All posts by Stacy Nawrocki

From employee town halls, to product launches, press conferences and ceremonies, virtually all types of events have expanded beyond the physical stage with live streaming. Most events have had two audiences: the one in the room and the one behind their screens. However, some venues are going all virtual. This introduces new opportunities, but also new things to learn.From employee town halls to product launches, press conferences, and ceremonies, virtually all types of events have expanded beyond the physical stage with live streaming. Most events now have two audiences: the one in the room and the one behind their screens. However, some venues are going entirely virtual. This shift introduces new opportunities but also new challenges to address.

For event organizers, the expanded reach of a virtual conference is a dream come true, as are the insights gained from live stream analytics. However, live streaming requires a new level of attention to detail, amplified by the real-time nature of the medium. To ensure live streams proceed smoothly, organizers should follow a high-quality live streaming checklist.

This checklist should include:

• Ensuring a secure and stable internet connection
• Using reliable, tested, and updated equipment
• Defining a clear protocol for the event, including real-time troubleshooting
• Have a back-up connection
• Test all equipment beforehand
• Setup protocol and an emergency plan

Have you transitioned an in-person conference or event recently to an all-digital experience? Before COVID-19, many businesses focused on in-person opportunities to drive engagement. But once event cancellations started happening rapidly due to the need to social distance and related restrictions, businesses across virtually all industries were forced to take a very close look at how they could quickly pivot their efforts to digital.  

This blog outlines some key insights from the last few months of activity in creating digital events. It details how IBM Watson Media has been able to help many clients with these efforts to live stream conferences, including our own IBM Think Digital event, providing considerations for your own virtual conference. 

• New normal for conferences and events
• It’s hard to predict audience size for digital events 
• Registration, authentication and tracking options can be confusing
• How to get sponsors excited about your digital event 
• Interactivity and networking in a virtual event space 
• Choosing between pre-recorded, live, and semi-live sessions 
• Presenter training and ease of use 
• Highly customized digital experiences 
• What to look for during the event to prevent things from going wrong
• Delivering a post-event digital experience on-demand 
• Video streaming for digital events: IBM offerings

Wondering how to improve live streaming video audience engagement? Facebook and Twitter, texts, email, Slack, real-life meetings – just some of the many distractions that can lure viewers away from streaming video presentations such as training sessions and corporate town hall meetings.

It’s hard enough ensuring that viewers pay attention when they’re sitting around a conference table or seated in an auditorium. But if they’re not even in the same room as the presenters, how can you attract their attention over the course of the video stream?

So how do you engage employees with corporate communications? Well it can help to take a page from video marketing, where dollars are directly on the line to prove ROI. Where engaging video content is not something that is just stumbled upon, but carefully orchestrated. So we’ve interviewed communicators and video experts, ranging from those in video marketing to video production, to give you pointers on successfully engaging your employees with live content until the very end.