How to handle 10,000 online event attendees successfully
Unmistakably the event and business industry has been firmly influenced by the problematic impacts of COVID-19 (SARS-COV-2). Since the beginning of this pandemic, several events have been dropped everywhere throughout the world, and waking up to the updates on the consequences of this pandemic gotten the new typical.
But as innovation develops, we have come to understand that virtual events can fill in the gap left by huge scope consequences and different limitations coming from the current situation. In the course of recent weeks, a noteworthy number of gatherings and meetings have been overhauled as virtual events.
Companies, businesses, and organizations are now utilizing teleconferencing services to prevent the shutdown of their industries’ operations. So what really are these virtual conferences and how these really work?
In this course, we will cover different types of virtual events and we will provide techniques on how to host one successfully.
What is an Online Event?
Virtual conferences and large scale online meetings are most likely the best options in these difficult situations. In a nutshell, virtual events are events that happen online.
By their very nature, virtual events permit participation regardless of movement limitations and encourage the conveyance of vanguard data. Also, this set up is completely good with an event promoting and sponsorship methodologies while permitting organizers to be prepared for any projection.
As long as they are deliberately arranged to utilize the correct advances, virtual events can even contact a more extensive crowd than customary live occasions. Virtual events can happen in various formats such as Webinars, online meetings, and virtual conferences.
These three formats might have close similarities and features but in this course, we will delve deeper to understand what the dissimilarity between these three is.
Webinar
A typical webinar is an online event that happens in real-time but also can be streamed after a specific session. It is a format where it includes speaker hosting workshops, seminars, digital advertising or branding, and a large number of participants who partake by submitting questions and reacting to surveys and polls.
The following webinar platforms might be your medium next time you host your webinar event.
Zoom- it can access up to 100 specialists and largely as 10 000 participants. Some of the features are Q&A chat, recording, reporting, polls, and branding.
Demio- it is a webinar platform that offers convenient features such as, all program based makes joining simple. Can transfer slides or offer recordings directly inside Demio and some – Surveys, CTAs, Handouts, and Chat room.
Easy Webinar- it lets you stream to Facebook Live and YouTube Live simultaneously, they have mixed with mainstream email stages like Mailchimp, ConvertKit, Aweber,
Webinar jam- some of the highlights of this platform are no required forms to fill out, no software downloads, offers downloadable handouts.
With all these webinar platforms in the market, you can always rely on Jetwebinar.
Jetwebinar is a seamless webinar platform that offers high-quality video streaming. Your webinar will be uploaded directly to the cloud to make it accessible to all types of devices without downloading any application or software.
Plus, you can host large scale webinars without worrying about attendance limitations.
Virtual Summit
A virtual summit is a bit different from the webinar. In a nutshell, a virtual summit is a kind of collaborative online event where a specific presentation is being delivered and explained by experts on the topic.
It resembles an online event with an assortment of online presentations from 6 to 30+ experts on a topic. People can easily stream this online event by enlisting their email addresses.
Online Meeting
An online meeting is an event that’s taking place with the use of the internet. This format is being used by companies and businesses of all sizes to connect with their employees and representatives that are topographically disseminated.
Online meeting is different from webinar also because it is usually used for small meetings only usually for work meetings and activities.
Why do you need online events?
Financially savvy– virtual events can keep your costs minimum since you won’t be spending for your venue, transportation, staff, logistics, and even for miscellaneous fees.
Easier to manage– Actual events are really stressing, thankfully virtual events do exist. Since your event will be held online, you won’t be thinking too much about your setups and integrations. With just a few clicks and with the help of integrated online platforms you can make your own event presentation easily.
It’s Global -Since most of your audience is sticking around social media platforms, you can easily advertise and invite your target audience just by sharing your link to your website. People can instantly join your event without costing them too much time and effort.
Thinkific discussed about the importance of doing virtual events to businesses and companies. Expect that it will really benefit both audience and the webinar host.
