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How to structure an online conference

Mayra Shaikh August 2, 2021

As uncertainty still prevails, many organisations worldwide took a decision to transform their live physical events into virtual ones. The decision of bouncing back to live physical events has been put on hold by associations until everything clears out. With the second wave of the global pandemic, it has become clear to organizations that virtual events are likely to stay.

Today, virtual conferences have become an integral part of every organisation. It offers enormous benefits that are far beyond the capabilities of a physical conference. It not only enables attendees to connect with a diverse range of attendees globally but offers many more merits.

Nowadays, organising a virtual conference is a great opportunity to enhance reach, attract more attendees and generate ample business revenues. But, many planners fail to achieve the same. It might be due to improper planning and structure of an online conference. In this blog, we have amalgamated the best tips to structure an online conference to achieve maximum out of it. So, without wasting any further time, it’s time for you to get started. Explore the tips to structure an online conference and achieve optimal results.

Tips to Structure Online Conference

We have listed some of the tips to structure your online conference that delivers results below:

1. Determine the objective and goals of your virtual conference

Identify your virtual conference goals and objectives before you start planning anything. If you are clear with your goals what you want to achieve, you are most likely to curate an effective strategy. Think about it why you are planning to organise a virtual conference. Whether you are planning a virtual conference to boost sales and business revenues? Or launch a new product? Or it’s a simple conference to have discussions with business delegates. Think about it beforehand to structure your online conference in the right way.

2. Create compelling content for your online conference

Curating compelling and engaging content is a must to get the maximum out of your virtual conference. Make sure your content is engaging enough to hold the attention of attendees. Additionally, the conference content must have relevant information that you would like to convey to your attendees.

3. Keep the length of your sessions shorter

Attendees attend the virtual conference right from their remote locations and are not surrounded by others. Watching an elongated session on screen for long hours is just not stimulating. It results in the dropping of attendees amid the sessions. Additionally, other distractions while attending the virtual conference may even crop in. A simple ring at the doorbell or a child cry at home results in losing concentration during long sessions. It is always advised to trim the length of your elongated virtual sessions to keep attendees engaged. Make sure to keep the length of your conference sessions shorter. You can even opt to include breaks in long sessions. It will give time to attendees to relax and have discussions with other attendees.

4. Leverage the right virtual conference platform

Select the right virtual conference platform that offers an extensive range of networking, engagement, and data analytics features. Apart from it, if the platform offers custom branding solutions what’s better than that? A virtual conference platform has a major role in delivering a smooth event and ensuring conference success.

5. Offer engaging options during the virtual conference

Keeping attendees engaged with your online conference is a must to ensure success. Offer various opportunities for engagement during the virtual conferences to take the engagement levels a notch high. You can opt to introduce live polls and surveys. It not only helps in boosting attendee engagement but helps organisers gain attendees’ opinions. Apart from it, you can opt to organise quizzes, contests, and more. Introduce social walls, AR/VR virtual games such as spin the wheel, word finder, etc. photo booths to your virtual conferences to boost fun and excitement.

6. Add external plugins and social media links

External plugins are of much help. It not only allows one to have 1:1 discussions but enables one to connect even after the event gets over. You can even embed social media links to your virtual conference to get the most out of it. It will help your event reach a wider segment of attendees who are not part of the event. As social media have millions of active users embedding social media links to your virtual conference will be a smart move.

7. Keep your online conference backed by professional customer support

A lot many attendees will be new to virtual event formats and some are not tech-savvy too. Offer professional assistance throughout your virtual conference for a seamless attendee journey. It will help attendees navigate every aspect of the conference seamlessly. Additionally, they can simply ask and resolve their queries during the event with the help of professional customer support.

8. Invite the most talented and experienced speakers

With an online conference, you can invite the most talented and experienced speakers from around the world. During physical conferences, you miss out on them due to various reasons such as expenses and geographical restrictions. Sometimes speakers are not ready to travel location other times they charge a very high fee for traveling. All these obstacles get completely resolved with virtual conferences. Speakers can tune in from their remote locations and deliver a speech thus resulting in a cost-effective deal for both organiser and speaker. You can simply hire the most talented speakers for your virtual conference to gain the maximum out of it.

9. Offer breakout sessions

Breakout sessions during virtual conferences allow attendees to get relax and conclude the sessions they watched. Additionally, they even get a chance to interact with other attendees present during the conference.

10. Do not forget to send reminder notifications

It is advised not to skip sending reminders to your conference participants before the start of the event. Make sure to send reminders a week ago and just an hour before an online conference too. It helps in keeping attendees informed about the upcoming conference. Additionally, if there is any change in the schedule, reminder notifications help in keeping attendees informed.

Final Word

In the above-mentioned article, we have listed the best ways to structure an online conference to get the maximum out of it. Hope it helps you out to host a successful virtual conference!

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