Stream: 

When you already have a well-established social media platform, live streams are the best way to engage with your audience. Make use of Instagram LIVE, Facebook live, YouTube LIVE to engage with your audience. Inform your audience a few days before the Live. Using your well set up social media as a streaming platform is budget-friendly. There are also several live-streaming platforms that you can use for your virtual event practice. This is one of the best practices for a virtual event where you can directly interact with your audience.

Tips to get your virtual events right

Plan out the content: 

Planning the content for your virtual event practice is an essential step. Planning your content will give you a proper roadmap of where you want to take your event, who the audience is, which speakers you want to invite, and where you want to host your event. This is the part where your team will sit together and brainstorm and come up with unique ideas such as the theme, the speakers, the hosting platform, what you want to speak to the audience about, etc.

Invite excellent speakers: 

After you have planned out your event and know what kind of content you want to present to your audience, the next step is to find speakers related to the niche your virtual event idea is about. This is one of the most significant virtual event tips. Depending upon the speakers that you invite, you will draw more attention to your event. You can schedule the talk with each speaker beforehand and announce the list days before the virtual event practice so that the audience can join in depending upon their choice of their speaker.

Get event sponsors: 

Look out for sponsors who would like to fund your event. Depending upon the reach of your event, your sponsors get a lot of exposure and may even convert leads. Organise virtual lounges where your audience can interact with the sponsors. This can help build direct relationships with sponsors. The sponsors can even organise virtual games for the audience to participate in.

Promote your event: 

Without promotion, your event may not reach as many people as it should. This is another most essential virtual event tip. Promoting your event is just as significant as any other stage of event management. Investing time, money, and effort into promoting an event will result in:

  1. Increased return on investment
  2. More turnover at the event
  3. Increased awareness about your business
  4. More sponsorship opportunities for the events in the future

Live Tweet: 

Twitter has just never gotten out of style! Millions of people are active on Twitter sharing their opinions day in and day out. Build a brand on Twitter. Have the social media team stay upbeat and tweet your speakers anytime they make an informative and worth sharing statement. If you got something worth sharing about your event, then tweet your thoughts away!

Share informational bites on social media: 

Social media is all about content. When you already have a whole event going on, you can take bits and pieces from what is going on at the virtual event practice. This is a great way to let people know what is happening at your event.

Present slides online: 

One of the essential virtual event tips is to use creative and engaging slides during a talk or presentation. Pictures and creatives have a powerful way of connecting with people. When you show people images or videos about the speaker’s topic, they will better understand the topic.

Provide event access year-round: 

One of the best advantages of virtual event practices is that you can save the video on the same landing page to have access to it all year round. By giving people access to your event, anyone who comes across it will know what to expect from your next event. You can also post your event on your social media platforms or have the best parts of your virtual event practices publicised on social media for people to know more about it in small pieces of information.

Provide different access levels: 

Once your event is over, you can provide some pieces of your virtual event practices available to the public for free. Simultaneously, some of it will be available only to members who have access to the event, or the audience will have to pay some amount to have access to the more informative parts of the event.

Test your tech beforehand: 

It is vital to have all your software and technologies tested beforehand. One of the best practices for virtual events is to conduct several trials of the entire event to ensure that everyone on the team is on the same page and knows what they need to do on the primary day of the event. Any faults in the technology or software, if detected beforehand, will save a lot of time and cost.

Create a hashtag: 

Come up with a hashtag for your virtual event practice on all social media platforms. Creating a hashtag will give you the benefit of grouping any post related to your event together. You can even ask your audiences to post about your event and use the hashtag. If anyone searches for the hashtags, all they will see is posts related to your virtual event practice from everyone who has been posting about it.

Conclusion

Let your virtual event be the next best thing that people will be a part of on the internet. Planning and organising an event that will not only increase the turnover to your event but also have an impact on your audience is key. The virtual event tips above provide you with a road map that will lead your event to success. However, what makes an event successful is the individuality that each event has to offer. Nobody can take that away from you. Being authentic at every step of your event right from planning is crucial.

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