2021-05-05
The pandemic, which has turned the lives of everyone around the world upside down, has accelerated something that many companies stubbornly turned a blind eye to or left until tomorrow: digitalization. From one day to the next, personal contact faded away and organizations and customers leaped into the future, forging a revolution.
It started with meetings and classes. The Zoom platform and others became the talk of the town. With the duty of confinement or before that recommendation, the growth of online ordering/buying and food delivery platforms was also observed. The weight of digital commerce in Portugal has risen from 10% to 18% since the beginning of the pandemic.
The Clubhouse emerged to give voice to those who wanted to debate for debating's sake, perhaps saturated by captivity - Twitter and LinkedIn followed suit. Digitalization was also seen in the cultural world, with many virtual tours of museums and other venues, and in the arts, with musicians and bands creating online events.
For companies, organizing events was a giant challenge. And these can be divided into workshops, lectures, webinars, interviews, informal conversations of a group of people about a certain topic and even lives in any social network. The last edition of the Web Summit, for example, was 100% digital, exchanging stages for channels - the founder's company even sold a copy of the digital platform to the United Nations. In the last edition, Web Summit also tested other formats such as Mingle, a digital space for quick video calls to try to make up for the absence of a physical event.
There are of course some disadvantages and many advantages when talking about virtual events. For example, although there may be some impact when it comes to networking and lack of contacts that generate more trust, and capturing the interest of the participant is a constant challenge, there is the possibility, in addition to cutting costs and saving the environment, to bring together a larger audience, without geographical limitations or borders, on various channels or platforms and send a message that the company is prepared for these uncertain times: adaptation and innovation. By the nature of this interaction, brand credibility and post-event revenues can and should increase, not least because the data collected for access to the event may result in the announcement of campaigns, products, and ideas in a more personalized way.
Technically, of course, the organization of the event will have to be immaculate: it is key to have quality cameras, good microphones, computers or devices with excellent Internet connection, great lighting, and a room with little external noise. Then you must obviously know your target audience, define themes and schedules, and test the tools mentioned above. Even if one day the vaccines eliminate the virus and our lives go back to the way they were, one can guess that these events will remain online or even hybrid in many cases, enhancing even more the elasticity of the brand.
In a text for "Forbes" magazine, Daniel Newman, analyst at Futurum Research and CEO of Broadsuite Media Group, left some clues on how to put together a sublime virtual event:
· Maintain the brand identity. That is, understanding what would be completely indispensable to bring from the physical event to the digital one so that the audience feels the same atmosphere. "Personal touches, a special look and feel, as well as pre- and post-event follow-up can play a big role in making the digital event a great success."
· Time and relevance. The event speakers or the different segments should have, as in the Ted Talks, a stipulated time. This way, the nature of the participations will be more refined, richer and more relevant than ever before. "Make every effort to offer the necessary solutions, innovative ideas, all with a focus on what your current customers and prospects need most from your company at that moment. Don't forget to include some inspiration along the way and you'll have the recipe for the perfect digital event.
· Respect schedules and current challenges of the audience. The author refers to these pandering times, with children at home, different and constant daily difficulties, as well as more responsibility and probably more working hours. In other words, there is not that light-hearted mood of traveling to another city or foreign country to hear some lectures or presentations. So, asks the author of the text, how to create content that is interesting and focuses on the needs of each individual in the online audience, and at the same time is easily accessible to them (can fit into their busy day) and makes them want to interact?
