Event Planning Tips Courtesy of the Times Square Ball

December 26, 2011

Image courtesy of “Between a Rock” on flickr.

Introduction

As we count down to midnight on New Year’s Eve each year, our attention is focused on Times Square in New York City. There, a ball made of Waterford Crystal descends 77 feet in 1 minute. When the ball touches the ground, millions of people, both on-site and watching remotely, cheer, “Happy New Year!”

For every New Year’s Eve growing up, I made sure to stay awake to watch the count-down on television. In college one year, some classmates and I decided to brave the cold and experience the celebration in person. We never did get close enough to see the ball drop, but “just being there” was worth it.

Let’s consider aspects of the Times Square Ball that you can apply to your events.

Create a Focal Point

What is “New Year’s in Times Square” known for? The Times Square Ball, of course. What is your event known for? If there’s no clear answer to that question, then you should create one. Figure out something unique and special to focus attention around. Perhaps it’s the game show that you host or the great evening entertainment you bring in each year. Create a compelling focal point and you make your event memorable.

Build Up to a Compelling Close

The Times Square Ball is 60 seconds of “action,” but people gather in the square 8 or more hours earlier. Having a “compelling close” to your event helps to build up anticipation, which makes the “close” all the more compelling. Make sure your events have that “can’t miss moment.”

Create a Tradition

According to Wikipedia, “The first New Year’s Eve celebration in the area was held in 1904.” If you combine a great event with a compelling focal point, you create a tradition. A tradition helps to build brand recognition around your event. And, it gives people a reason to return to your event next year.

Create a Digital Extension to Your Event

According to Wikipedia, one million gather in Times Square (at the face-to-face event), while one billion watch on television. Television creates a digital extension that allows the entire world to catch a glimpse of the Times Square celebration. And just like B2B events, the live broadcast of the Times Square “event” doesn’t cannibalize your audience, it encourages attendance at the face-to-face event the following year.

Create a Programming Channel for Your Event

New Year’s in Times Square has “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” (now Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest) and many other programs. Your event needs a programming channel that on-site and remote attendees can tune in to. In the same way that Dick Clark and Ryan Seacrest convey what’s happening in Times Square, your event needs a virtual emcee to connect with your digital audience.

Conclusion

Isn’t New Year’s in Times Square a great “event?” It’s got a focal point, a tradition, a compelling close and a great set of hosts. I’ve been “attending” for years and look forward to this year’s event. Now that I live on the West Coast, however, I’ll have to tune in at 9pm local time. Happy New Year!


My Grown-Up Christmas List for Digital Events

December 19, 2011

Introduction

Driving in the car during the holiday season, I love it when Amy Grant’s “Grown-Up Christmas List” comes on the radio. Here’s what Ms. Grant wishes for in her song:

“No more lives torn apart,
That wars would never start,
And time would heal all hearts.
And everyone would have a friend,
And right would always win,
And love would never end.”

Sounds about right to me. Now, I’d like to provide a list of my own. It’s certainly not as noble as Ms. Grant’s list. Mine is a grown-up Christmas list for digital events.

A User Experience That’s More Whole

Ms. Grant sings, “no more lives torn apart.” My corresponding lyric would be “no more user experiences torn apart (by new browser windows).” Think of it this way: the more browser instances you see “popping up” in a digital event, the less cohesive the user experience. We need to deliver better and more integrated experiences. How often does Facebook launch a new browser window? Never.

A Consistent User Experience Across Platforms

Ms. Grant hopes “that wars would never start.” Well, we’ll always have “platform wars” (e.g. iOS vs. Android). And as digital event platforms “widen” to meet a growing array of platforms, my wish is that the user experience remains consistent across all of them. My iPhone and Android experiences ought to be the same. And to the extent possible, my iPhone experience should resemble what I see on the desktop. Is that HTML5 I see under the tree?

Driving Adoption by Meeting Expectations

Ms. Grant hopes that “time would heal all hearts.” Digital events have their share of naysayers, who are not convinced on the “return on investment” (ROI). For these naysayers, my wish is that “baby steps” are taken in 2012. Throw ROI out the window for now. Make a small bet and see if digital events (at a small scale) generate a Return On Expectations (ROE). The healing process here is about finding ROE first, then delivering on the ROI as you progressively scale up your bets.

