We began the new year with a virtual event in just outside Seattle in Redmond, Washington. The company develops laser scanning technology for projection, 3D sensing, and image capture and lidar sensors for automotive vehicles. Their team reached out to us on Friday, going into New Year’s weekend and the event was Tuesday and Wednesday the following week, so it was a really fast turn around event, but we pulled it together and the video has over 9,000 views! This production features:
A two camera set up
Shallow depth of field
Set inside of a traditional office
Single person presentations
Three person Q&A, with one person off camera reading audience questions
Micing & audio mixing for the live stream
Set lighting
Live feeds from the lidar sensor in real time & presenter PowerPoint slides
Start & end graphics and lower thirds
4K monitors for confidence & set display
Here is a recap of the event, if you’d like to watch the entire stream you can find it here.
We’re seeing it all over the events industry, sponsors gave you their money to have a booth, they logo all over printed materials and other in-person returns that they expected for their support and now they want to know what they are getting since your event is moving online.
When it comes to virtualizing your event using live streaming and other event technologies, every organization that has event sponsors needs to respond quickly to their sponsors and offer them value or risk needing to return funds or lose valuable industry relationships.
The great news is, there is even more, yes more opportunity for you to give sponsor ROI (return on investment) for your virtual event then there was at your physical event! This is because some events are seeing a 3X increase in attendance online so your sponsors can reach a greater audience. Plus metrics are much more trackable, making it easy to measure ROI. We will cover 9 great ideas to get you started.
What is ROI and Why Does it Matter?
ROI stands for Return On Investment and means what your sponsor is getting in return for giving you money or as is the case for “in kind” sponsorships, services or products that you need for your event. In kind sponsorships might include providing all of the graphic design and logo creation for your event and are less common, but can be even more valuable to you if you’re on a tight budget to produce your event.
Some examples of sponsor ROI for an in person event might include:
Logos on printed materials like programs, banners and signage
A booth space where to sell products or advertise services
Names read during announcements
Branded swag (pencils, sunglasses, magnets, etc) distributed in event bags
Logos on event t shirt
It’s important to think critically about how to give real value to your sponsors and how to measure that value and treat them like your organization’s partners. These valuable relationships make events happen and losing sponsors can cost your organization a lot of money and may make holding your event subsequent years impossible.
How to Create Virtual ROI For Sponsors
Pre-Event
Sponsorship returns start as soon as your website is up and can be included on all of your digital materials. The key things to make sure you do here is have careful planning around sponsorship levels and clearing define where logos and mentions will show up for various levels. Some of these perks are things you’re likely already doing like putting sponsor logos on your landing pages and emails. Here are a few others:
An opportunity to wow your speakers or a list of targeted attendees your sponsor might really want to impress with a VIP experience. You send those targeted attendees a meal box, a case of wine or a service like a code for a food delivery or a car wash.
Speaking of sending your attendees something in the mail, send your swag bags and boxes to your attendees and include all of your sponsors’ branded swag!
During the Event
Sponsorship opportunities during the event are endless. Be thoughtful and don’t be afraid to include your long time sponsors in the planning of these activations. These relationships are so important and your sponsors want to know you’re working creatively to give them value as your partner.
Sponsored posts: some event apps have the ability to give you sponsored posts which appear in your events feed throughout and are more than just pinned posts, they repost offers and content on a timed basis. These can include app downloads, special offer codes and links to products or services. Attendify is one app doing this really well, you can read more about how they handle these posts here.
Sponsored entertainment: Just because your event moved virtual doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have fun built into the schedule. In the virtual world some entertainment that wouldn’t be as popular in a live event might be really well received online. Keep in mind, virtual attendees might be working at home with kids. Magic acts, a cartoonist, folk duos or yoga sessions have all had great online responses in virtual environments.
Instead of traditional commercials, have your MC interview sponsor representatives. Work with your MC to pull out the value the attendees want to hear.
And on that note, run sponsors ads during breaks or on each end of key sessions. Ask that your sponsors create their ads for your event to tailor the content and keep your audience more engaged.
Have sponsors host networking events in virtual rooms. Some fun ones that people are loving are virtual cocktail hours. We’ve seen some events hire a mixologist that teaches everyone how to make their own cocktails.
Have sponsors give away virtual backgrounds to attendees and then host raffles in sessions for a door prize for those who used the background.
If your event includes gamification, give attendees points on a leaderboard for visiting sponsors’ virtual “booth” or scheduling product demos or meetings with your sponsors.
Other ways that you should definitely use to provide sponsor ROI (and track it) are sending out push notifications about your sponsors deals and sessions if you’re using an event app. If you are not, utilize email notifications instead.
Use banner ads in your event app or on your event webpage or social media event accounts.
Make sure you give your sponsors a way to have a profile, preferable in your app, but if you aren’t using one, then on your event website.
