Three Elements to Hosting a Successful Virtual Event
By now, we’ve all had our fill of attending virtual events given the pandemic. However, that’s no excuse for you -- a marketing or communication manager -- to not devote yourself to planning and hosting the best possible virtual event for your organization. We’ve had the pleasure of working with clients to plan and host digital events throughout 2020 and have learned what it really takes to successfully run one. Here are three elements you need to know to plan and host your next virtual event.
Practice Makes it...Happen
Nope: Practice makes it perfect.
Woke: Practice makes it happen.
The most critical element to set yourself up for successfully hosting a virtual event is to practice. By practicing, or hosting what’s also called a “dry run” of your event, you will immediately gain an advantage with your peers. Practicing your event before it happens is the only guaranteed way to become efficient and overcome any discomfort you and/or your participants may feel. Do not let the fact that your event is virtual lull you into a false sense of security. In-person or virtual, the key to hosting any event is to invest time in practicing.
Assign Roles & Responsibilities
We advise clients to have clearly defined roles and responsibilities when hosting an event. To help you think about how these roles look in an online setting, we like to use assignments as if we’re producing a scripted show.
Moderator: This person is the panel moderator or master of ceremonies. She/he should not be handling Zoom recording/logistics, troubleshooting technology, or engaging in virtual chats. She/he is on screen and devoted exclusively to hosting your event.
Director: This person is the showrunner. She/he ensures all panelists are prepped, will troubleshoot technology issues, and directs the run-of-show for your event. She/he may or may not be on screen as needed.
Producer(s): Identify one or two people to serve as producers who monitor chat and respond to questions from the audience during the session. She/he collects questions then sends in a private chat window to the Moderator to answer. This avoids the awkward silence as the audience watches a moderator scrolling through chat trying to parse out what to bring forward.
Describe What the Audience Will Learn—In Detail
It’s tempting to focus on what your virtual event will be about. After all, you’re the one hosting and have an exciting topic, program, or product to offer! But this perspective leaves out the most important participant of your event—the audience. To help you reframe the why for your virtual event, take time to answer these questions first:
What are two or or three benefits someone will gain from attending my event?
What’s something new or novel attendees will learn from this event?
How do I want the audience to feel after they’ve attended this event?
By radically focusing on your intended audience, you’ll gain new insight into how to market your event to the public and ensure attendees discover value from your organization.
These are the three elements to hosting a successful virtual event we’ve learned after working with clients that want to maximize their impact in the military-connected community. We want to hear from you: let us know what you think it takes to host a successful virtual event.
To learn more about how we can help you plan and host a successful event, please click here.