EventCamp2010 Series – Post V

The Ultimate Balancing Act: Hybrid Events

Jeff Hurt opened his EventCamp breakout, Meeting the Needs of Face-to-Face & Virtual Audiences, with some tough questions:

• How do you keep content relevant for both types of attendees?
• How do you keep the connection with both types of attendees in sync?
• How do you determine the right balance and pay attention closely enough to ensure you maintain it?
• How do you keep from alienating one segment?
• Do we understand learning and listening behavior?

And more importantly . . .

• What is the profile of the person responsible for your social media initiatives?

Jeff warned against going with a social media silo. You should be aiming for a social media champion. Someone who lives, eats and breathes social media. They are passionate and excited about it and literally perk up anytime they hear social media come up in conversation. They are more than willing to educate co-workers, demonstrate its value, and show people how relevant it can be to your interests and goals.

Jeff advised that you check out your prospective social media champion’s footprint in the social media world. Are they already blogging?  Does their blog attract any attention? Are they actively reading and commenting on other relevant blogs? Are they on Twitter, etc?

Some people in the session felt that a social media career is short-lived. I think it depends on the industry you are in. If it doesn’t align with your goals to have an “online community manager” maybe it would be a better fit for you to divide the responsibilities over the marketing department or designated representatives throughout the company.

The latter brings up yet another concern I hear far too often: If I allow representatives from each department, or even the whole company to represent our brand in social media, I’ll lose control!

Jeff’s take?

Wake up. Enter Web 2.0, attendee 2.0, customer 2.0, and well, EVERYTHING 2.0.

Control is history.

Your best bet is to welcome the communication revolution instead of hiding. Listen, learn, set appropriate ground rules and get your feet wet.

Or just pretend it’s not there, and risk being a headline in a social media public relations nightmare like these folks . . .

United Airlines Gets the Viral Video Treatment It Never Wanted

“Motrin moms,” a-Twitter over ad, take on Big Pharma–And win

Local News Commits a Twitter-Induced Billboard FAIL

Paul Salinger was also in this session and explained how companies like Oracle are moving towards a hybrid model – they are developing specific guidelines about what employees can and cannot do, especially when they are representing the brand. These guidelines are not in place to control them, but to ensure that the brand is not unintentionally misrepresented. He agreed with Jeff that control is history – addressing concerns and setting guidelines is the most appropriate course of action.

Clearly, there is a need for social media guidelines in the workplace. Jeff told us that one in five companies currently have social media guidelines in place. He encouraged us to take a look at existing social media policies and adapt as needed.

Jeff said it best:  You trust them to represent your brand on the phone and e-mail. Why don’t you trust them online . . . on LinkedIn . . . Facebook?

How does this relate to hybrid events?

He encouraged us to teach the culture of listening.

• Listen to your attendees weeks before the event. This will prepare you to be ready to respond right away on-site. Empower your staff to become the concierge and run interference.

• Be sure to utilize your laptop to communicate during the event. Even the face-to-face audience will use virtual to communicate with the panel and live attendees.

During several EventCamp sessions, there were assigned moderators with the task of watching the virtual audience via the Tweetstream for questions/comments/complaints/revolts and the speaker would check in with that moderator throughout the session.

Some other great ideas from Jeff on engaging the virtual and face-to-face audience to create successful hybrid events:

• Every 20 or 30 minutes, have the presenter assign the live participants an activity to keep them busy/engaged. During that time, turn to the virtual audience exclusively, giving a recap or some other personal line of communication that will take their virtual participation to the next level.
  • This was perfectly demonstrated at EventCamp. Being that we had none other than the beautiful and talented tradeshow presenter Emilie Barta in attendance, our quick-thinking EventCamp organizers put her to work. On the fly, she graciously interviewed speakers at the conclusion of their session on the webcast, specifically for the virtual audience.

• It doesn’t always have to be live-action for virtual participants. Archive it. That way, remote attendees who were unable to log on during the live talk can access the archive at a time when they are able to tune out distractions.
  • (Trust me, as much as I’d love to participate in the many free virtual events out there, 9am – 5pm, Monday through Friday more than likely isn’t going to fly for me, or more importantly my employer, as is probably the case with many of you out there. Make it an option for us to view it outside of those times, when we can give it our full attention.)

• Generate interest through bite-sized clips. The virtual audience has a short attention span and high expectations. Short, ten-minute clips with quality content will generate interest.

• Recognize that virtual and live are different, with different pro’s and con’s

• Train your presenters to open with a question specifically to the virtual audience, like “Who’s out there and where are you joining us from?” You will know because of the technology involved with virtual how many people are watching and often, who is watching. If only three of 15 participants respond, call out some of the others who are not fully engaged with a friendly, “Hey, name, I don’t think I heard from you. Are you there?”

• How do you engage late adopters? Teach them – the biggest mistake we can make is assuming they already get it. Nurture your members to be able to use and appreciate the tools.

• Have virtual attendees meet up face-to-face regionally (think Superbowl party style) so they can enjoy the benefits of face-to-face while participating with other virtual attendees. Assign a moderator. Be sure to prep the presenter to engage with them.

Several months back over the phone, Mike McCurry described Jeff Hurt as a “change agent”. At the time I don’t think I quite grasped what he really meant.

Little did I know that Mike and Google really hit the nail on the head in this case:

Change agent:

An individual recruited prior to implementation of a change; must be representative of the user population, understand the reasoning behind the change, and help to communicate the excitement, possibilities, and details of the change to others within the organization.