What is the best hybrid event platform? Before we get to the answer, let’s get into the details, first. Hybrid events have become the means of choice when it comes to creating events with lots of participants and a high entertainment factor. This mix between a live in person event and a virtual event is quite new and before the COVID-19 pandemic, hybrid events were rather a niche than something that was widely adapted. In the meantime, this has changed completely. E-learning on the other hand, has been part of people’s lives for over a decade and many e-learning platforms have built thriving businesses from the growing demand of online education in the form of courses.
Both forms have lots of benefits individually but what if you could combine these benefits? Then any platform which could offer both of these in one platform would be at the top of the hybrid and virtual event scene. expertshare offers exactly what one of the best online learning platforms has to offer.
But let’s explore the benefits of this type of combination between a hybrid event and an e-learning platform, first:
Easy access to content files from previous hybrid and virtual events
One big advantage is that you’ll never again have to transfer any file from one platform to another in order to make them available for your e-learning classes since there is a shared library of videos and documents. And it’s also not necessary anymore to upload files from your e-learning platform to your virtual or hybrid event platform. This easy access and the fact that you don’t have to upload anything twice, gives you time savings as well.
Use the content from hybrid events for certifications
If you are organizing a hybrid event, a lot of thoughts are going to be put into the selection of the speakers and the content that should be presented. Instead of wasting this potential by not recording it or by just making it available to the participants, why not re-purpose it and put it online as content for e-learning?
In this way, it can even be used to get certain certifications only if the learner has seen a certain piece of content from a hybrid event and if he or she can answer a couple of questions about it afterwards. But what else can be done with the content?
Re-purpose the content from virtual & hybrid events
The recordings of your event represent a virtual goldmine of opportunities to reuse this content in different ways and the clips add highly targeted and relevant learning content to form the foundation of your e-learning webinar series. In other words: Virtual events and hybrid events alike, present an opportunity to curate a collection of great educational video content.
That’s why it makes sense to turn your video content into a short and focused webinar series which could be on a very specific subject. And when you’re adding additional learning resources, such as a downloadable workbook or other collateral material, you will get free e-learning material that doesn’t need a lot of effort to be produced. You can just package it up and monetize the small series with member and non-member pricing. You now have a great educational package which you can monetize 24/7 and 365 days a year to your e-learning community.
Create 4-minute snippets for YouTube with valuable information or insights
If your speakers are well-known the content they are producing is getting plenty of attention. They are usually the ones that are attracting the majority of the audience to your event. The large number of followers should be used to create a lot of interest in your event by uploading short snippets of their speeches to YouTube. Since it is attracting their own followers, the engagement on YouTube will be really high which will make the video more and more popular also with non-followers. Meaning, the reach will be huge and you might be seen by everyone in the industry.
This gets you new students for your e-learning courses and participants for your hybrid and virtual events without much effort at all.
Publish the content as a podcast
More and more of us are tuning to podcasts to get the latest tips, tricks, and best practices. And with all of the content that you’ve accumulated from your virtual event, it’s time for you to do the same. Podcasts are a great way for you to reach out to new audiences across the many podcast platforms out there. And to do this you simply need to turn all of the high-quality recordings that you’ve captured from across the event into audio clips and podcasts.
Transform your hybrid or virtual event into a series of articles
As much as we try and disperse into other forms of content, blogs are always the most popular option. And they are very important with regards to SEO. Across the event, you’ll have a variety of different content clusters that cover your main topic, and all of these will provide you with plenty of material for blog posts. It’s also worth considering the topics that resonated especially well with your audience, as this is what they’ll want to see, and it provides a great starting point for any further content that you want to publish in the future.
Tip: Another great way to drive traffic to your website is to encourage guest posts from your speakers. This can be anything from a follow up on what they discussed to a step-by-step guide of how to turn their ideas into actions.
Use info graphics to present the online event insights
Info graphics are a great way to pull out the most insightful and interesting snippets of stats and valuable information (which there should be plenty of). many of these infographics have gone viral in the past and created a lot of traffic for the publisher. Go through all of the recordings and find any memorable content that can be used as posts across social media. This is a great way of recycling valuable content from your event to keep your audience engaged. Make sure that this information is aligned with the event and your brand. And remember to make it visually appealing and highly shareable.
All of this repurposed content can be used in your e-learning courses and exams to create a mix of different forms of content. This will make your students more engaged and they will enjoy learning even more.
Cost & time savings by using just 1 platform
This, of course, is the most obvious benefit of combining 2 platforms into 1: You don’t have to pay for both of these individual platforms anymore. This will give you significant cost savings. Moreover, it will save your students time as well since they don’t have to learn the ins and outs of 2 different platforms. Reading all of these manuals and watching hour-long videos just to find out how a certain platform works, is something that most people would rather like to skip completely.
More interaction for your e-learning students
You don’t want to organize an event which people would find boring, right? That is why an interactive layer is needed as well and it is where actions occur over the visual background. This is where the flexibility and the power of the virtual events software come into play.
What are examples of interactive elements virtual attendees can engage in:
- Watch webinar presentations
- Participate in live streaming videos
- Talk with peers in group chats
- Share content on social
- Download content
- Request meetings/demos with staff
Of course, these are just a few of the activities you can offer for virtual attendees. You can take it to the next level and gamify the experience as well. Games like treasure hunts or fun prize giveaways can be tied to these actions, creating more energy and interactivity for virtual participants.
