A few years ago, online events seemed to be the solution for government agencies wanting to cut back on the expenses and travel often associated with in-person conferences. As time has passed, many have realized there are other benefits to blending online opportunities with in-person events.
Here's a look at the top benefits from iCohere:
Pre-Event Exposure and Long-term Engagement
An online platform offers the benefit of connecting with the audience well in advance of the conference. When using a platform that offers online communities, libraries, chat rooms, and discussion forums, meeting planners can engage with conference delegates as early as the planning stage to ensure the conference content will be relevant to the audience.
These services also provide the opportunity to establish deeper connections with the audience and maintain an ongoing relationship to support future conferences. Instead of merely having the contact information of delegates provided at the time of registration, planners using a hybrid approach will have had discussions and formed professional relationships with delegates, opening the door for ongoing professional dialogue.
Deeper Interaction with Program Key Notes, Presenters and the Material
With a traditional in-person event, delegates often have to choose what breakout sessions they wish to attend and subsequently will miss out on some information. By offering a hybrid conference, delegates can attend in-person the sessions most important to them, and still have access to the other sessions using the online platform. Online platforms also offer the capability of hosting pre and post session discussions with the presenters and providing quick access to the material covered during the presentation.
An example is USAID's Strengthening Health Outcomes through the Private Sector ("SHOPS") "Access to Finance." Online content included live panels, text chats, pre-recorded presentations, and interactive discussion boards. Attendance at the conferences continuously exceeded expectations, with a single day logging over 8,000 minutes in discussion board activity alone.
Greater Accessibility for the Audience
Traveling to an in-person conference can be especially difficult for delegates with special needs or disabilities. Navigating a large conference hall and transportation for off-site activities is often burdensome and may unintentionally discourage those with disabilities from attending. Adding an online component to a conference achieves high accessibility in several ways. It provides access to all material and speakers, captioning for all presentations, adapts the site and presentation interfaces to be navigable without use of a mouse, and provides web pages that can be processed by text-to-voice for those with visual impairments.
Whether a conference is completely online or a hybrid blend, designing, marketing and managing the event is different than with traditional in-person events. There are more planning components and operations to consider as well as specific skills needed to make the event a success.
Considering an online or hybrid event for your agency? Find the resources you need to make your event successful during iCohere's upcoming webinar series beginning July 14. This complimentary, three-part training is taught by consultant Karen Niles, who has overseen more than 15 online conferences since 2006. Each one-hour webinar will focus on a specific topic and provides 1.0 hours of CAE credit.
Learn more about this free training and find other resources at www.icohere.com/whatsnew.htm.
Register for this event here.