Display sponsors’ logos on your live stream on opening and closing slates and even as a rolling ticker at the top of popular sessions.
Post Event Sponsorship ROI
The biggest thing you need to post-event is thank your sponsors and include your sponsors information on wrap up emails to your attendees. These are the people that made your event happen. Have a dedicated person on your team gather screen shots of memorable interactions online, meeting selfies and video clips from live streams. Post these to your social accounts and tag the sponsors in them. Remember to deliver all metrics to your sponsors that you may have collected about the number of links and appointments they scheduled and other data that shows they gained value.
Remember that COVID-19 has changed the events industry forever and you’re not experiencing this alone. Face your sponsors with humble optimism and a strong sense of value for their support. Look at your attendee demographics and the demographics of your sponsors. Be specific about how many attendees your event will have in person and online and what percentage of your expected attendance you are promising sponsors in order to keep their money (70% of last year’s attendance virtually and on sight if you have one) is a good starting point. With clear information and creative ideas you’ll master getting all the sponsor revenue you need and hosting an event people will be engaged in. If you would like more information on having a hybrid or virtual event, get in touch to schedule a time to talk.
https://varvid.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/2018TECHSUMMIT_187-scaled.jpg17062560Crystal Garciahttps://varvid.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/logo-light.pngCrystal Garcia2020-06-04 15:27:312020-08-17 16:40:30Valuable Sponsorship Ideas That Give A Better Return and Earn Your Virtual Event More Revenue
During the rapidly evolving crisis with COVID-19 we were contacted by Kim Jones, Executive Director of the Optometric Physicians of Washington.
Her organization had been planning their 55th Post Graduate Seminar scheduled to take place 8 days from the time she reached out to us. We were able to collaborate with Kim and her organization to quickly find a new venue, figure out safe and sanitary practices for crew and presenters (including one immunocompromised individual), and get a custom viewing page set up with tabbed videos, embedded chat function, email capture for each session and linked quizzes for participants to earn their continuing education credits.
Thanks to this joint effort between our teams, the conference took place on time and around 600 doctors were able to get their continuing education credit from the safety of their home.
Participants delighted at having free parking, no crowded hallways and other such light-hearted benefits from their devices. Many shared photos of them practicing social distancing at home while holding their babies, sharing a desk with their school-aged kids who are all home from schools, and enjoying the company of their furry family members.
Some of the safety measures we took during the production and streaming were frequent hand washing, minimal crew, who did morning temperature checks for fever before coming into the closed-off hotel conference room that had only production crew (3 people) the OPW Executive producer, 1 moderator and 1-3 speakers safely spaced throughout the room.
Our techs kept a minimum of 6 feet apart at their work stations and microphones, the presentation computer and clicker were all disinfected between each person’s use. In addition, we changed foam covers on lavalier mics after each presenter.
Finally, we had our audio person, who would switch mics and disinfecting gloved and masked when coming into contact with speakers.
Right now we serve many areas who are being affected by “shelter in place” orders or similar precautions.
As media professionals, our crews are small and carry press passes. We have also applied to have Varvid listed as an essential business in Washington state.
Our hope is to continue to help create ways to keep people in corporate, education and community organizations connected through bringing meetings, classes and conferences together safely online.
We also are offering consultations for individuals, groups and businesses who are sheltering in place and in need of a live streaming solution to meet their individual needs using existing gear they have on hand, and or by assisting them in making buying decisions.
https://varvid.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/IMG_1420-scaled.jpg17072560Crystal Garciahttps://varvid.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/logo-light.pngCrystal Garcia2020-03-30 11:01:592020-08-17 16:39:50Live Streaming During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study
Every time I get an inkling to open up Facebook to see if they have any unannounced, under the radar feature releases for live streaming, I get a little rush. Nerd alert! But in all seriousness, Facebook devs just casually roll out features to accounts in a way that treats every user much like a beta tester, especially because of the way features come and go, work and don’t work on any given day in some cases. Because the Facebook Creator Studio has recently added a bunch of new options for streaming using a paired encoder or stream keys, I wanted to cover some of the ones I’m excited to be seeing on their platform…. options that we have had in places like Youtube for some time, but Facebook is catching up.
I will be showing how to pre-schedule a live stream from a business Facebook page, you can do the same from a personal page and/or by going live now.
Creator Studio on Facebook
First, head to your page and at the toolbar at the top of the page, click “More” to drop down the menu and select “Publishing Tools.”
Once in Publishing Tools, you will find under the “Tools” heading, “Creator Studio.” Click here to be taken to the Facebook Creator Studio.
On the next screen, if you don’t already see the “Go Live” button with the red broadcast icon near the top right of your screen, click the “Home” button on your top left to access it.