More Discovery and Connecting of People

Ms. Grant hopes that “everyone would have a friend.” Most of us login to a digital event with no pre-existing friends (at that same event). My wish is that digital event platforms prove more effective in helping us discover and find new “connections” (people) as a “side effect” of attending the event. We need to reproduce the serendipity of meeting others at face-to-face events, online.

More Focus on the Attendee Experience

While Ms. Grant sings, “and right would always win,” I shout, “the attendee must always win.” My wish is that digital event planners always put the attendee first – they come before the speakers and the sponsors. Deliver them what they want and need – and you will always in. And they will, too.

Keeping the Lights On (Event Communities)

Ms. Grant sings, “and love would never end,” while I sing, “events don’t need to end.” With digital events, there are no walls to tear down and no stands to ship back to your vendor. Why, then, do so many digital event planners “abandon” the digital event once the schedule of sessions has concluded? Digital events can and should sustain “365 communities.” Attendees stay engaged with one another until the next scheduled activity (when they continue to engage, of course).

Conclusion

Thanks, Amy Grant, for the wonderful song. My hope is that your wish list comes true for all of us. Secondarily, let’s see if my digital event wish list comes true in 2012.

To all of you out there, thanks for reading. And, Happy Holidays.


Why Every Virtual Event Needs a Community Manager (by @LaurenEHarper) #cmgr

December 5, 2011

The following is a guest post by Lauren Harper.

Introduction

One of the main goals for every community manager is to help build and facilitate engagement. Virtual events are no different. There are many reasons for companies to host a virtual event. Whether trying to promote a product or service, generate leads, or simply showcasing thought leadership, virtual events prove to be an important strategy for businesses of all kinds.

It is important to have goals outlined ahead of time for each virtual event, and having a community manager on your virtual event can only help to attain those goals. Virtual events need community managers to generate excitement, facilitate engagement, grow the community, employ any and all social business initiatives and strengthen overall brand recognition.

The following are some important areas to focus on:

Engagement

Regardless of the reasons for hosting a virtual event, one of the main goals should always be to connect with all attendees. Community managers can help pave that path of collaboration by reaching out to attendees one-on-one.

They can also take charge of all social activity surrounding an event in order to help achieve goals of engagement and knowledge sharing before, during, and after the event. Depending upon what kind of platform is being used, community managers can also help inspire conversation among attendees by asking questions and replying to comments. Similarly, community managers can help direct people back to the actual company website to ask questions, or download relevant research.

Even if the goal isn’t to have the attendees interact with each other, it is still important that they engage with the topic, speaker, and the company as a whole, and community managers can help facilitate that. Also, having a community manager present offers a great chance to have a “face” for the company and help humanize the brand.

Platform Assistance

Virtual events have grown exponentially in popularity over the last few years. Due to the overwhelming demand for them, many event platform vendors have emerged. It’s important to have a community manager present to help visitors not only figure out how to log on, dial in, or sign in to the event, but to also help with any other difficulties that attendees may have.

By having the community manager troubleshoot simple issues, the event producers are able to focus on ensuring that the speakers have everything they need, and to sort out any technical issues they may have.

Collect Feedback

Allowing the community manager to engage with attendees creates an easy way to collect feedback that can be disseminated to the speakers and host company, post-event. Customer feedback is an essential element to a company’s success.

Having an actual human listen in to your community’s feedback and take note of any new or inventive ideas helps to make virtual events a more enjoyable experience for the participant. This will ultimately lead to better attendance rates for future events. It also helps the audience feel as though it is are being listened to and valued, again, leading to a better overall experience for the broader community.

Promotion

Community managers are also a great source of free promotion for your events. Virtual events present a great opportunity for them to promote any other upcoming live or virtual event that the company is hosting. They presumably know the community better than anyone and would know how best to promote an event to reach the target audience. Better yet, they could reach out to people individually and invite them to attend the event.