Dual use of the content created for e-learning and hybrid events
Many businesses have already started removing physical events entirely from their agendas or are at least are integrating virtual events into their physical ones. This is done to encourage training, development and even on-boarding procedures. The materials used during these events can be used internally and externally for customers and partners or they can use them as product training to educate the sales team. A virtual conference platform and the use of webinars offer virtual learning experiences which can educate employees using presentations on important topics.
Business owners will love you for this because not only is it cost-effective to them, it also saves their employees lots of time which they can use more productively. By means of a virtual event, it is possible for the participants to talk directly to the experts and they don’t have to wait for a response. Students are not bound to a strict schedule but can learn at their own pace and can organize their schedule by themselves, removing the stress factor from them.
Train and assess applicants
Moreover, for recruiting, the use of virtual events is a great way to train and assess potential applicants and if they are suitable full time employees for the companies that are looking to fill their job positions. And it is not just in the area of job offerings that virtual and hybrid events can shine.
Several education organizations have been adding virtual events even to their official curriculums. This is done to offer students more engagement with interactive and highly immersive learning sessions. Using a great virtual conference platform like expertshare’s, they can participate in discussions, no matter if it is in real time or on-demand. The best thing is that they can reach highly knowledgeable experts at any time. The location is no longer a deterrent.
By means of video chats, students can easily engage in cultural and social events and meet other students in a very relaxed and fun way.
Virtual events enhance e-learning by offering the following tools:
- On-demand or live content connects learners from anywhere in the world. Content can also be customized and branded to corporate standards and learner journeys.
- Gamification can be used to motivate individuals and teams while you can also assess and track their progress.
- They give access to content repositories for students. This way, they can do in-depth research and study independently whenever they have a project.
- There’s built-in reporting and analytic tools to which allow you to track certain aspects of the virtual event attendee participation and progress.
The experts at expertshare recognize how valuable content is to the success of any learning environment and collaborate extensively with administrators and educators to provide supreme learning management solutions. expertshare’s extremely flexible, Our virtual platform can be 100 % customized to any personal vision imaginable. If you need more information on how you can get started today, contact our event planners and virtual environment specialists at expertshare today.
Virtual & Hybrid Events As E-Learning Platforms
It can already be predicted that many conferences and events will become online learning platforms and the educational content will become available at any time – no matter what the schedule or location of the students is. Many e-learning platforms are using a lot of different means to promote the content that is available. One of the best known is a special price or a sale whenever there is a special occasion like Black Friday or Cyber Monday. Often, the courses and learning materials are available for a tenth of the original price or even less. This is something that e.g. the e-learning platform Udemy is well-known for. And it’s not just the case with computer programming courses or how to use a certain piece of software.
The pricing and promotional styles are numerous and you have to choose what style you personally prefer. It is also dependent on the length of the sessions and how popular the speakers are.
This means, you also need to be aware of the motive behind holding your virtual or hybrid event, what do you want to achieve? Do you want to promote your speakers or your brand or do you want to make people aware of the skill sets that you possess in order to push your product and service sales?
Key Takeaways
- Use your strengths – If your virtual or hybrid event is going to be an academic one, market it that way! Use the jargon and style that your attendees would expect.
- Easy pricing structure – Not all pricing models will work for your virtual event but a per-session price makes the value of your session obvious.
- The quality of the production matters – You may not have the high definition lenses, but just by using the right camera angles (close ups!) and lighting (lots!), it helps a lot in showing off your speakers.
- Make your speakers shine – You need to prove that your speakers are experts in their field with more than just their job titles. Tell the world about their achievements and why they really matter directly at the beginning of your session.
- Use video to promote it – Session descriptions can sell a conference, but to sell a virtual event, you’ll have to demonstrate what people can expect to see once they pay.
Tracking of E-learning Progress and Virtual Events Tracking
In e-learning platforms, you can track how much a student is learning at any time through the use of real-time dashboards and scheduled progress reports. The reporting and metrics for e-learning opportunities include:
- 24/7 access to a learner’s progress
- Detailed course reports
- Individual activity reports
- Quiz, text, and poll results
- Chat and engagement reports
But if you want to track the metrics of virtual events, you can also do so. Event organizers get access to real-time reports of any interaction that has taken place during or after the event. This means a much better insight into the user behavior of the participants and what kind of content they like. And this, on the other hand, means that you can get a much better ROI from your online & hybrid events.
And not to forget: If you are hosting an event virtually, you’ll get a valuable data collection of virtual participants in real-time – which is a MAJOR benefit for any type of virtual event program. Not only that but getting to see all of this data in one platform is something that will give you an advantage over your competition.
Start Planning Today: Use the Best Hybrid Event Platform
At expertshare, we can help you organize your virtual or hybrid event and find the right way to combine it with e-learning. Currently, we are the only platform in the world which has e-learning & hybrid events combined in one platform like we have done. In case you are already thinking about creating a virtual event, or about hosting your tradeshow, e-learning coursework, or certification, we can help you set it up the right way, the professional way. Just request an expertshare virtual or hybrid event platform demo and see how we can help you execute any kind of virtual or hybrid event or program.
Learn more about expertshare’s Hybrid & Virtual Event Solutions
expertshare is the leading provider of virtual and hybrid event solutions. We provide you with a secure and cloud-based platform which will expand the reach of your audience and we will drive in-depth content engagement for marketing, sales, recruitment, training, and HR communities to create successful online events around the world.
Our product portfolio includes virtual & hybrid environments, e-learning management, webinars and online conferences. Demand more from your virtual and hybrid event solution. We have the experience you need.
Do you still have questions? Please email us at [email protected]