Schedule a Live Video
Here you can Go Live Now or Schedule a Live Video. Since Facebook recommends scheduling your live event so that your followers have a chance to sign up to be notified and reminded about your live stream, that’s the method I will use here. Remember that Facebook, has not yet added the ability to select your time zone, so if you are scheduling a live stream that is going to happen in a time zone other than where you are when you schedule it, make the adjustment now to reflect the time it will be where the broadcast is.
Getting Started
Under “Getting Started” you can select how Facebook will receive your stream. Currently the following features are not available if you select “Camera” here and try to stream directly from a webcam. If you plan to use a paired encoder like we do for our client’s Facebook streams, such as Wowza’s Clearcaster you do not want to connect the encoder until 4 hours prior to your event. So for now, select “Use Stream Keys” and then go back later and pair your encider when you’re set up and ready to preview your stream within the 4 hour window.
Live Stream on Facebook
In this middle column are most of the goodies, so here we go! Make sure you drop down the “Stream” section to see of all these options.
End Live Video If Stream Stops
This one has been around for a minute. Ending the live video if the stream stops is another way of saying that by checking this box, you will not be using a persistent stream key, which is the term used elsewhere in streaming, on platforms like Youtube. It is not recommended that you use this option if you do not have reliable internet, because if your internet drops out and stops your stream, you will not be able to go back to the same live stream.
Allow Embedding
This is new, and while we’ve been able to embed a Facebook live stream on another webpage using their embed code, now we have the option to not allow the video to be embedded elsewhere on the internet. Here are some reasons we can think of not to allow embedding, and if we missed one, leave us a note in the comments.
Comments! If you are directing your audience via email or other social outlets to watch your Facebook Live on a webpage outside of Facebook, only the player will show up with the native embed code.
Followers! People watching your video off Facebook who don’t already like and follow your page are much less likely to do so if they aren’t on your Facebook page viewing your stream
If you are selling products through Facebook, collecting responses or utilizing any of the other many business tools on your Facebook page, your audience can’t interact with them off site.
Finally, we think that the Facebook gods and their algorithm don’t shine as brightly on you when you’re directing your traffic to watch a video using their platform, off of their site where their ads play. We don’t know what exactly the impact is, but we feel sure there is one.
Unpublish After Live Video Ends
We’ve seen this one before. We’ve seen clients use this feature if:
They want to give their audience that shared live experience.
They want to maintain their live analytics and then edit, shorten or make a highlight reel style video for on demand viewing after the event.
They have a large organization or brand with many decision makers that need to review the content before its more widely available to watch.
Go Live For Longer Than 8 Hours
Since 2016 when Facebook rolled out live streaming for all users, there have been various time limits for live streams. Most recently it was 4 hours on mobile and 8 hours streaming from a computer. Now Facebook has streaming longer than 8 hours, but will not save your video and your viewers will not have the option to rewind. We can’t seem to find an official word on how long you can continuously stream to Facebook using this option, but we speculate up to 24 hours.
Viewing
Now for settings about the viewing experience for the audience.
Allow Viewers To Rewind
We don’t usually recommend that people turn off the ability for folks to rewind their live stream. This is super helpful if you get distracted and want to rewatch something, come into a live stream late or have to step away from your device and come back to have missed something. The reasons you may want to utilize this feature around mostly the same as not having your video available on demand after the event or “unpublishing.”
You want to really promote that shared live experience like we had before DVR’s on our TV’s.
You want to have revelenat, real time comments and discussions and not have people posting about stuff that happened 15 minutes ago.
You want only your loyal viewers to get all the inside info and not have it available for people who join late.
Disable Live Commentary
Now you can live stream and have your audience viewing on Facebook, not allow comments during the stream. At Varvid we always stress to our clients that they need to assign someone from their organization to watch, interact, moderate and respond to comments during live streams, or you might want to consider turning them off. In social streaming, we don’t think it’s best practice to let your viewers comment without having anyone responding, it sends the message to your viewers that you aren’t engaged.
You may also want to disable live commentary if your content is controversial to some. Let’s keep going because below are some more fine tuned setting for comments.
Comments
Slow
Check the “Slow” box to restrict users from commenting faster than every 10 seconds. Keeps trolls from flooding your comment section quit so fast if you think you might have that issue.
Discussion
Using the “Discussion” setting only allows comments that are at least 100 characters. This might discourage people from a leaving a comment, those who don’t like rules, if you will, but using this feature could help facilitate more in depth engagements, just make sure you have someone on your team – maybe even multiple people responding thoughtfully.
Restricted
Using the “Restricted” setting restricts new (2 weeks old or less) Facebook accounts from leaving comments.We usually assume accounts that new are bots or accounts trolls made to make salty comments without revealing their identities. I don’t see any reason not to use this feature, unless you think there may be a chance some of our audience members don’t use Facebook and may create an account specifically to watch your live stream. Seems like a narrow field, but hey, maybe that fits your needs!
