The sphere of Virtual Events has attained heightened prevalence amongst the mainstream world in the last few months. As a consequence of the Covid 19 pandemic, many significant conferences had to be hosted over virtual conference platforms. Although the virtual shift of the event industry occurred in a state of compulsion, it has now become a thriving concept. This is because hosting conferences online has numerous advantages, including cost benefits and maximized reach.
Let’s dig in a little deep to know more about Virtual Conferences.
What is a Virtual Conference?
A Virtual Conference is everything like a physical conference yet, a lot different in the most fundamental way. It is also a combination of multiple sessions like keynotes, panel discussions, educational sessions, product demos, training and certification, seminars, etc. A virtual conference promotes interactivity and brings together a broad group of people sharing a common industrial background from across the world to plan, learn, and network. It allows all the remote participants to attend the event from any location around the world. Earlier, it used to be a difficult task for the organizers to host a significant conference in the presence of all its stakeholders, employees, and field experts, especially for the organizations spread across cities and nations.
This is where the concept of virtual events came to the rescue and made it all a way more manageable job. Basically, all you have to do is get your event plan ready and collaborate with the most suitable virtual conference platform. Advanced event technology has developed various innovative tools and elements that help the organizers meet their goals more effectively than ever before.
Hosting a Virtual Conference comes with extraordinary features that serve the interest of all.
Let’s begin by understanding various features of Virtual Conferences to host your event with the right approach and provide your participants with the best event experience.
Features of a Virtual Conference
#1 Personalized Tools
Personalization is one of the most vital aspects of a virtual conference platform. You would want your virtual venue provider to offer efficient customizing options so you can design the structure according to your conference requirements.
For example, if you are a business that wants to keep up the interaction with its participants throughout the conference, you would wish to use advanced interactivity tools like live audio, video, and text chat.
By hosting your conference in a virtual venue, you get excellent personalization tools to customize everything from booths to buttons. You also get the opportunity to personalize different virtual spaces like exhibit halls, networking lounges, breakout rooms, lobby, auditoriums, conference halls, etc.
#2 Social Promotion
Ensuring maximum registration and participation of your attendees is very vital to ensure a successful virtual conference. And, is there any better way to do it than social promotion? This feature of a Virtual Conference works wonders when it comes to building a social presence for your event.
You can efficiently promote your Virtual Conference over various social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. The social promotion of your event not only maximizes its reach but also creates a pre-event buzz that later on helps you with the engagement opportunities.
#3 Live Broadcasting
With the help of the live streaming and recording feature, the sessions of your virtual conference can be accessible to all your remote attendees in real-time. It is a major part of any virtual event as an online experience is incomplete without video streaming. The live broadcasting feature enables the participants to interact with each other through tools like Q&As, polls, chats, surveys, etc.
Also, you get the option to record all your conference sessions and make them accessible to your target audience even after the event is over. Many Virtual Conference Platforms also have the feature of storing all the videos from your conference. These recorded sessions can also facilitate you with future marketing strategies.
#4 Automation
Hosting virtual conferences comes with its own set of difficulties. You might feel doubtful about handing over the responsibility of set-up and management to your virtual venue partners. However, this is one of the best parts of organizing your event over a virtual event platform. For example, an automated platform lets the exhibitors make required event changes without asking for any backend support. This feature also facilitates the smooth execution of your virtual conference as you can easily focus on each element of the event.
Ask your virtual venue partners about the automation facilities they provide.
#5 Advanced Networking Opportunities
Organizing a Virtual Conference means saying yes to unparalleled networking opportunities. A virtual conference platform is well-resourced with innovative networking tools that have changed the way we generate leads and interact with potential allies. The multiple elements on a virtual platform ensure excellent networking for all your participants in all aspects. For example, many top-notch virtual conference platforms render you with tools like advanced search filters and AI matchmaking. Dreamcast also provides the exceptional B2B meeting scheduler tool, through which your participants can easily schedule meetings with other attendees, exhibitors, or experts at a suitable time during or after the event.
#6 Sponsorship
Sponsorships are known to elevate the credibility of Virtual Conferences by adding more value to your event sessions. The engagement of your remote attendees plays a vital role in ensuring the success of your virtual conference, and sponsorships can efficiently elevate the engagement prospects at your event.
You can add many sponsored elements to your virtual event like sponsored coffee breaks, sponsored entertainment sessions, sponsored meals, sponsored swag bags, etc. The right sponsorship tools will not only help you add more value to your virtual conference but also in keeping your attendees engaged.
#7 Customer Support
Hosting an event over a virtual event platform also comes with the possibility of technical errors and challenges. There can be technical concerns like internet connectivity, sign-in difficulties, device support, etc., that can disrupt the flow of your virtual event. Therefore, it’s necessary to troubleshoot any possible error beforehand.
However, your Virtual Conference can have 24*7 backend customer care support to ensure the smooth execution of your virtual event.
#8 Reports and Analytics
Reporting is one element that brings a huge difference between a physical and virtual conference. While it gets difficult to keep the records of every data over a physical event, the virtual platform makes it much more simple. You can easily gain and organize valuable event data about all your participants with the help of your virtual platform’s insight tool.
The data record of your virtual conference does not only help in analyzing your current strategy but also in planning your future events.
Make sure your virtual venue provider offers you the event insights, so you can improve the useful features and eliminate the non-useful ones.
#9 Feedback
Last but not least, Feedback is another important feature of a Virtual Conference. Advanced event solutions present you with the opportunity to collect digital Feedback from your participants. Accumulating reviews and feedback from your attendees helps you understand them and also the efficacy of your event. This data analytics also assists you in optimizing the performance of your future virtual events. An advanced virtual platform technology provides various feedback tools like surveys, polls, feedback forms, live chat, etc.
Different Types of Virtual Conferences
Today, every type of industry is stepping towards hosting virtual conferences. Let’s explore the top 5 types of Virtual Conferences.
#1 Virtual Round Table Conference
The goal of the round-table conference is to conduct a close discussion on a specific topic of significance to the industry niche. However, it became a trying task to gather all the important participants and hold a roundtable discussion. But, in the wake of Virtual Events Technology, organizing a Round-Table Conference is possible again.
A Virtual Round Table Conference helps all the participants gather over a virtual conference platform and confront important issues.
#2 Virtual Marketing Conference
A Virtual Marketing Conference is where experts and participants belonging to the marketing industry gather and have relevant discussions. Organizing marketing conferences is becoming increasingly prevalent as marketing itself is an aspect of the virtual events industry. Just like physical conferences, a virtual marketing conference also includes keynotes, seminars, presentations, training, entertainment sessions, etc.
#3 Virtual Press Conference
Press Conferences are undoubtedly an important aspect of every industry and organization. With the help of virtual conference platforms, organizing an efficient online press conference has become an easy task. The speaker can now share the significant information over a screen and the journalists listen carefully, make notes, and ask questions later on. Hosting a smooth press conference is easier over a virtual venue as the annoyance of hassle and quarrel is eliminated.
#4 Virtual Academic Conference
Like every other sphere, the academic world has also shifted to online platforms for all significant activities, meetings, and conferences. In a virtual academic conference, the academicians and researchers get the opportunity to share their latest works and discuss the latest developments.
#5 Virtual Business Conference
Hosting important business conferences became a problematic task, especially for large businesses with their employees spread over remote locations. However, the virtual events advancements have enabled them to organize successful Virtual Business Conferences, where all the stakeholders, employees, and experts can be a part of the event. Business Conferences hold great importance for all organizations as it is an event where all the participants gather and discuss the plans, developments, strategies, policies, etc.
