Since there is a need to distance ourselves from each other due to the recent viral scare sweeping the world, corporate events also need to be relegated to virtual and online platforms. The problem with virtual platforms is they lack the oomph and pizzazz of real life events. If you’re tasked to create a virtual corporate event, how can you do so without it becoming lackluster and drab?
Having to create an event in a virtual setting, corporate or otherwise, is a huge challenge. As mentioned earlier, such things can become boring and uninspiring. What should you do to ensure that your virtual corporate event is a success? Here are some tips that you might find useful:
4 Creative Ways to Host a Virtual Corporate Event
1. Make sure your tech is reliable – Before you worry about your event being interesting and engaging, it’s a good idea to first take care of the technical stuff. This means you need to have everything needed to successfully stage the event lined up properly before you invite speakers and the like.
If you’re planning on having all your speakers present their ideas live via remote from their respective locations, you need to have strong connections to these areas. If you’re planning on having them pre-record their talks, ensure that you have an efficient system for delivering these to your audience.
2. Make use of social media to get your market to interact – This has been used a lot by people these days due to the need for social distancing. Questions are lobbied via chat, reactions are shown via emoticons, and comments are posted via other social media platforms. Using social media to your advantage is a must if you want to ensure that your audience is engaged and connected with your virtual corporate event.
To ensure that you also get enough people to participate in your virtual corporate event, use a variety of social media platforms. For example, popular musicians staged online concerts from the safety of their homes. To get to more people, they broadcast these concerts on two streaming platforms – Facebook Live and Instagram Live. This allowed them to reach a lot of people who ended up enjoying what they were doing and they showed this by posting reactions, requests, and comments.
3. Make sure you also take care of the speakers’ backgrounds – Whether you are having people talking from their own locations or you’re getting your speakers to talk live from one location, having a nice background is a must. Try to have your speakers create a neutral or pleasing background for when they speak. If you can, send them a templated background that they can hang behind them when they speak.
Making sure that the background is pleasing to the eyes helps keep people engaged and interested. When your speakers have a cluttered and uninteresting background, it will detract from what they are talking about. Clutter will also become a cause of embarrassment for your speakers when nitpicky audiences point this out in their comments.
4. Create a template that each speaker can follow – When you have people speak during your virtual corporate event, having people follow a set program or template will make it easier for your audience to follow what is happening. If your speakers follow a pattern, your audience will know when to ask questions and when to get the most out of what is happening.
Set a time for introductions, a time for the speaker to talk about their topic at length, and to have time to answer questions that are appearing on their screens. This will help people hold their questions until the right time. It will also help people know when a speaker will tackle important points in their talk.
Why People Should Stage Virtual Corporate Events
You may be wondering why, with all that is happening right now, you should be holding a virtual corporate event. The truth is, there is no better time to do so. Holding a corporate event online right now is a good thing to do because everyone is looking for something to do. It is also a great way to get people to be productive at a time when the world is at a standstill.
Aside from giving people something productive to do while they are stuck at home, there are a lot of other reasons why this is a good idea. Some of the reasons why virtual corporate events should be staged right now include the following:
- You help people upgrade their knowledge and skills while they are idle
- It gives them something to look forward to in their days
- You put your business on a better footing with your market
- You get people to interact at a time when people are avoiding each other
- People learn something useful that they can probably use once the lockdown is over
Takeaway
Whatever reasons there are to hold virtual corporate events, always remember that for it to succeed, you have to plan things the right way. Outline the purpose of your corporate event, list down your possible speakers, find a way to market it to your targeted audience, and ensure that everything you need is in place before the event happens.
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