“Webcasting your event is just another way to get your audience to wish they were there.” (Chris Brogan at the MTO Summit)

Here are our slides from our Association Toolbox webinar last week.  As you probably know by now, we tend to be “slide-light” so I’ve written out some accompanying notes below. Ooh and here, for your viewing pleasure, is the recording of the webinar should you want to hear our banter (and the way we laugh at each others’ jokes the whole time – haha)

Why hybrid?

- iphone image is a screenshot of Ustream broadcaster. It’s too easy nowadays for people to make their own virtual content. It’s worth thinking about how you can share control over that by either providing better virtual content, or by providing a place to aggregate it all for everyone to find, or both.
- be the curator of your content. Ask speakers for content they can share before, during, after an event. Pull in content using tags – as the hub for this content, you can create a better experience for your participants.

At this point, I defined three types of participants (Jeff Hurt, I’d like to know your thoughts on this!).

I know that we have used the words “remote” and “virtual” interchangeably in recent conversations; and I’m hereby redefining them in this way because we (as meeting planners and event organizers) need to consider not only what kinds of content are appropriate and valuable for each of these three audiences with different needs, but the ROI on what these pieces of the puzzle might mean for the conference budget.

- These three audiences (and specifically monetizing them) could represent a threat (what if people stop coming to the event because they can get everything remotely?), or they could represent opportunity. They could represent expanded reach and additional content elements for potential sponsors. They could represent a source of valuable earned media and word of mouth marketing.

As with everything else we do, these questions always come back to strategy and objectives. Is the objective to attract as many people as possible to the event?  Is it to create an intimate, special experience for the live participant, where glimpses of fabulous content will entice remote viewers to pay full reg next year? Is it to provide a community space accessible to members who can’t be there in person?

We talked through three examples, explaining how the objectives behind using virtual/remote components were very different for each:

• Buzz2009 – one-day conference, 80 people in the room, 5,000 people via 1 hour live webcast. Goals were to make a splash by bringing in a big name (Guy Kawasaki) and make it worth it for him to waive his fee; create deep value for those 80 people who had direct access to him; spread brand recognition for us; and overall, show off our focus on advanced content and education through creating a  signature event.  Registration fee was $495 (though heavily discounted, and included scholarship places); webcast was free; many logistical elements were bartered or sponsored.
• Untech10 – two day conference; day 1, 75 people in the room, 425 people via livestream. Day 2, entirely remote, full day of webinars. Goal was to make the most of the remnants of a cancelled conference by providing as much educational content as possible to a mostly virtual audience, using the talents of as many of the speakers as possible who had been ready to present at the original conference. All costs were covered by sponsors; free for all participants.
• NTC Remote – one full day of remote viewing of livestreamed NTEN Conference sessions, happening concurrently in three different locations (DC, Austin, NYC). Goals are [presumably] to cater to strong local communities of members in those three locations who cannot attend the actual 3-day conference in Atlanta. Combination of livestreamed sessions (including the keynote for that day, and sessions on day 2) and sessions provided by webinar. Fee for remote viewing day is $25-30 and live streams and webinars are sponsored.

We thought these were three very different hybrid events with different objectives and different business models. Another one we did not have time to mention is EventCamp, which was a live unconference in New York with livestreamed elements – this conference sought to bring together face-to-face a group of event professionals (#eventprofs) who had met and gotten to know one another on Twitter. Essentially, a fully virtual community that came together face to face for one day but wanted to cater to those people in the community who could not be there in person.

The tips slides are fairly self-explanatory. The first one (slide 7) is about listening – find out where your members are interacting online and start small experiments there; encourage feedback; tell attendees that you are experimenting and things may not be perfect; set expectations low; most important thing is participation – the fanciest most expensive platform will still look bad if no-one is actually using it during the event.

Slide 8 is about incorporating your virtual audience into the process of the live event – prepare your speakers to break the 4th wall, bring the backchannel to the front by taking questions from twitter, fill in empty space for remote or virtual participants when live participants are discussing things amongst themselves.

Slide 9 has to do with creating really special experiences for these three kinds of audiences. What’s worth paying a lot of money for and attending in person? What’s worth paying for in terms of remote content – maybe a live chat with a keynote speaker? Experiment and innovate. Watch what others are doing and find cool ideas. And figure out the business model – what’s the spectrum of free content versus fee-based. Think about what ROI free content can bring to the table – can be offset by sponsorship revenue, provides long tail content long after the event is over, feeds other learning channels, feeds publication or marketing channels, creates marketing materials for the following year…

That’s the scoop on the webinar! Let me know what you think of my remote/virtual distinction.

I would also love some other examples of hybrid events you have experienced, especially if they also had different goals than those we mentioned.  Here, for example, is a great article from Associations Now about what AIA and ASTD have done in their hybrid meetings.

BONUS: Here are some great tips by Jay Baer for creating buzz-worthy events .  I’m sure this will spark some ideas!

Over to you!

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