OK, so we have already covered that your conference or event needs a blog (nice plug for my post on that subject), and now we need to hit a few things that you can do with that blog.
Adding Video is a great way to spice things up and keep your attendees, fans, and industry peers interested in your little corner of the internet.
Now, before you go getting all about the budget, what about the time, what about the effort, what about the equipment.. I will remind you that these are all excuses. They are all excuses not to do something. If you really wanted to do it, you would find a way.
I bet if you asked around the office, you could get all of the equipment that you need to produce a halfway decent video, and halfway decent is actually better than nothing because these do not have to be segments produced by Robert Redford and directed by Martin Scorsese… it is a flipping blog for God’s sake, not Nightline or 20/20. People actually like it when there is a little bit of a rough edge to things, and you can get better as you go.
Yes, you heard me right… get better as you go. How most organizations go about doing video is all wrong, in my opinion. They wait until they have everything perfect… the intro, the music, the editing, and by that point, someone has already beaten them to the punch, and they are playing catch up.
A couple of things you need to get started (get started is the key; this should be an ever-evolving thing) are a logo for the intro, some intro music, and some credits at the end. That is it…..You can teach yourself video editing software over a weekend.
So, now that you have gotten a good kick in the pants, here are 15 things that you can do with your new video segment.
- Throw together some video testimonials from past attendees
- Add some testimonials from sponsors about the quality of the attendees (this is good for attracting other sponsors and more attendees)
- Interview a speaker (or two)
- Interview a sponsor (or two)
- Interview the staff of the event and ask them why they love working at the event
- Interview an attendee (or ten)
- Get a group of attendees together and let them talk about the sessions
- Do a montage of session highlights from the previous year
- Do a video of you standing in the session hall of next year’s conference (while it is empty) and painting a picture for the attendees
- Do a walking tour of the area around the conference center
- Interview the local head of the CVB and have them talk about why attendees are going to LOVE their city
- Talk about the sessions for next year’s event and ask viewers for their input
- Interview the conference chair about changes to this year’s event
- Give attendees an overview of this year’s social media happenings and explain the hashtags and where to get the information
- Post a blooper real from other segments – this will beat the other segment in page views, but who cares
What is great about all of these ideas is that they are getting people to the blog, and that means they are on the conference website, and that is the goal. It is all about traffic. If they learn something on the way, that is an added bonus.
If you do nothing, no one will find you; if no one finds you, no one will attend and then where will you be?
