When you’re trying to convince decision makers at your organization to authorize spending for a virtual event, do you often find that there is confusion about what a “virtual event” really is? Many people think that virtual events are “webinars” or “online live meetings.” While it’s true that virtual events contain some similar elements to webinars and live meetings, the full spectrum of what you can do with a virtual event goes beyond a simple webinar or online conference.
Webinars: Webinars are “web seminars” which usually allow mainly “one way” communication – like a lecture or seminar, which makes them ideal for training or educational purposes. Webinars tend to have limited visual/interactive features. A typical webinar is mostly a conference call plus a slideshow. Webinars might also include features such as live or streaming video, text chat, whiteboards, screen sharing or desktop sharing, and polls and surveys with multiple choice questions to allow the facilitator to check the understanding of the audience and create engagement.
How is a webinar different from a virtual event?
Webinars do not offer the same level of rich content as a virtual event. It’s harder to track attendee participation or measure engagement on as many levels as a virtual event can. Webinars are often not able to sync or integrate with social media, so the content is often highly self-contained within the webinar, unable to have a “life of its own” after the meeting is over.
Live meetings: Offered by such services as Microsoft Live Meeting, Cisco WebEx and GoToMeeting, these “live meeting” options offer many of the same features as webinars, but they have more of an emphasis on voice and video chat, enabling people to communicate and collaborate from remote locations. The difference between live meetings and Webinars is that live meetings tend to be more interactive with more “two-way communication” and video conferencing. In a live meeting, all participants are more likely to be expected to participate via audio and video than in a webinar where often the only person speaking is the host/facilitator of the seminar. If a webinar is more like a college lecture hall, then a live meeting is more like a typical corporate meeting or brainstorming session, but the attendees do not have to be present in the same room at the same location.
How is a live meeting different from a virtual event?
Virtual events tend to offer a higher degree of interactive features and visually rich content compared to a live meeting. Another big difference is the scale and size of the audience that can be accommodated. The primary purpose of most live meeting software solutions is to bring together smaller groups of people for interpersonal communication and collaboration. With virtual events platforms, you can host much larger gatherings of people, numbering into the thousands.
What makes virtual events different from webinars and live meetings?
Virtual events are the next level of evolution in online interaction, building on some of the same types of features and tools that became popular with webinars and live meetings. The main difference is that virtual events are seeking to re-create many of the real-life effects and atmosphere of a large conference or trade show. Attendees can create their own detailed profiles and avatars, socialize and network online at virtual “exhibit halls” and online communities, and integrate their activities at the virtual event with their existing online networks via social media like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
Virtual events also give the hosts/organizers a much more detailed and insightful array of metrics and instant polling (like the Social27 Mood-o-meter) to track attendees’ interests, responses and emotional reactions to the virtual event content at every stage.
Another difference is that while webinars and live meetings tend to be created out of “one size fits all” software packages with certain set offerings of features, virtual events can be customized using virtual event platforms like Social27. You can choose as few or as many “bells and whistles” as you need for your event, and your virtual event platform provider can help you along the way to design, plan and market your virtual event for maximum impact.
The good news is that, in many cases, the investment that you have made in previous webinars does not have to be thrown away. Instead, by bringing your content into a richer virtual event environment you can extend the dialogue over time and give your customers more ways to interact with each other and your company. Don’t let your valuable content expire. Breathe new life into it through virtual events!
About Ike Singh
Ike Singh Kehal is the CEO and co-founder of Social27, a leading virtual events solution with Enterprise clients across the globe. Ike is a respected business professional with 15+ years of marketing, sales, and business development experience. His latest company, Social27 was founded in 2007 to take advantage of the growing need for social media and game dynamics integration in virtual events. Prior to starting Social27, Ike drove numerous startup projects, including Indiabulls Retail, where he was CEO. Previously, he held various business strategy positions at Microsoft, spread over a seven-year period. Ike is a committed member of the virtual events community and contributes regularly to the discussion at http://www.virtualeventshub.com
Join the conversation. Agree with me? Good. Disagree? Even Better! Tell me why…
What are the biggest misconceptions that people have about virtual events as compared to webinars? What do you see as the added value of using a virtual event as opposed to a simpler webinar or live meeting?
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This is my personal view but I think this misses what really makes a virtual event a virtual event, that is, the sense of occasion, and the ability for the platform and content teams to work together to make the best experience possible.
That sense of occasion that is so essential to a good event does not come from browsing half-complete user profiles, or browsing links to pre-existing websites. It’s down to well treated, well informed participants being exposed to relevant, up-to-date, well presented content that gets them the information they need as efficiently as possible.
When the show is over and the curtains close, people need to be left thinking “whew, that was good. I want to do this again.”.
The term “virtual event,” is OK, but I still wish the industry had a better term for what you are describing – something flashier, catchier – cuter. “Webinar” caught on because it’s a “cute” amalgamation of two words: web and seminar. We need a word like that to describe the rich environment you call a “virtual event.”
Additionally, you wrote: “Webinars are “web seminars” which usually allow mainly “one way” communication – like a lecture or seminar, which makes them ideal for training or educational purposes.” I disagree there. I do not believe that “one way” communication can result in effective training or education. I believe learning requires the two-way communication you describe later (when differentiating virtual events from webinars).
In training, you usually have one of three objectives: knowledge/communication, comprehension, or application. While I think a one-way webinar “could” result in knowledge/communication (for example an overview of a new piece of software or a business process), I do not believe it could result in either comprehension (a practical understanding of how to use the application or business process) or application (being able to effectively use the new application or process). A true virtual learning event would allow attendees to come away with new actionable knowledge or skills – something that a “one-way” communication (webinar) could not achieve.
Now, if we could only come up with a better word for it!