Protected
“Protected” only allows Facebook users who have followed your account for at least 15 minutes to leave a comment. So if you’re hoping to have your stream be shared around and new potential followers engage with your stream, don’t use this feature. We would recommend this option for a stream that have people coming to be objectory in the comments, who may even go follower or like your page to allowed to comment, but this feature would block them.
Crossposting
We have covered this in other posts, but remember that you can combine your viewing analytics with your partner’s pages by crossposting to their pages and engaging their followers. We learned the hard way that some features like adding Facebook’s donation buttons do not crosspost, even though Facebook doesn’t expressively state this anywhere. Be sure to test any content to make sure its cross posting correctly before you go live. You should be able to create a Scheduled Live Video for crossposting and then go to each page’s post and customize the description for each page without it affecting the other, however I will caution you that I have had some annoying instances of this not updating in real time on the pages who were not the main page, or it created the appearance of a separate post on the page. I hope these bugs are since worked out, but I always plan for and look for them during testing and set up for any event. At Varvid, this is a part of my project management process when using Facebook during testing and rehearsals.
Audience Settings
And finally, if your content is not appropriate for all ages from 13 and up, you can restrict users whose accounts have their age set at various intervals form 12 plus through 25+. Not quite sure what you’re restricting for 21-25 year olds……but uh, yeah, be responsible with your content to avoid extra public backlash. Be aware that your content still have to abide by Facebook’s community standards.
And if any of this is feeling like a lot, we’d love to work with you as a consultant or as your streaming partner so we can effectively put these practices in place for your organization or brand.
https://varvid.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/facebook-creator-studio-scaled.jpg11232560Crystal Garciahttps://varvid.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/logo-light.pngCrystal Garcia2020-02-26 09:17:162020-08-17 16:39:09Facebook Creator Studio: New Feature for Comments & Embedding for Live Streaming
Orchestral Tools is a brilliant symphonic software company that creates robust toolsets for professional film and video game composers. For their product launch during NAMM this year, they wanted to stream their event in the style of an Apple Keynote and they chose Varvid to handle the video production and streaming.
We delivered a three camera live stream with a mini jib for this well-produced show that streamed on their Youtube channel and their Facebook page, which used to also crosspost to one of the presenter’s Facebook page as well. This was the company’s first live stream and the online views and interactions tell us, it’s just what their audience was hungry for.
Frontgate is a leading home luxury multichannel retailer who does recurring live streamed events with us from their storefront locations. Because Facebook is really prioritizing live content, we find that for many of our clients, it is a great fit for getting the most viewers on your streamed event.
Frontgate’s last event was streamed from their Dallas/Plano, Texas location and featured a prominent designer, author and gourmet guru, Nathan Turner, who shared recipes and favorite products for holiday gatherings to a small local audience and reached thousands more via their Facebook Live stream.
We love the big brand’s use of live streaming to bring in promoters of their brand that share content that both in the room and remote audiences want and can engage with. Frontgate, stepped it up by holding a prize drawing that featured people in the room and anyone who left a comment of the live stream. We also think that our clients gain the most, by having someone on your team interacting with the live audience on Facebook live stream, via comments. You can view the recorded live stream here.
In our last blog we talked about how savvy marketers are opting for live streaming of video to make their events available to remote audiences, as well as giving their live and Internet audiences the ability to communicate with an event moderator via Twitter – otherwise known as live webcasting. This was exactly what Varvid did with Wistia, Contest Domination and other companies at the Video Marketing Explain-a-Thon held at the Hard Rock Café in downtown Seattle.
Varvid has been streaming events live for more than a decade, but what’s new as of late for a lot of our clients is the addition of combining Twitter to the online event video player – this way attendees can see the interactions they are having with the event host by using hashtags when they post on Twitter.
[pullquote3 quotes=”true” align=”right” variation=”orange” textColor=”#666666″] Varvid has been streaming events live for more than a decade. [/pullquote3]
This fact was brought to our attention in a recent blog written by Stephanie Clifford called A Front Row Seat via Video where she explains that “As more brands offer live videos of the shows, regular viewers see exactly what the buyers and editors are seeing, and influence what will be made by pausing on an outfit or posting Twitter messages about a particular style.”
In other words, the content at the shows can be discussed, influence viewers, and create trending conversations that are tracked and searchable by search engines (like Google).
The morale of the story: if you have an event you want people to engage in and develop a following with – leverage the expertise of a company that understands how to live stream events with an internet video broadcast, and host conversations with the audience via Twitter – these are connected events!
https://varvid.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/logo-light.png00aaronhttps://varvid.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/logo-light.pngaaron2013-06-06 10:15:472017-02-10 14:26:20Live Streaming Broadcasts and Twitter for Events a Must