Community managers can help combine virtual events with their company’s social business initiatives by leveraging all the social media sites the company has a presence on. Posting to social media networks during events in real time can help to reach a broader audience, and boost brand recognition.

Distributing content from the event, e.g.: tweets with quotes, slide URLs, etc., will attract a lot of attention from the social sphere. Companies may find that people will join in mid-event to hear what the speakers have to say.

Conclusion

No matter what type of virtual event you host, there is a real need for a community manager. Community managers are invaluable for event promotion, feedback collection, user experience and audience engagement initiatives.

They also help to retain a consistent audience as companies continue to host events. Virtual events are a great tool to showcase a company’s vibrant community, which inevitably is the thing that will keep people coming back.

About The Author

Lauren Harper is the Sales and Marketing Community Manager at Focus.com. Follow Lauren on Twitter at @LaurenEHarper.


Provide Answers to Virtual Events Questions (#engage365 Twitter Chat)

December 3, 2011

Introduction

Recently, I joined an #engage365 Twitter chat and answered virtual events questions posed by host Jenise Fryatt (@JeniseFryatt). I’m posting the chat questions here and inviting you to provide answers.

Question List

  1. What do you see as the biggest obstacles to virtual events right now?
  2. Would you please define a “virtual event?”
  3. What are some of the ways that planners are funding their virtual events?
  4. With hybrid events on the rise, are you seeing more organizations offering free remote attendance, or charging?
  5. With more free remote attendance, it would seem more organizations are understanding the marketing value, agree?
  6. When people do charge for remote access, what types of events still get good remote attendance?
  7. How can organizations best prepare for the growth of virtual events in the future?
  8. Do you think a new position that combines IT knowledge with event knowledge will evolve to meet virtual event needs?
  9. Do you see websites of events transform into virtual events year round? Examples maybe?
  10. What part of a virtual events team should have a dedicated person? I see content and experience as labor intensive. You?

How to Participate

Use the Comments area to provide your answers. In addition, feel free to provide comments to the existing answers. Thanks!

 


Ask Me a Question on Virtual Events (#engage365 Twitter Chat)

December 1, 2011

Join the chat now via tweetchat: http://tweetchat.com/room/engage365

Introduction

Are you ready for a Twitter chat? I’ll be answering questions on virtual events during an #engage365 “Water Cooler Chat” hosted by Jenise Fryatt (@JeniseFryatt) of Icon Presentations (@IconPresentsAV).

Date: Friday, December 2, 2011

Time: 1PM EST

Location: On Twitter.

How to Participate

If you’re using a Twitter client, simply add a column that pulls in tweets with the tweetchat’s hash tag: #engage365. Here’s a look at how I’ve done it in TweetDeck:

There’s also a neat (and free) service called tweetchat (@tweetchat). I plan to use this service for the Twitter Chat. You can use this URL to take you directly in to the chat:

http://tweetchat.com/room/engage365

Finally, you can find more information on the Engage365 “Water Cooler Chats” here:

http://engage365.org/2010/02/water-cooler-chat-226/

Hope to “tweet you” there!

 


Top 5 Ways Virtual Events Are Like Football Games

October 31, 2011

Introduction

The 2011 World Series was simply amazing. But now that baseball is over, it’s time to turn my sporting attention entirely to football (American football, that is). After watching a weekend’s worth of football, it occurred to me that there are similarities between winning football games and producing successful virtual events. Let’s consider 5 ways they’re similar.

1) The Importance of the Game Plan

In the NFL, head coaches spend the entire week preparing for the upcoming game. They’ll put in 16 hour days and sleep on the sofa in their office. They plan the offensive schemes, the defensive schemes and they’ll even map out the play calls for their first drive.

Once they’ve done all their preparation, execution on the field becomes secondary. Yes, it’s important, but without a solid game plan, teams are less likely to claim victory. With virtual events, the game plan and preparation are equally important. As in football, make sure you script out your plays ahead of time.

