5 Best Practices for Hosting a Digital Event

Organizing real-life events has never been an easy task, but over the past two years, the world has experienced a spectacular shift in dynamics. We used to spend long hours sitting in conference rooms, discussing company goals and business strategies, but now a significant part of these meetings is happening online. Zoom went from a relatively unknown platform to a household name and made digital meetings possible and highly effective. And when everything has moved online, so did the physical events.

However, some hosts still struggle to create a high-quality experience that can keep attendees engaged. Fortunately, there are a few practices that they can try to implement to organize successful digital events. Whether you schedule conference meetings or any other type of meeting, you need to establish a realistic timeline, showcase your sponsors, and create high-quality materials.

If you want to learn more about the best practices that you can use to host an engaging digital event, make sure to read the article below.

Pick a Time and Date

When you are on a mission to pick an appropriate time and date for the event that you are organizing, you need to think about the day-to-day activities of potential attendees. A lot is going to depend on the type of crowd you want to appeal to. For example, people who work at a nine-to-five job will not pay much attention to an event that is set to take place on a Monday morning. However, by Thursday or Friday, they might need a break from work, making the said days the perfect time for hosting an event.

You also need to remember that time zones exist. Global reach is one of the biggest advantages that online events have, so if you aim to bring in an international audience, you need to take different time zones into consideration and try to choose a time that is likely to work for everyone involved.

Make Sure You Know the Topic Well

If you are hosting an event about something that you know a lot about, that can only be a great thing. However, in order to be able to host a successful event, you need to plan out how you are going to share that knowledge with other people. 

It will require lots of time and preparation, but the audience will be able to tell how much time and effort you put into that particular event. On the other hand, if you do not care enough to put together a high-quality set of slides to illustrate what you are talking about and end up rambling instead of presenting everyone with something organized and easy to understand, the audience is not going to be happy about it.

So, make sure that you devote enough time to organizing and studying the content of your presentation and practice it until you are confident enough to speak at an adequate pace and keep yourself from stuttering.

Create Your Own Materials

Regardless of the type of event that you are planning on hosting, what you are going to present every attendee with will play a key role in that event’s success. Whether it is in the form of handouts, presentations, or videos, it will be the focal point of the entire event.

Because of that, you should put a lot of time and care into the materials that you create. When it comes to slides, avoid cramming too much information into an individual slide, as it might end up being hard to understand. To keep your audience engaged, use just a few words on each slide and focus on speaking instead of reading from the slides.

Give Yourself Enough Time for Promotion

If your digital event is scheduled for next week and you have not started promoting it yet, it is unlikely to be successful. Ideally, you should start promoting the event at least two weeks before it is scheduled to happen. That way, more people are likely to find the time to attend it.

Depending on the kind of event you are hosting, you can also consider creating an official website. It will not only help you get the audience excited about the upcoming event, but you can also use it to provide potential attendees with key information about the event, such as who is going to be speaking at the event, what topics it is going to be centered around, and when it is going to take place.

Find and Showcase Sponsors

Sponsors can really help you deal with the costs of the event. However, in exchange for a sponsorship deal, you will need to showcase each sponsor in an adequate manner. For starters, you could display the logos of the sponsors on the event website. If you do it in an organized and professional manner, you might end up being approached by other sponsors after the event is over!

In Conclusion

The world has changed a lot over the past few years and so have people’s habits. Everyone has gotten used to meeting people online, so it is only natural that businesses become more and more interested in hosting engaging digital events. However, planning a digital event is not an easy task.

There are many things you need to keep in mind when organizing an event, such as creating your own materials, promoting the event, and finding sponsors. Nevertheless, with fixed objectives and a clear plan of action in mind, you should be able to achieve outstanding results and host a successful and memorable event.