Today we are talking about YouTube for conferences and events.
Wait, what? Down in the back, you have your hand up… Good question and we can tell you that was debunked for our industry over a decade ago. Posting your conference videos on the web will NOT cannibalize your live audience. It won’t. Really, stop arguing. Please. OK, I am not gonna keep listening to that. Ugg. Sit down man. Arrrrrggggg….. Just shut up. Now. Let me ask you Mr Dude…are you also a flat-earther? Aliens in Area 51? Black Helicopters? Saying that a video of a live event will cannibalize your conference has been debunked…. It was debunked by our industry and it was also laid to rest way back when the NFL decided to start airing football games over the objections of the owners… and if you think about it, an NFL Game is no different than any other event or even a conference.
Way, way, back, people thought that televising games would cause people to just stay home, warm and dry, to watch the game. Sounds reasonable, but they found that this did not happen. In fact, it appears to me (and the world) that the opposite is true. The NFL is a monster marketing machine that is crushing their competition (football pun intended) because they televise the games.
People that can’t go to the game watch the game. When they watch they get invested. When they get invested they buy stuff like t-shirts and jerseys. Once they start buying stuff it reminds them that they wanted to go to a game so they go online and see that it is still sold out so now they invite their friend over to watch a game. The friend sees his buddies cool stuff and he buys stuff for himself… and his kid. Now the original guy sees his friend’s kid with cool team stuff and he gets his kid some team stuff…. Aaaaaand now the neighbor sees all their stuff and he can’t be left behind because he is the neighborhood’s “true” fan so he gets an NFL license plate and paints his house team colors. His stuff has to be way better than the other guys stuff….Now our orginal buddies see all of the neighbors cool new stuff and they decide they really have to go to the game to one-up the neighbor because they can’t stand him anyway so they go online and tickets are still sold out so they hit StubHub and buy tickets for 5 times face value. They go to the game and are now really hooked so they watch more games and buy more STUFF…. the nosy neighbor can’t stand these guys going to a sold out game so he ups the ante and gets season tickets… and the story goes around and around and around and around….until an entire city is involved.
This is not by accident. It is all planned. You need to start planning so let’s get back to talking about YouTube.
YouTube is massive, it is huge, and it is growing. I am not saying that you should put 100% of your material up for consumption (baby steps) but there is plenty that CAN be posted to YouTube and this will help your conference or event audience grow.
- Sessions
- Keynotes
- Speaker interviews
- Sponsor interviews
- Attendee interviews
- Attendee testimonials
- Destination information
- A Message from your “insert title here”
- Something Fun
- Staff videos
- Stats
- Conference podcasts
The list is endless really. Because each of these points can be segmented or expanded which leads me to why we are here… we have created the first PlannerWire Infographic which will be part of our social series…
