Events & Conferences

Why Events?

Young et al. studied the impact of offline events upon online communities and discovered offline events can increase page views by 60.4% and participation by 27.2%.

Cluett and Seah (2011) noted that interactions and conversations between fans are “most vigorous during times of major events.”

• Events provide increased contact between individuals. The contact hypothesis (Allport, 1954) states that contact alone increased liking between individuals.

• Events celebrate the community identity. increased sense of community (often known as communitas).

• Events initiate leverage to sustain broader community goals.

• Events breed a shared sense of history.

• Events can help recruit volunteers to the community.

Event Types

• Attend conferences. Plan meetings and local opportunities in advance. take a look at the event, the keynotes, attendees, and companies and reach out to people of strategic interest to book meetings. Prioritize the hallway track. Spend your time in the hallway, at the expo, at the social events, and other places where people congregate. Bring business and community overview cards. produce some business card–sized cards that provide an overview of the community and the first three steps for getting involved. Network extensively, especially at the social events. The evening events are where relationships are often formed.

• Host Online Events.

  • Webinars.

  • Themed discussion.

  • Weekly interview with a VIP in the community’s sector.

  • Competitions/challenges.

  • Newcomer orientation.

  • Promotional days are a way to provide access to sponsors and opportunities for community members.

• Speaker Opportunities. Offering yourself as a guest speaker at meetups or conferences. Don’t make this a product or commercial pitch. Focus on sharing lessons learned that are of general interest to the audience. Practice, stay on time, and do a good job. This will get you invited to other events.

• Co-organize a small event (such as a meetup) with another organization. Keep things simple and focus on high-quality content. Provide a few talks, some Q&A, and plenty of networking.

• Organize your own meetup. Repeat the approach in the previous phase, but bigger and better. Have more in-depth content, have solid (and preferably well-known) speakers, and better food, drinks, and networking. Free events can experience up to a 50 percent dropout rate, so go gangbusters in getting bums on seats.

• Co-organize an sideline event, that is coscheduled next to another conference (so people are in town already) more attendees, multiple speakers and/or tracks, sponsors, exhibitors, and more.

• Organize one off dedicated events.

  • Milestones.

  • Fundraising days.

  • Broader victories and celebrations.

  • Product launches.

  • Member achievements.

  • Hall of fame induction.

• Organize your own conference. At this point you should have a dependable audience and community that will be interested in attending. You have to make this a success: the reputation and attendance of the event will reflect on you, your reputation, and your community.

Anticipation

The community must anticipate the event. Many organizations drip-release information about activities/performers/speakers over a period of time.

• Initial announcement.

• Drip information.

• Pre-registration announcement.

• Registration announcement.

• Number of registrations/speed of registrations. Many events later publish the number who have registered within a short time or the speed of registrations if the number is not apparently high, e.g. 100 people purchased tickets within the first hour as opposed to 150 have purchased tickets in the first week.

• Interviews with key individuals about the event.

• Event previews.

• Registration closing.

• Final details.

During the Event

Publish frequent content during the event. You want to make members who didn’t attend feel regret over not having attended, but also stay informed so they are not discouraged from participating in the community after the event. (Negative)

• Live blog.

• Interviews.

• Photos taken by community members and by the community manager can be published and frequently updated during the event. (Social media)

• Video footage.

• Daily summaries.

After the Event

Events need clear closure to sustain the sense of community among members and cement the event into the community’s shared history.

• Conclusion and thank you posts.

• Highlights/top 10 features.

• Call for suggestions for the next event.