Feedbacks are crucial to assess the effectiveness of your event; fortunately, virtual events can integrate polls and surveys which can easily collect feedback from your audience.
Virtual events can easily track the information of your attendees that is crucial for your future webinars, with their listed information you can easily measure gather data from your attendees.
How do you host a large scale virtual event?
If you want to conduct a large scale virtual event as a host but you don’t know when and how to start. Well, luckily I am here to help you. So check these tips that will surely help you to host a large scale virtual event
Know your goals and objectives
Before you jump into hosting a virtual event especially if it is a big event, first, you need to define your goals and objectives. What result you want to achieve and what strategies you need to use to reach your goals. In this, well defined, outlined, and clear objectives will lead you to a successful event.
Know your audience
Knowing your audience will lead to questions like what industry they are most interested in, how tech-savvy are they, and so on. You can use polls, surveys, and even Q&A sessions to know more about your audience.
Create a game plan
A game plan simply means your strategy to make a successful virtual event. In creating a game plan you need to consider these things: What is your purpose, who is your audience, who is your host, and what platform will you use.
You need also to prepare your event planning template such as, on how you will sell tickets online, provide event registrations, online registrations, website registration, and so on. So creating a unique and proper game plan will build interest in your audience also in your event.
Choose the right time
The right time has a vital role in your big event. Choosing the right time can help you have your desired successful event.
But what are the points in choosing the best time? In choosing the best time, make sure there are no competing events or holidays that will hinder or impede with the events.
Think about also your audience across the world, they have different time zones, the best thing to do is to pick the best time that will work most of your audiences as possible.
Choose your host and speakers wisely
Choose the best host and speaker wisely. Choose a speaker and host that will: interact with the audience, capture the event’s objective and goals.
She or he must be a good, effective, efficient, and confident speaker and host. If you choose an influencer and a well-known speaker and a host is a plus point.
Promote the event
There are many ways to promote your event. You can ask for help from some speakers to promote your event in their email or blogs.
Speaking of blogs and emails, social media will help you in this case. You can run ads, you can use podcasts and even sell event tickets in the traditional way.
This kind of promotion will lead to a large number of your audience.
What to know more about getting more attendees and promoting your webinar? Check our article: Tools to increase webinar attendees
Prepare for tech issues
Because it is virtual, expect some technical issues. So be prepared for some technical troubles.
But you can avoid it if possible if you can test and examine them. So first, test your internet connection, examine your audio and visual system, and prepare some backups of your visual presentation.
It is better to check them a week before the event.
Make it inclusive and accessible as possible
Virtual events should be inclusive and accessible as possible. Your audience should feel at ease when attending your event.
Make sure you are using clear language, large fonts, high color contrast, visible and readable presentations, page narration for your impaired audience, webinars with subtitles, easy navigation, and so on. An inclusive and accessible virtual event will help you gain and attract more audiences.
Encourage engagements
Encouraging engagements among your audience will make your virtual event more interesting and lively. They might love your event so much and stay with you throughout your event.
So the big question now is: How will you encourage them to engage with you and with other audiences?
So you can ask your audience to submit some questions in comments or maybe in the chat tool, or you can conduct some surveys or even ask them to participate in polls and quizzes. Here you will have a lot of chances and possibilities to make your virtual events more interesting and active.
Have enticing visuals and videos
Boring visuals and videos on your virtual event will make your audience leave your event. So make sure to have an enticing visual and videos. Or maybe you can hire event management or event planner that will help you decide what the best for your event is.
You can also check Hootsuite’s examples of virtual events hosted by businesses. Their visuals and pre-recorded videos are on point.
Conclusion
Virtual events will continue to become more popular in this present year. This is no doubt because this is one of their ways or solutions to cope up with the Covid-19 pandemic.
On the other hand, organizing some events is not easy, what more if you are preparing for a large scale of audience? By following these amazing and helpful tips, you can achieve your successful BIG virtual event. And it is a pleasure achievement as a host.
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