2) Games Are Won and Lost on Turnovers

Interceptions and lost fumbles often dictate the outcome of football games. In virtual events, a “turnover” is anything that doesn’t occur as expected. It may be a technical glitch or a speaker who never shows up.

When a turnover happens in a football game, your defense must step up to the plate to limit the damage. In a virtual event, you’ll want contingency plans documented (in your pre-game planning) so that you have a “set of plays” to use for each possible turnover.

3) Delegate Important Tasks to Your Team

In football, wins and losses rest on the shoulders of the Head Coach. The coach, however, has an entire staff behind him, much in the same way that the President of The United States has a cabinet. Football teams have coaches for the offense, the defense, the offensive line, the quarterback and much more.

Are you the “Head Coach” of your virtual event? The first step will be to identify all the staff positions you need (e.g. marketing, operations, speaker coordination, sponsorship sales, etc.). Then, fill those positions with competent coaches, then delegate.

4) In-game Analysis and Adjustments

Ever see a quarterback on the sidelines, viewing a photograph with his coaches? By viewing a snapshot of that play’s formations, the quarterback is able to analyze what he did (or did not do) correctly on the given play.

In your virtual event, pause and take “snap shots” throughout the event. You’ll want to analyze things like number of attendees, attendance rate, average session time, number of chats, viewers per session, etc. Just as the quarterback may use photo analysis to make adjustments, learn from what your event snap shots tell you and make the appropriate in-game adjustments.

5) The Importance of Clock Management

Clock management, especially at the end of the two halves, is critical in football. You can’t score if you’ve run out of time.

In virtual events, clock management is first about mapping out the right schedule. For one thing, make sure you provide enough “down time” between scheduled activities so that everyone (e.g. staffers, attendees, presenters) can properly transition from one activity to the next.

Next, clock management in a virtual event is about sticking to your published schedule. If a session is scheduled to run 30 minutes, make sure you begin the “wrap-up” with 5 minutes remaining. Or better yet, go with football’s “two minute warning.”

Conclusion

Here’s to your success on the field. Remember that it all starts in your coaches’ office and practice facility. If you execute well in your virtual event, you can go home a hero on Friday’s and spend the weekends watching football. If you’re so inclined, that is!


How Facebook’s Latest Changes Point To The Future of Virtual Event Experiences

October 24, 2011

Photo source: ivanwalsh on flickr.

Introduction

Have you heard? Facebook announced a set of changes to its service. Some changes are active now, while others will be rolled out in the coming weeks or months. Previously, I wrote about why Facebook is the world’s largest virtual event. Looking at the changes Facebook announced, I think that some of the new features should be adopted by virtual event platforms, to improve the user experience. Let’s take a closer look.

Subscribe (for Personal Pages)

You can now subscribe to a user’s personal page without having that person “friend” you back (a la the “follow” on Twitter). This feature is useful for celebrities who have a personal page, but no associated brand page. Where can this be useful in virtual events? Allowing attendees to subscribe to exhibitors in virtual trade shows.

The “subscribe” action creates a much more valuable “relationship” (to exhibitors) compared to the booth visit, document download or document view. By subscribing to an exhibitor, I see “status updates” that they post during the life of the event. This forces exhibitors to:

  1. Publish content (status updates, special offers, etc.) during the event.
  2. Have an ongoing conversation with you, without the pressure for you to respond back.
  3. Be useful to you.

I “Like” it.

The New Timeline

While not yet rolled out, the Timeline replaces your Profile page. It’s an auto-generated, visual summary of your entire life (on Facebook). It provides you with a “scrapbook on life,” and could be a convenient way for your Facebook friends to quickly check out what you’ve been up to.

Virtual events should create an “Event Timeline” that’s dynamically updated throughout the event. As with the Facebook Timeline, certain events are condensed, especially those that happened in the past. The Event Timeline could include:

  1. A listing of all sessions.
  2. Activity updates (e.g. the 1000th user just logged in; 500 attendees viewed this session; etc.).
  3. Announcements.
  4. Special offers from exhibitors (e.g. sponsored listings).
  5. On-demand content (e.g. a prior session that is now available on-demand).

