One of our favourite pictures from 2020. This says it all. We are changing outcomes for people of all generations all around the world. We’re helping to save and enrich lives. We’re making a positive difference and helping democratise access to knowledge without borders. We’re very thankful for the opportunity to make a difference. 

 

 

 

 

It doesn’t matter if you are planning your first, fiftieth or five-hundredth event. Sooner or later you’ll be asking yourself the big question: should I go hybrid?

The answer, according to Dreamforce, Citrix, VMWare, AutoDesk, PCMA and at least 700 more corporations and associations, is a resounding “Yes.” As conferences evolve, many planners are turning to video to fuel that evolution. From large tech companies hosting their annual user conferences, to town hall meetings, product launches, investor meetings and more, the common thread among them is that they are all being streamed live and on-demand with GigTV, the leading providers of live and on-demand conference webcasting.

GigTV webcasting experts have come up with a few solid tips to ensure your next hybrid event hits the mark.

1. Define your video strategy. What’s your goal for adding video? Capturing conference content with video can help you provide greater reach for your event, generate additional interest among new audiences and fill your video-marketing engine for next year’s event.

2. Prepare your speakers. Make sure they understand they’ll be going live in front of not one, but two audiences – the one onsite and the one online. The online audience may be watching on their smart phone on the train, in the office or anywhere in between. Wherever they are, they’ll have questions, they’ll be tweeting, and they’ll want to engage. Consider having an online concierge, who can answer questions, help out if someone is having technical issues or even just tweet back at them as they’re watching the conference. Also, if presentations include exercises to engage the in-room audience (e.g. polls, group/collaborative activities, games, etc.) think of ways for the online audience to participate as well.

3. Open select sessions to the public. To people who may not even be in your sphere of influence? Sounds counter-intuitive. You’ve worked hard to create this exclusive hybrid event and you set the right price for the online pass, so the last thing you want to do is open up sessions for public viewing, right? Anecdotal research tells us that if you open up one or two sessions – a keynote or a particularly interesting breakout session – and promote it, you’ll generate more engagement and interest in your conference and your industry.

These tips will get you started on the road to preserving what happens at your conference, ensuring you can leverage it long after the event is over. Learn how GigTV can help organise your next hybrid event or contact us to arrange a no-obligation consultation

 

Watch From Home!

It’s day one of a big conference and while most attendees are shaking hands, trading business cards and clamouring for the best seat to catch the opening keynote, there’s a small number of individuals sitting at their office computers sipping coffee and firing up their internet connection.

For the next several hours these in-office folks network with other attendees, watch live sessions via event webcasting and ask questions of presenters and panelists. While lack of time and money might have kept them from going in person, the hybrid event helps bridge time and distance, giving them a rich, interesting and customised experience.

Event technology and meeting planning are becoming even more fused, making hybrid meetings – complementing your face-to-face live sessions with viewing over the web either in real-time or on-demand – prevalent in practically every industry.

A recent study on hybrid events revealed that 70% of event planners say hybrid meetings are rapidly becoming an important part of the meeting and events industry, so chances are you’ll be planning your own hybrid event soon. We believe event webcasting is the best way to maximize that online experience. Read on for a hit list of event webcasting features and five reasons you need to incorporate it into your next conference.

Features of event webcasting:

• Captures what happens in the room
• In many cases contains rich media, including video of the speaker and a separate window for slides or video – For example, RMLA 2016 Conference was streamed live via GigTV. Watch some of the on-demand presentations.
• Real-time and on-demand – so both groups can see it later
• Registration, security, reporting
• Cost effective – there’s no editing or post-production
• Ecommerce – you can charge for an entire conference pass or individual presentations
• Easy-to-use – the speaker just walks in, plugs in their laptop and begins

Why is webcasting essential for conferences?

• Allows individuals to save time and money on travel and still attend
• Gives the content a longer life. It’s available for review 365 days a year; not just during the meeting
• Online attendees can engage with people on-site through a mix of social media channels or dedicated chat streams
• Helps you increase awareness of your brand
• Individuals who attend online are more likely to show up in person next year

 

Whether you’re trying to reach a broader audience, cut costs, raise revenue or repurpose event content, incorporating livestreams as part of your event strategy is worth considering.

If you keep reading, we’ll cover everything you need to know to get started livestreaming your next event – from deciding which parts of your event to stream to choosing the right platform and equipment to suit your needs to what to do with your livestreamed content once your event is over.

But first – the basics. Here are 3 basic things about livestreams that you need to know, but were afraid to ask.

 

Question #1: So what is a livestream, anyway?

