Few people enjoy lectures. These days, most learners expect to be engaged by materials. Live video is the perfect opportunity to fulfill your members’ wish for engaging learning experiences. That said, if you merely live stream a lecturer behind a podium, you miss the opportunity for true connection.
Your live event video does not have to be the equivalent of a one-way street. You can build in opportunities for live stream viewers to participate in your event just the same as you can for your in-person attendees. Below are a few methods for giving your members the most value from your event live stream.
CREATE AND MONITOR AN EVENT HASHTAG
Social media enables conversation. As you’ve likely found from running your organization’s or your personal Twitter, Facebook and YouTube accounts, your members have a lot to say. While you may be able to give in-person attendees of your events more options for giving you feedback — such as response cards they can enter in a drawing for a door prize or face-to-face time with members of your staff before and after sessions — one avenue that allows live stream attendees to participate, aside from a contact form on your event website, is a dedicated hashtag to be used on any social networking platform.
On your association’s end of things, the advantage of social media mentions over a form on your website is twofold:
- Social mentions are immediate, as long as you have someone on staff monitoring your hashtag in real time, so you are able to respond to either fix any problems or share positive reactions to entice others to comment or join the event live stream.
- Social media mentions, unlike website forms, are public. That means the mentions can elicit conversations among attendees and others in their networks.
UpAbility client WebLink used a hashtag at its 2017 Summit in May, resulting in more than 100 tweets and posts from attendees including the #WLSummit hashtag. As the event hosted 273 attendees, WebLink averaged at least one social mention for every three attendees.
Another live event that occurred in Indianapolis, the Indiana Conference for Women, used both a hashtag and an app for its October 2016 conference to accumulate hundreds of mentions from its 1,326 attendees.
SEND POLLS TO LIVE STREAM VIEWERS
Polls are great for interaction because they allow members to give feedback, again in real time. Not only that, but those participating in the polls can see the results once all have responded. That way, attendees can find out how many other viewers share their feelings or situations, building community among your members.
Your organization benefits from polls not only through keeping viewers engaged in the live stream, but also by collecting that data obtained through the poll.
If you ask whether the information from the live event has been helpful and 75 percent responded “yes, very”, you can build upon their responses for future events by either asking the speaker back to present upon a different topic or asking another speaker to expand upon the same topic. Or do both!
RECORD AND OFFER LATER ACCESS
After the event, when you have had a chance to edit your video, email your attendees the link so they can access the recording. They may want to rewatch it themselves, but even more applicable than that, they will be able to share the link with their networks. Your email’s call to action should instigate those shares, asking viewers to tweet or post the link to the recording along with their thoughts on the event. This helps your organization in at least two ways:
- More people talking online about your event gives your organization more visibility to members and non-members alike. One person who tweets that she learned a lot from your event and includes the link to your video could receive multiple replies, starting conversations about her experience at your event.
- Viewers sharing their thoughts on the event alongside the link to the recording offer you yet another chance to listen to their feedback. If an attendee tweets that he wished a certain thought leader had presented at the event, your organization can put that speaker on your contact list for your next event.
ALWAYS LEARNING
We’d love to hear your feedback. What is something you learned from your first live stream? Tell us with a comment on our blog or Facebook page.