Web
Broadcasting Your Conference
A
Guide for Business and Association Conference Organizers
Martin Shepherdly
Copyright Martin Shepherdly 2012
Published at Smashwords
* * * *
Smashwords License Statement
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Contents
About Martin Shepherdly and BeThere Global Ltd.
Why web broadcasting is important
Expanding your sphere of influence
Meeting communication objectives
It’s a matter of space and time
Unlocking the full value of your event
The 3 steps to web broadcasting heaven
1.11 Technical considerations for your event
2.01 Review your pre production work
2.02 Five golden rules for ‘show day’
3.01 Post production enhancements
3.03 Measurement and statistics
About Martin Shepherdly and BeThere Global Ltd.
With a 20+ year track record in the production of major multimedia corporate communications events and projects, Martin moved into the specialist world of online media in 2005, when he established Web-Epics Video Marketing to serve the rapidly growing streaming video market. Then, late in 2008, Martin re-established contact with old friend and ex colleague Mark Buckland (based in New York) and discovered they had been working along complementary paths in the online media world. Together they hatched up a plan to create a service that would do two things;
1. Make it easy and affordable for organizations large and small to record their seminars, workshops, conferences and congresses.
And
2. Enable these same organisations to use the web to communicate this captured knowledge and expertise for the benefit of many.
So in 2009 BeThere Global was born and in its first 2 years was responsible for recording over 200 events in places as far afield as Macau and Hawaii for major corporate clients like Aviva, Coca-Cola, HP, IBM, Lloyds Banking Group and Novartis as well as for many trade, professional and medical associations and societies.
Who is this workbook for?
This book is intended as a practical introduction and guide for those involved in organising workshops, seminars, conferences and congresses… in fact pretty much any kind of face to face event. The intention is to provide a basic level of knowledge and to help you to clarify your thoughts and ideas so that you can start to define your organisation’s web broadcasting strategy and prepare for your first web broadcast.
If you can answer “yes” to one or more of the eight questions below, then this book is definitely for you.
1. Are you frustrated at the amount of time and effort that goes into putting presentations together, for them only to be seen and heard once by an audience limited to the number of seats you can squeeze in the room?
2. Do you want to engage a remote audience who cannot or will not physically attend your event?
3. Do you believe that there is inherent value in the knowledge and expertise contained in your presentation content that you should be recording?
4. Do you want to reduce the cost of your event? Of course this needn’t be limited to hard cash; you may be looking to reduce the environmental price tag too.
5. Do you want to enhance the experience of delegates by giving them access to recordings of the sessions post event?
6. Are you trying to find new ways to retain and recruit members?
7. Are you looking for new ways to generate revenue for your organisation?
8. Are you obliged by compliance regulations to make your presentation content available to a wider audience?
Before we begin
The intention is for this workbook to act as a guide for anyone looking to get started with making their conferences available online. It is intended to provide advice and guidance no matter what web broadcasting solution, provider or platform it is planned to use. However, it is somewhat inevitable that some of the detailed information relates specifically to the services offered or the approach taken by BeThere Global Limited; for this I only half-heartedly apologize.
Please work through the book chronologically – there is a logic to it – and wherever possible complete the TASKS as it is my belief that this will help you gain clarity on your objectives and requirements which, in turn, will enable you to be more precise in briefing your chosen supplier – whoever that might be – and subsequently achieve the best possible outcome.
Getting started
Why web broadcasting is important
Web broadcasting has changed the way we communicate with the world. Now, pretty much anyone can reach an audience comparable in size to that achieved by the mainstream media. And the great thing is that there is hardly any sector of industry, field of expertise or area of interest that would not benefit from the highly effective and efficient communication that web broadcasting enables.
Not only that, now that it is affordable to associations or businesses of all sizes, web broadcasting is very democratic. Even individuals can join in!
Using web broadcasting, associations, businesses and individuals can compete equally for attention on this global stage.
For the sake of brevity, from here on in I will refer to associations, businesses and individuals simply as ‘organizations’.
By promoting web broadcasts via social media, significant audiences can be attracted at very low cost, with the side benefit of an enhanced online reputation and a higher profile and level of engagement. This can result in increased brand awareness and lead generation for companies and improved membership retention and recruitment for associations.
Of course, seminars, conferences and congresses provide ideal content for web broadcasting. But as well as this, training, induction and other internal and external communications projects may be broadcast to a ‘web only’ audience – often referred to as virtual events.