Thursday, March 8, 2012

4 reasons why you should record your event

Probably you are asking yourself: "Should I record the event?" My answer to this question is: "Yes, you should." But it depends on your audience and type of the event, of course. Here are four reasons which can help you decide:
  • The participants. Especially if there are many interesting speakers with a lot of information to tell. I do not know how good your memory is, but I appreciate the possibility of recalling important information several months later. Does your event have sessions running in parallel? Do not hesitate and record the event. Deciding which session to visit is stressful for participants. They are much more relaxed and enjoy your event bearing in mind that they do not miss anything important. They can also do much more networking "during" the talks. And networking is the core of your event.
  • You. When your event ends, it will live only in memory of the participants and in some fragments on the Internet. No one can easily see how great the event was. You can catch the interest of many potential participants by recording and publishing the videos. Keep your brand growing. By the way, let us take an example of TED talks:
    • There were 1100 tickets sold on $4000 price in 2005.
    • They decided to record the event and make the videos publicly available - free of charge in 2006. They sold 1200 tickets per $4400.
    • In 2008, the ticket price was $6000 and they sold 1300 of them (they reached the capacity limit of the theater).
Streaming the content on-line isn't the same as being there. Watching the presentations is only part of the experience; an equal part is mingling with other attendees who are often of the same caliber as those on stage.
Free, Chris Anderson, page 110
  • Speakers at your event. They transmit their knowledge to your audience and the audience pays back with attention. The knowledge/attention exchange happens only once at your event. Maybe you pay the speakers, maybe they pay to you. Anyway, the speakers are paid mainly with the attention of the audience and with increasing social status (their brand) in a long term. But what about multiplying the payback by recording the talk? Let them be found and give them credit by linking the videos to their blogs or Twitters.
  • Sponsors of your event. Yes, they are really important to you. They give you money and want to gain a bit of the attention - to do some headhunting, to promote new products, to be visible. The best thing you can pay them back with are email addresses of the participants. I think all sponsors will be happy about having their logos shown in all videos and event web pages to touch freely the on-line audience for many months. Have you thought about driving some traffic to their pages? Make your sponsors happy (make the return of their investment into your event) and they will come back next time.
All these four reasons are fully reflected in our service. Do you have any other important reasons why the event should be recorded and published? Let us know in comments. Thanks!