It’s little surprise that brands are wanting more from events. The technological world has evolved to allow them to connect with a virtual audience in a similar way to how they would with an in-room audience. The sophistication of today’s live-streaming, on-demand downloads, and online audience participation make webcasting events not just a great engagement tool, but also a revenue raising opportunity. By delivering your event through webcasting, you’re creating three distinct forms of valuable product: Content, Exposure, and Measurement. And you’re creating an opportunity to boost your revenue much higher than you would with a one-off, one-location show. Four ways to make money from webcasting your event
By broadcasting your event through
a tool like Staging Connections’ Event
Webcast, you’ll be able to target the
key areas of sponsorship, content and
marketing collateral. Here’s a little bit
more on how to get the most of it. 1. Paid access to content Sometimes, there will be people who
want to attend your event but just
physically, or geographically, can’t be
there. You might want to offer training,
or have a global audience who is keen to
hear what you have to say.
That’s where paid access can come
in handy. Staging Connections can
help you set-up a pay wall to view
your streamed event, so people can
participate from afar and still have
access to your valuable content. The
branded webcast page will also be
live for up to a year after your event,
allowing you to continue hosting and
charging access for. It’s a great tool for
maximising the return from your event. 2. Sponsorship Opportunities Staging Connections’ webcast platform
is the most customisable in the
Australian market. The webcast skin and
embedded features provide brands with
many sponsorship opportunities. Below
are some ways you can use the realty
to attract sponsors vying for the same
audience: Brand name or logo insets on the webcast skin Branded questions included in the live polling platform (available only in certain packages) In-video and pre-roll advertisements similar to what you see on YouTube Branded social media links posted on embedded social media feed Branded downloadable documents Don’t forget, you’re online with a
webcast, so directing participants to
a sponsors website, video content,
social media or any other web-based
promotion is a very simple task.
3. Data capture The great thing about giving viewers
the opportunity to stream or watch ondemand
is that will provide invaluable
data in order to access the content.
When you register for a webcast you
are often asked to submit your name,
company, job title, location, email
address and even phone number.
This information coupled with some
basic web analytics can provide a lot
of information about your audience.
You can measure everything from who
attended, their location, what device
they’re using, how long they watched
the video for, and even who interacted
with the webcast add-on features such
as live polling or social media.
Once captured this data can help create
audience segments and aid future
marketing and business initiatives.
This is especially useful for business
development and lead generation.
Now that you know what content the
audience is interested in, and they have
given you their information, you can start a conversation and follow-up with
additional webcasts or cross-promote
other services your brand offers.
The webcast is used to start the
conversation and now it’s up to you to
nurture that lead and turn them into a
loyal customer.
4. Marketing Collateral By their very nature, webcasts are a
fantastic platform for your sponsors.
Why? Because you’re hosting an event
that’s capturing the attention of a very
specific target audience, something
traditional mediums of advertising just
can’t offer for branded messages.
When you webcast, you’re not just
streaming live – you’re recording valuable
video and audio that can be repackaged
and repurposed for future use. And you’re
doing it at a fraction of the cost of
sourcing footage in other ways. This means you’ve already got yourself
material for ads, promo videos, and
branded material for you to promote on
your website and on social media. It’s a
saving on your marketing budget that
can lead to big things.
Of course, when you host material on
your website you also get the added
benefit of increasing your content, driving
traffic to your social platforms and
sponsors links, better SEO, and cementing
your credibility in the market. Benefits of Webcasting your event Staging Connections has brought webcasting to events for a wide array
of applications. Beyond conferencing or sales, webcasting can be used for
connecting with global audiences, streaming celebrity clients for launches, and
ensuring people don’t miss out on important events all around the world.
We’ve helped Australian manufacturers’ webcast announcements and
demonstrations for products to a worldwide network. We’ve helped companies
communicate from the CBD to remote Australian towns. And we’ve helped our
clients do this quickly, and effectively – so let’s talk about how we can help you
do the same.
Webcast your next event
Not sure if webcasting is right for you? Get in touch with us and one of our experienced event directors will help you find the best products to match your event objectives. Related Articles on Webcasting The benefits of webcasting your event Opinion Piece: Making Money from Webcasting by General Manager – Digital, Tim Chapman Launching Hobart 39 – a live webcast of ship unveiling … Read More
4 rules to an effective event hashtag
Mar 19 2018
Most of the conferences and networking events you’ll go to will have their own hashtag. You'll see event planners and marketers alike splashing the hashtag on all communications leading up the event and on the event day itself. The hashtag has become so ubiquitous that it has now become odd not to have one.
