The Ultimate Guide to Impactful Virtual Events

The last few years have seen the rise of virtual events that have come to the forefront of networking and connecting with individuals worldwide, primarily due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This has allowed researchers, academics, students, and industry professionals to break down geographic barriers to share knowledge and ideas on scales never seen before by enabling them to engage and connect almost seamlessly while decreasing carbon footprints from the reduced travel. 

This is why the importance of hosting impactful virtual events cannot be understated. Virtual events provide many tools and resources for event organizers to develop immersive and lasting experiences for their attendees, regardless of their personal or professional goals in attending the event. 

Virtual events substitute for a myriad of in-person events, including conferences, trade shows, expos, concerts, career/job fairs, company onboarding, university fairs, malls, benefits fairs, and so much more. This allows individuals from all over the world to seamlessly participate and build their networking portfolio, which results in increased diversity, inclusivity, and connectivity for everyone. 

Virtual events have many benefits for businesses and participants, including breaking down geographic barriers and enabling individuals from all over the world to engage like never before. This means growing their brand while improving recruiting and company morale for businesses. For participants, this means expanding their networking portfolio while gaining the necessary knowledge to achieve their personal and professional goals. 

Prior to the event, it’s paramount for both organizers and attendees to set clear objectives for the virtual event. For organizers, are you just trying to build your brand, recruit new employees, or simply wish to share knowledge? For attendees, are you trying to build your networking portfolio, find a career path, or simply attend to gain knowledge? These are important questions to ask before attending a virtual event, and having clear objectives beforehand will make your virtual event experience much more successful. 

For event organizers, identifying your target audience and their needs is vital to hosting a successful event virtual event. Are you catering to prospective students/employees? Current students/employees? Attendees outside your field of expertise? Understanding your target audience will allow you to deliver the necessary tools and resources for a successful virtual event. 

Choosing the proper virtual event format is also vital for a successful experience for both event organizers and attendees. Examples of different virtual event formats include the aforementioned trade shows and conferences, but can also include award ceremonies, happy hours, holiday parties, town halls, and product launches. Determining your virtual event format beforehand will allow you to develop the necessary elements for increasing everyone's engagement and connectivity. 

When designing your virtual event, crafting compelling content for virtual audiences will enhance the immersive experience for your attendees and have them come back for more. Examples include inviting expert speakers to discuss the latest research and news in the field while providing educational insights. The more compelling the content, the more engaged and immersed your attendees will be in your virtual event. 

Utilizing interactive tools to enhance engagement is vital for hosting a successful virtual event, which includes features like gamification, chat networking, exhibit halls, templates & 3D spaces, and much more. The more interactive your virtual event, the more engaged your attendees will be with each other and your event monitors, which only results in increased diversity, inclusivity, and connectivity for individuals worldwide. 

Other ways to improve virtual event content are to incorporate live Q&A sessions and polls, which add another level of engagement and immersion for your attendees. These allow your attendees to engage with expert speakers after their talk while gaining knowledge on a particular topic. With polls, you can enhance attendee engagement while collecting real-time data, enabling you to improve your virtual event in real-time or for a future event. 

Selecting the right virtual event platform takes time and research, and finding the right one will ensure your virtual event's success. Specifically, this means finding a platform that meets the event’s objectives for your brand and attendees. Every platform offers unique tools and resources designed to enhance the attendees’ experience, which results in increased diversity, inclusivity, and connectivity for everyone. 

Integrating multimedia and visual elements into your virtual event will enable extra engagement and immersion for your attendees. These include interactive videos, breakout rooms, and live chats, allowing your attendees to engage and interact in a nonformal environment. 

Through these steps, you are ensuring a seamless user experience and accessibility for individuals from all over the world and all personal and professional backgrounds and disciplines, which only increases diversity, inclusivity, and connectivity for everyone. 

All successful virtual events have a solid marketing strategy, and creating a comprehensive promotional strategy is essential for not only your current virtual event but also future events. This strategy involves timeliness, as you don’t want to promote your event too soon or too close to the event. Additionally, it involves the right amount of promotion, as you don’t want to turn away potential attendees through too much promotion. 

Social media has become entrenched in our everyday lives, and harnessing social media and email marketing will enable a global reach and effective promotion of your virtual event for individuals from all over the world. One option is to create a customized email address for your virtual event, along with similar customized social media accounts, as well. 

Virtual events foster innovation and connectivity, and collaborating with influencers and partners provides an excellent opportunity to promote your virtual event as they can share details of the event with their colleagues, business partners, and friends. 

Preparing speakers and presenters is essential to success when executing your virtual event, as your attendees will undoubtedly be prepared for all scheduled talks on the agenda. Speaker and presenter preparation includes ensuring their internet connection is solid and receiving notes about their talk ahead of time that you can share with your attendees beforehand. 

Since virtual events are online, managing technical aspects and support is vital for event success. Faulty internet connections will result in an unsuccessful event. This entails ensuring seamless connections on your end while having redundancies in place in case connections shut down during the event. 

Your event's goal is to facilitate networking opportunities for individuals from all over the world and from all personal and professional backgrounds and disciplines. With solid promotion and execution, you can ensure your attendees’ networking opportunities are met head-on. 

Like all events, virtual events are only successful through constant improvement, accomplished through sending post-event surveys and feedback to your attendees. This can be achieved both immediately after the event and anywhere from a few weeks to a few months after the event, enabling your attendees to provide valuable feedback on improvements that can be made for future events. 

Another method to ensure future events' success is by evaluating key performance metrics, specifically attendee engagement, which is the cornerstone of all virtual events. Through this, you can ensure your attendees are satisfying their own networking goals while engaging with individuals worldwide. 

The success of virtual events hinges on constant improvement. Through these methods, you leverage insights for future virtual events, which will only lead to increased diversity, inclusivity, and connectivity for event organizers and attendees. 

There are a myriad of companies from all over the world that have hosted successful virtual events, including Google, AWS, Salesforce, Adobe, SBC, NBA, and Dreamforce, just to name a few. These companies are successful in hosting virtual events through constant growth and improvement while understanding that it takes time to build their brand for a global audience. 

Embracing the future of virtual events will ensure a brighter future for everyone, as virtual events enable individuals from all over the world to engage and contribute to the sharing of knowledge and ideas. This is accomplished through careful and timely promotion, along with successful execution for all facets of your event, leading to increased engagement and connectivity for event organizers and attendees. 

Your path to hosting impactful virtual events begins with the right objectives while constantly improving and growing. This will help you help your attendees achieve their personal and professional goals while increasing diversity, inclusivity, and connectivity for individuals from across the globe.