Content Creation: Before, During, and After Your Event
February 9, 2021
Content has always been KING (or Queen) and capturing live, in-person event content is more important (and rare) than ever. A consistent theme for the social media posts, blogs, and case studies that you’ll see by Show Ready is – Planning. You’ll always want to plan events and content – before, during and after.
As we approach 2021, we will lean on blended hybrid and virtual events more than ever, which means we’ll have to create content for more than one platform, but that’s just it – you’ll have content for MORE than one platform. All events come with a plan, so now you need to make some room for your more significant content plan. You invest a lot of time and money into your events, so getting your bang for your buck with content is a MUST-DO.
Types of Content
Video – Video content can be captured both in-person and virtually. Capture your speakers’ sessions, the production crew getting things done, or your audience immersed in the experience you created for them.
Audio – Recording high-quality audio can be key for creating reels, commercials, and snippet-based promotions during or after the main event.
Photography – Photos have always been a part of capturing content at events, but even with the best photos, it’s not going to be enough. Pair your photography with catchy taglines, motion graphics, and your audio/video content to show off your event in its best light.
Check out our content planning guide for more tips, but for the purpose of this blog, you’ll want to complete the following before your event:
1. Develop your content strategy – list all of the collateral components of your event; flyers, agenda “print outs”, planners, notes, etc.
a. Will you go 100% digital?
b. Will you utilize an app or virtual reality for your event?
c. What’s your budget?
2. Choose your partners – once you know what materials you’ll be using, the overall goal for your event, you’ll want to strategically partner with those who can deliver the most remarkable event.
3. Lay your foundation – create any special event logos, collateral, mobile app (if applicable), and have your partnership agreements in place.
PROMOTE. PROMOTE. PROMOTE. You’ll start promoting before your event, keep promoting during, and give yourself a pat on the back afterwards.
The more you lay out now and pre-plan, the better bird’s eye view you’ll have for making the most of the content you’ll create during your event.
During your event, distribution and engagement are your two main goals. You’ll want to get all of your pre-made materials seen, shared, and interacted with during your event. Don’t let the power of social media slip through your fingers because you’re inundated with tasks for the event itself – be sure to have a dedicated marketing or social media team member capturing live content to share in real time.
Quick tip: Creating a hashtag or a group of hashtags for your event will help gather all relevant content and photos in one place. It will also allow you to look back at what others perceived and received from your event.
With all great events, comes event afterglow, and you’ll want to take advantage of that. Reflect on the experience your team had, you had, and most importantly – the experience the audience had. You don’t have to archive everything! There are most likely event collaterals you can recycle for future events and if there’s not, we suggest taking a look at how to streamline event collateral so you’re not recreating the wheel each time.
PROMOTE. PROMOTE. PROMOTE. We said it once and we’ll say it again; promotion! Now that you have personal and professional videos, audio clips, and photography – you’ll want to get it all in one place to evaluate, edit, and schedule to continue the hyped-up momentum you created with your event. Get attendees excited about your next event, about the recurrence of that specific event, or about your company in general.
Powerful events can create much more than one powerful event – it can create a ripple effect that will affect the business for the remainder of the year.
After your event is complete, you’ll want to update your website and other information with the next event in the queue. Huge event faux-pas is keeping up old or outdated event information – even if a new event isn’t scheduled, update your page/pages saying “coming soon” or see you next year! For anyone who missed your event or an attendee who was referred a bit too late to attend, capture and house your content in a safe place for non-attendees to check out! There are many SEO best practices followed when posting video, audio and photography content after-the-fact, but with very relevant information that is helpful to your audience and beyond.
Host a retreat! Or staytreat… Successful events are nothing without the data they house afterwards. Conduct surveys for all involved; figure out what worked, what really worked, what changes should be made, and if the content/materials you shared were best served or should be discontinued. The only way to learn how to host better events, create the best content before, during and after those events, is by doing it! Show Ready is here to help you DO.
Show Ready Technologies
3175 Ridgeway Ct. | Walled Lake, MI 48390 | (888) 651-5411 | showreadytech.com