As Mashable explains, the pound sign (or hash) turns any word or group of words that directly follow it into a searchable link. This allows you to organise content and track discussion topics based on those keywords. In the events world, hashtags help event attendees organise their online conversations – about panels, speakers, ideas and opinions – and stay connected virtually long after the event itself has ended. These online conversations have become an important part of the life cycle of an event. We've previously discussed the trend towards creating online communities to help promote your event. This hashtag will be crucial in executing this strategy. As corporate event organisers look for new ways to engage their audiences and provide rich brand experiences, incorporating a hashtag is one of the simplest and most effective tools in your marketing arsenal. However, if done wrong and without proper consideration you could be heading towards a huge #fail with no one using it or worse, facing public humiliation (remember Susan Boyle's album launch #susanalbumparty). That's why it's important to choose the right hashtag so that people actually use it. The four golden rules of an effective event hashtag It's Unique Make it memorable It makes sense Keep it short 1. It’s unique The purpose of a hashtag that’s associated with an event is to enable those at the event (and sometimes those who couldn’t make it in person) to connect to one another, share their thoughts, experiences and content, and continue to network after the event.
So if your hashtag is being used by another event or group, or is too broad, it muddies the conversation and makes it hard for your group to find each other.
The best event hashtags are those that are unique to the event at hand. If, say, your event is a travel event, you probably don’t want to choose a hashtag like #travel or #lovetotravel (too broad and not specific enough). You can easily cull unsuitable hashtags by performing a quick search on Twitter and Instagram to see what results are already there. We recommend creating a list of 3 - 5 possible hashtags that you'd like to use, run a search on them and decide from there which one to go with. If all fail, then start again! One thing to consider is dating your hashtag. You would need to decide whether you want it to be specific to that year's event, or whether you have an ongoing event and want to build traction behind the hashtag - #SCtech15 vs #SCTech.
2. Make it memorable
It would seem only reasonable that if you're displaying your hashtag on every piece of communication to promote the event, and throughout the venue on the event day, that audiences would remember your hashtag? Well, unfortunately this isn't the case. If you're organising a travel expo event in June of 2015 and the hashtag is #TravlXpoJn15, it is highly likely people won't remember it, misspell it or can't be bothered to go back and search for it. Was it #travelexpojune2015 #travelex15?
The best hashtags are the most memorable. They relate well to the event at hand (a travel event should probably have the word “travel” in it, for instance), and they stick in the brain either because they’re short and sweet, they make obvious sense, or they’re fun and cool.
A good example for this could be #TravelExpo15 (or whatever the name of the event is).
3. It’s intelligible
Looking back at the previous Travel Expo example the hashtag - #TravlXpoJn15 - isn’t easily readable. When you see the letters you can partially understand what it is meant to say, but not being true words we wouldn't easily remember it. You'll also have to consider when in practice, upper case titles often get removed or people forget to add making your hashtag even harder to decipher - #travlxpojn15 (???). It's safer to use actual words than abbreviations unless they're common ones such an inc. for incorporated. In this instance, a better and more sensible hashtag would be #travelexpo2015. It might be a little long, but at least anyone who sees it – whether they’re at the event or they just stumble across it while browsing social media– will understand what the hashtag is all about at first glance. Additionally, if your event attendees are not sure what the official event hashtag is, using something like the above example means it could be easily guessed.
Other things to consider: Spaces aren't supported. Even if your hashtag contains multiple words, group them all together. If you want to differentiate between words, use capitals instead (#TravelExpo). Uppercase letters will not alter your search results, so searching for #TravelExpo will yield the same results as #travelexpo. Numbers are supported, so you can include dates to help identify your events. Only words and numbers are allowed so don't try to include punctuation marks, ampersands or any other special characters Keep in mind that the @ symbol does something completely different. Using @ before a person’s Twitter or Instagram handle will post to them directly. 4. Keep it short and simple
Last but not least, you want your event hashtag to be short and sweet. In this example, #travelexpojune2015 might be too long. It’s 19 characters long. If someone wanted to share a link, let’s say, while using your hashtag, they’d only have about 100 characters to write their message. And if they want to leave room for a retweet, they’re down to just about 80 characters. For a little context, the previous sentence was 87 characters long.
The shorter the hashtag, the more room your attendees will have to share their thoughts. So instead of #travelexpojune2015, you might want to shorten it to just #travelexpo – much shorter, and it has the added bonus of being useable after the month of the conference, in case you want to make it an annual event.
What's next? Encouraging interaction at your corporate event
Now that you have applied the four golden rules to an effective event hashtag, how will you promote your hashtag to get audiences using it? We've mentioned previously that event organisers include the hashtag on their promotional materials and often the first speaker of the day will mention it during House Rules. However, these are still quite passive approaches. How do you start the conversation and actually encourage people to post?
What if we said you could display a live social feed of all the posts tagged with your event hashtag onto a large screen for all your audience to see? Event Feed is Staging Connections social media wall which pulls in all posts from Facebook, Twitter and Instagram that include the event hashtag. Event organisers have been using it at conferences and awards nights across Australian and New Zealand and have found it to significantly increase their audience engagement and social spread of the event. Interested in using Event Feed at your next corporate event? Head over to the Event Feed page for more information or contact us to start planning your next event. Related Articles Say Hello! to Event Feed - Event Tweet has had an upgrade! How to trend on Twitter 5 Clever Ways to Use Twitter at your event 25 Reasons You'll Love Event Poll Post orginally seen on Adweek and repurposed for events ... Read More