5 Steps to Creating the Best Virtual Event

Make your virtual event the best it can be by following these 5 steps to get the most out of your content.

When it comes to creating virtual events – it may not be your first rodeo.

But maybe it is!

Even if you’re a virtual event veteran, we all could use a little help in the virtual content department.

I mean it’s still only been a few years people! Let’s not pretend we’ve been doing this our entire lives.

1. Find a Content Partner

Whether it’s your annual fundraiser or another kind of event, it can be daunting to shift your entire in-person event to a virtual one. Especially if you have a lot of experience with event planning and less experience with creating video content.

That’s why you shouldn’t do it alone.

If you don’t have in-house video, or if it’s not your forte, it’s helpful to reach out to a team or partner to help make your online event the best it can be.

Find someone you can trust who will take the time to understand your brand guidelines, voice, and goals as well as your audience.

2. Content Strategy

Now it’s time to strategize.

There’s a lot of planning that goes into a typical event like theme, location, keynote speakers, if you’re serving dinner or lunch.

Content Strategy is like event planning, but for your video.

This is where you decide what you want in your virtual event, who your speaker will be, what the main message is, and what you want it to look like.

3. Pre-Record

As you’re thinking through these factors, the question will eventually arise:

pre-recorded vs live

While we’ve already given away our opinion in the heading, we should mention:

If you really want your content to be genuinely live – you can totally do that! It’s certainly possible and there’s nothing wrong with it.

Not That There's Anything Wrong With That GIFs | Tenor

But, from our own experience, we typically recommend people to pre-record.

There are a number of reasons for this, one of which we’ll cover a little later on, but this really allows for the most creative freedom, control over the broadcast, and versatility for using the content in the future.

4. Reallocate Resources

Before you decided to take your event virtual, much of your budget was going to the things mentioned earlier like your venue, keynote speaker, lunch/dinner, decor, and event planning services.

Sometimes people think that moving to a virtual event eliminates costs altogether. But virtual events hold different costs that now need attention like content strategy, production planning, props, location, set design, and video production services.

All of these take time and effort, just like planning an in-person event would.

Creating high-value content is not always cheap, but it’s certainly worth it.

Think of it as redirecting your budget to something that can have even more longevity than a single event.

5. Re-purpose

That leads us to our final point – re-purpose your content.

You know, the ole:

Reduce Reuse Recycle GIFs - Get the best GIF on GIPHY

Not only are you reallocating your resources and budget for your one-time virtual event, but you’re also investing in evergreen content you can re-use for months or even years after.

During the content strategy phase, you can even plan ahead to have certain sections of the event edited on their own so you can use them in other places like social media, email marketing, or business development.

This makes the whole process beneficial for not only your viewer but also for you!

When we created a virtual event for one of our clients at SAFEchild, she was able to re-use that same content multiple times after it initially aired.

Check it out:

In a regular event, it might have been a one-and-done situation, but creating a pre-recorded virtual event is a huge opportunity to get more bang for your buck.

You can use it again and again. Whether that’s the whole event or just sections of content from it.

How’s that for multi-use content!

Need some help creating your next virtual event?
Send us an email. We’d love to chat!

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