Top Stories

If something happened a week ago that Facebook deems noteworthy, it wants to keep that event (e.g. a status update from a family member) in the Top Stories section atop your News Feed. Virtual Events can leverage this concept alongside the “Event Timeline” (discussed above). An event’s Top Stories could include:

  1. The most viewed sessions.
  2. The most downloaded documents.
  3. The most popular users (e.g. most connections, most friends).
  4. The most active users (e.g. most chat postings)
  5. The most visited areas of the event.

The Ticker

Facebook’s Ticker resides on the right side of your News Feed and lists interesting things that your friends have done. For a one-day virtual event, it’s not likely that I’m going to build out a significant list of friends or followers. So instead, a virtual event’s Ticker could simply be a updated and scrolling area that displays the Event Timeline and Top Stories (discussed above), as they unfold.

Bonus Item: iPhone 4S Assistant

Apple recently launched its iPhone 4S, which includes an Assistant (Siri). You speak to Siri, it understands what you say and it attempts to perform the actions youv’e asked it to do (e.g. find a restaurant, give me directions, etc.). We need a Siri personal assistant (activated by voice commands) for virtual events. And of course, it needs to work on smartphones and tablets.

Conclusion

Facebook is “always on” to its end users, who use it day and night and all year round. Virtual events tend to be “point in time” occurrences that happen on a single day, or over a few days. While it’s interesting to consider these concepts, their value will surface only if applied correctly. That being said, let’s get to work.

Related Resources

  1. David Pogue of The New York Times writes “Facebook Changes Inspire More Grumbling
  2. Learn more about the iPhone Assistant (Siri).
  3. My thoughts: Why Facebook Is The World’s Largest Virtual Event

#HybridEvents: A Look Back and A Look Ahead via @bXbOnline

October 20, 2011

Read my guest post: http://bxbonline.com/blog/2011/10/the-last-four-years-and-the-next-four-years-in-virtual-and-hybrid-events/

Introduction

When I attended my first virtual trade show four years ago, I said to myself, “This is the future of online lead generation.” At the time, I was managing webinar programs for technology advertisers. They’d do 60-minute, audio-based webinars and hope to generate leads to fuel their sales pipeline. At this virtual trade show, those same “leads” attended an online event for hours and had the opportunity to have real-time engagements with those same advertisers. The users loved it and the advertisers loved it.

Fast forward to today and we’ve significant growth in virtual trade shows. But we’ve also seen the underlying technology platforms applied to many other uses, including virtual job fairs, virtual product launches and importantly, hybrid events.

While some appear before Congress and state that they’re “not here to talk about the past,” I’d like to quickly look back and enthusiastically look forward. Let’s take it in four year intervals, shall we?

To read the full post, visit the bXb Online blog:

http://bxbonline.com/blog/2011/10/the-last-four-years-and-the-next-four-years-in-virtual-and-hybrid-events/


Demand Generation Has Evolved: The Convergence of Lead Generation & Lead Qualification

October 14, 2011

Image source: TechTarget, in a presentation delivered at the TechTarget Online ROI Summit.

Introduction

Demand generation is evolving. In the days of old, marketers focused primarily on “getting the lead,” whether it was via a banner ad, white paper listing or search ad. And while getting the lead is a critical piece of demand generation, leads become worthless if they’re not qualified well and passed on to the right individuals in your organization.

Lazy marketers put up an offer, generate a lead list and then “dump” those leads into a telemarketing queue. Now, lazy marketers have evolved into smart marketers. Smart marketers engage with leads in real-time – or, if they can’t engage with them directly, they study their leads’ interactions with content to make qualification decisions on:

  1. Where leads are in the buying cycle.
  2. What purchasing authority they have.
  3. Who is the best individual to engage with them, and how.

In my book, “Generate Sales Leads With Virtual Events,” I called this “accelerated lead generation.” That is, marketers generate and qualify leads in the same step.

Activity Intelligence™ from TechTarget

At the TechTarget Online ROI Summit in San Francisco, Justin Hoskins introduced a concept called Activity Intelligence™. By adding this service to demand generation campaigns, TechTarget not only generates leads for advertisers, but provides them with a wealth of insights on those leads, in the form of this activity intelligence. Let’s take a further look.

