This is part three of a series called Livestreaming Your Event by guest columnist Timothy Mercer, Senior Content Marketer at Cvent.
So, what to do with livestream content?
Your event’s over, your attendees have all returned to their 9-to-5s and you’ve got a bunch of footage that you livestreamed from your event.
You might have footage of your keynote speaker, interviews, or educational sessions. Or perhaps you shot scenes in the exhibitor hall, the event floor or even at an off-site party. Whatever footage you’ve captured, it represents a lot of hard work – and it’s a valuable asset that you want attendees to see. But where to start?
Here are a few options that you’ll want to consider, depending on your organization’s goals:
1. Give it away for free!
Whether you’re goal is to build brand recognition or simply drive interest for your next event, sharing your streamed content for free in the follow-up of your event is a great way to impact large numbers of people. It’s also quite easy to do. Simply set up a YouTube channel and post your videos. Then you can share your videos via social media, embed them on your website, share them with your email list – the possibilities are endless.
This strategy works great for keynote speeches (make sure you have permission, first), speeches from your CEO or other executives, experiential footage from the event floor, an event recap video or a compilation video from an off-site party.
P.S. You don’t need to be a technical wizard to put together a good compilation video. There are plenty of tools that make it pretty easy to edit video.
The advantages of simply giving your content away for free is that it eliminates barriers between your great content and the people you want to reach. Whereas a paywall or even a lead generation form may discourage someone away from your video, the immediacy of free, un-gated content – especially when shared over social media – means that more people will see your content, your event brand and your organization.
2. Use it to drive leads!
Using your event video to drive leads poses two distinct challenges that you don’t face when simply giving it away:
First, you need a platform that allows access control. This can either be done through a third-party streaming service or through a marketing software solution, like Marketo.
Second, you need to be thoughtful of the type of content that you gate. When you ask a person for their information, you are promising them something in return – so the content you deliver needs to be valuable and relevant.
Educational sessions make great gated content, so long as the information presented is relevant to the people you’re targeting – like industry trends, best practices and strategies for improving job performance. Industry keynotes are also a good bet.
Whatever gated content you choose to promote, it’s important to be upfront and honest about the benefits that your potential viewers will get in exchange for their contact information – otherwise you risk losing your credibility with them.
3. Use it to increase revenue!
Monetizing your content carries with it the same challenges as lead generation – only more so. You’ll want to ensure that your platform is super-secure (do your research!) and that your content is delivering on the promise you make to your audience.
Again, educational content can work well here – especially if that content can be viewed as part of a certification program. This is a strategy that professional organizations have been very successful with.
Monetizing your event footage may be a way for you to offer content you might not otherwise be able to share. For instance, performers are hesitant to (or sometimes deadset against) you posting footage of their performance at your event. However you might be able negotiate a deal with a performer in which you share the proceeds from selling that content.
4. Reuse! Reuse! Reuse!
Not all the content that comes out of your event livestream needs to be video – or, at least, it doesn’t need to be only video. In order to truly get the most from your captured footage, you need to look for ways to repurpose your content.
Write summaries of your recorded educational sessions and post them to your blog. Rip the audio from them and create a podcast. Write case studies, best practice guides or infographics based on the industry knowledge you captured in your livestream.
And don’t forget to sift through that content for quotes from attendees, speakers, sponsors and exhibitors that say positive things about your event and your organization. That way you’ll have yet another resource when it comes time to promote your next event.
Most importantly, when it comes to event content – use your imagination. It’s quite likely that the best use for it hasn’t been thought up yet.