 

“Livestream” is a blanket term for a group of technologies and techniques that transmit live video over the internet. Livestreamed content comes in many forms – from a short clip captured and shared with a mobile device, to a complex, highly-produced event.

Some types of livestreaming content are pretty easy to grasp – like when a local TV station broadcasts its 5 o’clock news program on its website. Another example is the startup, BroadwayHD.com, which is working to bring live theater performances to a wider audience over the internet. In these cases, livestreams are simply another way to consume content that was made for another medium – in these cases, television or live performance.

Other types of livestreaming fall much more firmly into the realm of the internet. For example, the Smithsonian National Zoo livestreams a 24/7 video feed of the panda enclosure. While there are certainly a lot of people who want to watch Mei and Bei Bei blithely chew bamboo all day, it’s not the sort of thing that earns its own cable channel. So on the internet it goes.

Another thing that makes livestreaming unique: audience participation.

Sure, there are plenty of livestreamed events that maintain the classic speaker/spectator relationship. But most streaming platforms allow at least some audience feedback, and a few even let the audience become part of the show. Popular livestream apps like Periscope, for instance, are as much a part of social media as a livestream. That means viewers can communicate fluidly with the presenter and other viewers in real time.

What all these livestreams have in common is that they use mobile and/or internet technologies to transmit live video content – which allows for far more flexibility (and a far lower “cost-of-entry”) than traditional broadcasting. That means that anyone savvy enough to make a Skype call can broadcast live content over the internet with little to no cost.

Put another way – livestreaming is the democratization of live broadcasting.

 

Question #2: Should I livestream my event?

 

Whether or not you choose to stream parts (or all) of your events depends on what your goals are. Do you have a potential audience for your event that, for one reason or another, can’t make it to your event? Do you have engaging and/or informative content that you want to make available to a larger audience? Or are you just hoping to show off what a tech-savvy planner you are?

If you’re only interested in the latter, then perhaps livestreaming isn’t right for you. There are plenty of showier ways to incorporate technology into your event. And an event livestream – like any technology – is only effective if there’s a strategy built around it.

But with the right strategy, your event livestream can be a relatively low-cost and an easy way to reach a larger audience, repurpose the great content that comes out of your event and even increase your event revenue.

 

Question #3: Is livestreaming hard? What about cost?

 

Yeah, I know that’s two questions. But the answer is the same: It depends.

Like most things in life, setting up a livestream for your event is only as hard (or as expensive) as you make it. And how hard you make it really depends on what you’re streaming, why, and who you audience is – which in turn depends on type of event you’re planning and what your event’s objectives are.

That said, setting up a livestream is easier and less expensive that you might imagine, so long as your goals and strategy are realistically set from the beginning.

To start, ask yourself these questions:

• What is the purpose of my event (e.g. education, member engagement, fundraising, lead generation, event revenue)?
• Am I trying to expand my audience or re-engage a dormant one?
• How much time, effort and cash am I willing to devote to livestreaming?
• What kind of content is created at my event, and why would people be interested in it?
• How much audience participation do I want to allow?
• Do I want to control access to my livestream or allow anyone to access it?
• Do I want to charge money for my streaming event?
• What’s more important: increasing revenue in the short term or the long term?
• What do I want to do with my streamed content after the event?

Want to know more? Contact us for a free no-obligation discussion about your upcoming event

Grow Your Audience

In a recent study on membership and engagement by MCI Group, an international events and association management provider, they discovered that those with the strongest relationship and recall of an association were most often nonmember customers, followed by members who have experience using a product or service in the last 18 months

Peter Turner, senior adviser for global development strategy at MCI Group, says, “What we know is that people in global markets, particularly those in emerging and developing markets, are hungry for practical information.”

The study found that people who join an Association but do not purchase products are significantly more likely to drop their membership, whereas customers who buy at least one product have a much stronger relationship. They are more likely to become members and more likely to renew.

To take advantage of this new information, it is crucial for Associations to not only be capturing their content, but, slicing that content up into different products to appeal to a wider audience of buyers.  Creating more products that create a larger number of buyers will ultimately grow your membership base and increase the engagement level of those members. 

In other words, some of your strongest relationships may not be with your members; instead they may be with customers attending an event or seeking an accreditation.  “The whole notion of a membership-first strategy could be dangerous,” Turner says. “Because what we found is that members who are only interested in becoming a member often have weaker engagement scores.”

GigTV provides services designed for slicing and dicing your content into segmented and specialty products, along with numerous programs for distributing those products, is just the kind of tool needed to leverage this study’s findings.  