Holistic Account View

It seems elementary, but all too often, demand generation campaigns do not group leads from the same company together. As a result, a sales rep may call on the same company multiple times. Or, multiple sales reps place calls into the same company at the same time. Yikes!

With dashboards provided in Activity Intelligence™, I see that Sandra, Joe, Peter and Barry are from the same company. They may all be on the same team, or they may be in different teams, but at least I get a holistic view, allowing me to plan offers and follow-up activities strategically.

Undiscovered Contacts

Next, there’s the concept of “undiscovered contacts.” These are people from the same company – they didn’t view your content, but they looked at similar content. Activity Intelligence™ won’t provide you with the identity of these contacts, but it’ll tell you how active they are in topics related to your content.

Now, you know that there are other influencers in the prospects’ organization. This is useful, as it indicates an active need. And active needs provide you with better leads (rhyme intended).

Account Mindshare

Related to “other” content, Activity Intelligence™ dashboards provide you with insights into “mindshare,” which comprises:

  1. Your content.
  2. Your competitors’ content (in aggregate).
  3. TechTarget editorial content.

If your competitors’ mindshare is higher than your’s and your prospects are not returning phone calls from Sales, perhaps they’re closing in on a decision with your competitor.

And while that’s not a great result, the intelligence provided can help guide you. Perhaps you have your Sales team focus on more qualified prospects. Or, you re-orient your marketing content to focus on competitive assessments or special offers.

How to Apply to Virtual Events

The concepts of Activity Intelligence™ can be applied to virtual event platforms, to enhance online events oriented around demand generation. Consider the following:

  1. Reporting: provide sponsor reports oriented around holistic account views.
  2. Undiscovered contacts: let sponsors know that “undiscovered contacts” attended the virtual event and provide a measure of their activity within the event.
  3. Mindshare: provide “report cards” that show prospects’ engagement with a sponsor’s content, compared to an average of the other sponsors. In other words, “tell me how this prospect interacted with me, in comparison to my competitors.”

Conclusion

TechTarget’s Activity Intelligence™ is powering an evolution in demand generation: the convergence of lead generation and lead qualification.

The closer you can bring the two steps together, the better chance you have on turning leads into opportunities and opportunities into bookings.

For the digital events industry, we need to be thinking about how we can bring “activity intelligence concepts” into our events, to the benefit of sponsors’ demand generation campaigns.

Disclosure: I was formerly employed by TechTarget.

Related Resources

  1. TechTarget’s presentation on Activity Intelligence™.
  2. Buy the book: “Generate Sales Leads With Virtual Events
  3. Blog posting on Virtual Event Lead Management

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12 Reasons to Consider Hybrid Events

August 26, 2011

Read the full post: http://12most.com/2011/08/24/12most-hybrid-events/

Introduction

On 12Most.com, I wrote an article titled “12 Most Compelling Reasons to Consider Hybrid Events.” In the introduction, I wrote, “Increasingly, event planners are adding a ‘digital extension’ to their physical events. The digital extension expands the event’s audience reach across the entire web.”

The 12 Reasons to Consider Hybrid Events

My 12 reasons are:

  1. The digital event provides a marketing tool for the physical event.
  2. Extends your audience reach.
  3. Creates events that never end.
  4. Does not cannibalize physical events.
  5. Use virtual booths to follow up with leads from your physical booth.
  6. Creates a DVR of event content.
  7. Gets you a raise or promotion.
  8. More networking for attendees.
  9. More leads for sponsors.
  10. Measure the effectiveness of event content.
  11. Reach a global audience.
  12. Enables localization.

To read the full post:

http://12most.com/2011/08/24/12most-hybrid-events/

Got a comment on the 12 reasons? If yes, please click through to the article on 12most.com and leave your comments there. Thanks!

Related Content

  1. Blog Posting: Use Virtual Booths to Follow Up with Leads from Your Physical Booth
  2. C&IT Article: “Cisco advocates free virtual content to boost live event attendees

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