We’ve recently been supporting a number of clients who have been forced by the pandemic to change the way they run their usual conferences, and instead go down the virtual conference route. Meetings have had to go from conference room to couch overnight!
Whatever form the conference takes, many organisations still need a transcription of the event as a record of the proceedings.
There are pros and cons to every format, so let’s have a closer look at what some of those might be for those participating in these virtual conferences.
Some of the benefits of going online
Boost in attendees
A virtual conference by definition makes it easier for people to attend. Removing geographical barriers, the need to travel and the associated costs of doing so means that people can participate more easily – and in many cases they do. For example, this year’s annual Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO) conference saw 5x more people attend than in previous years, and the American Association for Cancer Research conference saw a threefold increase in attendance.
They can still be interactive
Setting up a chatbot that a presenter can have running during their presentation is a great way to make these events interactive. This gives them the opportunity to respond to any questions from participants during the session, which can be hugely beneficial to everyone attending. You should aim to offer your audience an omnichannel experience to maximise the potential of the event – live integrated feeds on social media and personalised email campaigns can really help give your virtual conference the WOW factor.
You can still create breakout sessions
Mixing up the style of content is important for keeping your audience engaged in an event, so including panel discussions, a keynote speaker or two, and some breakout sessions will make all the difference. Breakout sessions can be particularly effective as they mean participants can choose to join a session they’re most engaged with.
The less appealing aspects of a virtual conference
It’s not all good news – of course there are always negative aspects to any change…
Variable quality
Your quality of experience is only as good as the quality of your connection, so if participants have broadband issues they might find a virtual conference quickly becomes frustrating. We’re all familiar with the frustrations of frozen screens and buffering, and while you can do the best to offer high quality content, you can’t do anything about the quality of your participants’ broadband!
The loss of networking opportunities
While the official elements of a conference are important, let’s not forget the value of those unofficial ones too – the catch up with someone over the interval coffee, the chance introduction to a new contact, the debrief with these new contacts over a drink in the evening. There’s no denying going virtual has an impact on this – and even though attendees in many cases receive information about who has attended, it inevitably falls to virtual attempts to connect with people, which is more difficult. The ability to get a face to face connection with someone shouldn’t be underestimated.
However, the caveat to this is that many people attend these events for the networking opportunities they provide, and so everyone’s in the same boat when it comes to their loss. So perhaps participants are much more receptive to the idea of an online follow-up or connection than they may have been in the past…?
You can help them be more receptive by offering the ability for participants to interact with each other outside of the presentations via closed Facebook or LinkedIn groups that are only open to conference attendees. This will help open the door to those online networking opportunities.
Needs must…
Circumstances currently dictate that we must go virtual for those large scale events, there is no other option. At some point, once the current chaos is over, it’s likely that these in person events will return (albeit they’re likely to have additional safety measures in place in the short term). Perhaps what we’ll see over the longer term is a more hybrid approach, with face to face and virtual elements running alongside each other? It’d be a great way to make the most of the parts of each format that work well, while removing those that don’t.
In the meantime, one excellent way to maximise the value of your virtual conference is to provide your participants with a transcript of the event. Tell them in advance that this will be available and then they can focus entirely on the event at the time, without worrying about note-taking and missing out on any of the detail. A transcript is useful to connect with attendees even once the event has finished. It can also assist in the production of post event reports, publicity and social media engagement. To get the most out of your conference, make sure your next event includes a transcript!
To find out more about our virtual conference transcription service, please get in touch via alex@fionashipley.com.