Zoom feeds the Livestream. The Livestream sits on a Platform. The Platform is a website that can be as simple or robust as the event demands.
Prior to the event, the Virtual Meeting Platform links attendees to information and registration.
The ideal Platform guides the Virtual Event from registration to post-meeting feedback
Pre-event Promotion and Registration
Before your Virtual Meeting, the Platform can be a promotional tool. With a unique URL created for the event, the Platform is the destination where:
- Attendees can review the agenda
- Speakers, their topics and bios are listed
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) are answered
- Sponsors can reserve a booth
- Attendees can register for the event, selecting which sessions they will attend
A familiar meeting structure is General Session for content relevant to all. Additional or optional sessions (Breakouts) are offered based on participant areas of interest. These are selected during registration.
Personalized Agendas
The greater the number of types of attendees, the wider the variety of sessions offered, the more valuable the Personalized Agenda becomes. Because the Platform is smart, it knows where the attendee belongs and pushes them into the right place at the right time. You don’t need to check your calendar and log in to the next session. With a personalized agenda, the Platform simply sends you there.
Options for Audience Participation
During the event, modules can be added to the Platform that provide participants with links to supporting material. Attendees can interact with one another through chat, ask questions, take polls, enter raffles and more.
The main Platform can link to other Platforms that enable networking, creating the feel of the familiar cocktail reception where attendees “bump into each other” and engage in one-on-one or one-to-many conversations.
Attendees—well, their Avatars—wandered through a virtual environment, encountering other attendees and chatting.
Visit the Exhibit Hall
If Sponsors are participating and time is allocated in the agenda, attendees can “enter a hall” and visit sponsors–viewing videos and printed material, talking with representatives, collecting information–and you don’t have to worry about carrying it home. (Of course, the family won’t be treated to the pens, post-its, logoed hats and shirts, drawstring backpacks, travel mugs and stress balls or gifts from the hotel or airport gift shops. But there are online alternatives.)
On-demand Replay Available
If you had to take a call (walk the dog, check your daughter’s math assignment, explain the Civil War to your son, bring the grocery delivery in off the front porch) during the President’s keynote address, the Platform can make sessions available for viewing on demand.
Reports. Reports. Reports.
Every second, every mouse click throughout the event delivers data about who is watching, when they joined, how long they stayed, if they chatted, what they said, if they asked questions, what the questions were, if they answered polls, participated in raffles, etc. You can learn a lot about your attendees from the data.
Both before and after the Opening General Sessions, attendees were invited to Meet and Mingle. Executives like Jackie Huber – Chief Compliance Officer, kept the conversation lively in the Lobby Bar.
Why Register for a Virtual Meeting?
Although there are numerous nuances—there are basically two kinds of meetings; meetings you are required to attend (typically by your company) and for which you are not charged a fee and meetings for which attendees pay (often associated with learning or improving skills while earning Continuing Professional Education Credits.)
If attendees are being charged for the event, the need to register is obvious.
For My First Virtual Meeting, we had a captive audience—employees of the company and contractors who represented the company’s products and would benefit from the information being delivered. All sessions were open to all (although, since most of the sessions were product-based, some were more relevant for some than others).
- Although the number of attendees in a session has limited affect on Platform performance, an accurate count is still valuable. Without it, you have to plan for maximum participation and provide bandwidth accordingly.
- Even in the Virtual World (and maybe more so in the Virtual World where you don’t see the participants) it helps to know who’s on the other side of the screen. If the audience includes both newcomers and veterans, knowing this enables the company to provide basic materials in advance to bring newcomers up to speed. It also enables the company to invite participating veterans to share their experience, increasing interactivity.
- Registration can confirm the address to which Swag should be sent.
- A little personal information (favorite musical genre, favorite sports team, names of family members) helps inform the selection of music being played over the Platform between sessions or enables personalization of comments during award presentations.