Virtual Events Content Strategy Pro Tips
/How to create a strong content strategy, source speakers strategically and engage your attendees with unique formats.
Let’s Lead with Content:
Content has always been king. But for virtual events competing in a saturated space, with the catering, venue, and other hospitality flourishes becoming superfluous, planners are forced to focus on content now more than ever before. I’ve always encouraged my clients and key stakeholders to start with the content of an event and then build the experience around it to create one cohesive narrative. All too frequently, planners begin with the details when really those should fall into place only in the last phase of planning. Smart brand strategists and event planners know that they shouldn’t be losing time planning the content strategy and selecting speakers for their 2020 and 2021 events, regardless of whether they know if they’ll be virtual or not. By locking in your agenda now, you can better market your event to your target audience, and save the date for your attendees and speakers, regardless of whether they’ll be showing up live or virtually.
So... what makes great content and how should you go about building it for your event?
Great content does one if not all of the following things:
Offers a unique opinion, even if a controversial one. Can you offer a perspective that people can’t find on Google, or one that will surprise and maybe even delight them?
Educates the viewer. As my industry peer, Giana Ciapponi puts it “Great content should make you feel smarter afterwards”. In order to build brand equity, you want your attendees to feel the time they invested in your event was valuable and left them with useful takeaways or new insights.
Builds trust in the brand. You want to make sure your speakers and messaging are aligned with your values and the values of your attendees.
Bonus if content is engaging and participatory: People feel more like part of a community or more aligned with a brand if they can contribute to a shared experience. By offering opportunities for two-way dialogue at events, you give your attendees more of an “experience” rather than an on-demand non-synchronous content experience. Read on for more ideas about how to engage your audience.
So... what’s the best approach to finding the right speakers for your event?
Identify your attendee personas: Identify the demographic and psychographic of the people who will be consuming your content. What are their values, their beliefs, their motivations? What are their ages, genders, and occupation? By building out personas of your attendees, you can then tap into what types of experiences and speakers would engage them (or repel them), a definite brand don’t.
Draw inspiration from a different realm: For instance, professional athletes are often appealing to those in the startup world as they push themselves to elite status achieving the “impossible” but in a physical rather than mental capacity. By offering inspiration from a different realm, your attendees can be delighted and inspired by a unique point of view.
Find speakers that want to support you and are an authentic fit for your brand. If you’re a business, your customers can be great speakers if they will evangelize your brand and share real live experiences with other potential customers, especially if they have a unique and interesting story to tell. If you’re selling an herbal sleep aid, perhaps an influencer like Arianna Huffington would be a natural fit since she is such an advocate for sleep health and well-being and also inspirational.
Launch Partnership. Consider professionals who are getting ready to launch a product, publish a book, or release an album. Not only will this build excitement and offer your attendees an exclusive “preview” but often means you can negotiate little to no speaker fee in exchange for publicity.
Leverage your network. If you can identify a great speaker, chances are either you or one of your stakeholders is connected to them. By leveraging your network, you not only make a warmer introduction to the speaker, but the likelihood of them reducing their rates or volunteering to join your event as a speaker pro bono increase dramatically.
So...how do you build engaging formats?
You’ll quickly lose the attendee’s attention if all they see is a talking head on “zoom”, so mix up the format to make sure your audience wants to stay tuned in. Here are a few ideas and pro tips that can be executed on any budget:
Host an intimate fireside chat with two speakers from totally different industries. Often the dynamic between speakers makes or breaks the experience so make sure you rehearse with both speakers together in advance.
Drive viewer engagement by including the audience in the conversation. Platforms such as RuntheWorld offer a “grab the mic” feature where attendees can virtually “queue up” to ask live questions during a session. Adding in live polls or trivia questions is another way to make sure your attendees aren’t tuning out. Platforms such as Hopin or Buzzcast can execute these seamlessly.
Host an AMA (ask me anything) with a visionary speaker or top executive that attendees want access to. Use a platform with question features (see above) for best execution.
Offer a VIP “backstage pass” to select attendees to chat with the speakers in an intimate virtual group.
Host a diverse panel with different perspectives. There’s nothing worse than having panel after panel of all white males that will turn some attendees off and hurt your brand’s reputation. When hosting a panel, make sure to select speakers that will have different views and come from different backgrounds so the conversation will be lively and inclusive.
Try a lightning round where ten speakers each talk for two minutes each and then split off to lead breakouts that attendees can select based on the two minute “overview”.
To sum it all up, remember that content is like storytelling. Your entire virtual event should have a clear story arc with a beginning, middle and end, and should work to communicate your overall messaging, engage, educate and have a point of view. Finally, after having spent so much thought on your agenda, make sure you’re properly capturing your content and have a distribution plan in place so you can repurpose it on your social channels, website, and in marketing materials for the future. If you’d like to learn more about building an engaging content plan or creative ways to source great speakers, you can reach me at Gianna@Gaudini.com.