This study clearly shows the connection between delivering content and growing membership.  Content is not just for educational purposes.  If you want to drive engagement and grow your membership, it is crucial to capture your content, sell your content, produce Webinars, run meetings and produce opportunities to create a customer, as those customers will turn into more valuable members.

To learn more about how we’ve been helping Associations build new revenue, contact us.

Engaging attendees. If you’re like most planners, it’s a top strategic goal for any event you run. After all, you boost your chances of drawing attendees back to future events if you make it easy for them to register, network and meet one-on-one with each other, attend the right sessions, and stay connected after the event is over. Engaging attendees also motivates them to visit with sponsors and vendors. Plus, staying connected throughout the event lifecycle makes it easy to monitor how well you’re running the event – and what value attendees are getting out of your conference.

Here are some cool ways to pump up engagement and enrich attendees’ experience:

1. Make it a snap to schedule meetings.

It used to be a major hassle for attendees to figure out how to find and schedule one-on-one meetings with each other and exhibitors. The process involved lots of manual emailing or texting, waiting for replies and confirmations, and then setting up appointments. Those days are over. As an event planner, you can make attendees’ lives easier by leveraging “interest matching” technology offered through your mobile event app. Here’s how it works: At registration, your attendees indicate which sessions they want to attend, which exhibitors they want to visit, and who they want to connect with. Our interest-matching technology curates all that data. Then, we propose appointments, send out requests to other attendees and exhibitors, process confirmations, build a schedule and then deliver it to attendees. Also, where most solutions require attendees to either manage two schedules or add events one-by-one, our solution enables easy, one-click syncing with all the most common calendar applications. Users can now plan their experience and manage it in their Outlook, iCal or Google Calendars. If you can remove the drudgery that attendees go through trying to set up and manage appointments, they’ll be very grateful.

2. Simplify profile creation.

Help attendees, speakers, sponsors and exhibitors create rich, interest-based profiles. The simplest way is to have them build their profiles via the event app, including easy uploading of pictures, videos and slides. Why are profiles so important? Attendees use them to gain information on speakers, as well as for networking. Exhibitors and sponsors rely on them to attract customers with detailed organization and product information. Plus, if you have journalists attending your event, they’ll access digital profiles to get more information on speakers. Information is good. Make it easy for everyone at your event to communicate with their profiles.

3. Brighten attendees’ day with beacons.

Your attendees will smile with appreciation if you employ beacons, tiny computers that broadcast signals used by mobile event apps to communicate based on someone’s location – and to unlock data about where people are spending time. Your beacon-enabled event app can transform:

• Registration and session check-in. Beacons allow event planners to identify attendees as they walk in the venue door and automatically send them onsite check-in forms. Attendees can either scan an in-app QR code at a check-in kiosk or check in on the app and simply pick up a badge. Similarly, beacons can automatically sense when someone enters a room, and through your event app, attendees can check in for each session in real time and without a scanner. Attendees also gain an easy way to track continuing education credits.
• Eating and drinking. You can use beacons to identify who’s on line for the seafood buffet and who is instead, choosing the kale salad. With that information, you can optimize menus on the fly to please your audience and minimize waste (and cost). And, when attendees’ dietary choices are integrated into an event app, beacons can serve up messages to attendees with food allergies, pointing them to foods they can safely eat and alerting them to stay clear of dangerous ingredients.
• Networking. Your attendees no longer have to hunt for names on badges. Beacon technology on event apps can identify who’s in the room. All attendees need to do is look at their phones to see who’s nearby, glance at a photo for reference, and start up a conversation.
• Surveys and polling. There’s no need to bombard attendees with texts messages and web links to get them to give feedback on sessions or participate in surveys. With beacons, speakers can pull people directly into the polls for the session when they enter a room and automatically push from poll to poll in unison on everyone’s phone.

4. Play a game.

Launch a game at your event to motivate attendees to visit exhibitors, attend sessions, answer polls and participate in surveys – even post about the event and individual educational sessions to social media. Your app – loaded onto attendees’ smart phones – is the perfect tool for participating in a game. You can offer points, recognition and prizes. To foster a spirit of competition, display game results on an online leaderboard.

5. Make it easy for attendees to figure out where they belong.

Our app enables you to invite different groups of attendees to sign up only for sessions and special events that are appropriate for them. For example, you can customize agendas for association board members so that only they know about a special luncheon they’re invited to attend. Another benefit: You can boost privacy for VIPs by hiding their contact information from general event attendees.

If you give attendees enhanced tools to network with each other and patronize sponsors and exhibitors, chances are they’ll have a great event experience. That means they’re more likely to return to your next event – and that means you’re a success!

Learn how you can use mobile event app technology from GigTV to enhance attendee engagement at your next event. Contact us today!