Know your audience. That’s the most important element of posting online videos from live business meetings and corporate events.
Ultimately, there is no technology that can replace being at the event. The key for planners is to know what videos people actually watch and find useful. Most of the cool technology that exists today helps event planners figure out what their audiences like, want and need.
Technology companies like FreemanXP and Glisser offer audience-engagement software that measures how people respond to corporate video postings on social media sites like YouTube, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Edward Perotti of VMware says the company’s in-house events are focused primarily on people.
“You need to use technology based on the culture of your audience,” says Perotti, senior director of global meetings, events & travel for the Palo Alto, California, computing company.
People are often most attracted to videos with interesting speakers, Perotti notes. They generally get bored with slides, especially those containing still-photos and bulleted text.
“At VMware, we want our people and culture to connect on a human level,” says Perotti, who manages about 2,100 worldwide VMware events annually. “We drive content to inform employees and educate them.”
When VMware events or portions of company meetings are videotaped, the focus is on those speakers who engage and connect emotionally with their audiences.
“I err on the side of not making text the focus,” Perotti says. “People don’t want slides. They like visuals—if they tell stories.”
His advice to event planners who want to leverage videos from corporate meetings online is to research how television showrunners entertain audiences with short attention spans. Perotti recommends answering these three questions:
1. How long does TV content play before cutting to a commercial break?
2. What backgrounds do professionals use to keep the audience from being distracted?
3. Is the camera moving around, or is it fairly stable and focused on one person?
Perotti recommends that planners who post business videos on social media sites become involved in the content-planning stages of their events. “We should be in the same room during the content development meeting. I partner up with the [communications] team, so if you’re shooting live with a webstream and you have a script, you focus on it.”
Planners who follow the presentation script will know all the “juicy parts”—the portions audiences respond to emotionally. That saves time when it comes to figuring out what to post online. It can also result in lots of clicks.
