Live streaming your event online is a great way to increase your audience size. However, to make sure viewers don’t get bored and switch off you need to do more than simply pop on the webcam.

For the at-home experience to be as engaging as possible you need to make sure it goes beyond simply watching TV. Really effective hybrid events should deliver the core features of the day both online and off – this includes the opportunity for people to learn and have their questions answered, and the chance to network with other attendees.

Here, we take a look at what tech is being used by organisers of hybrid events to engage their remote audiences and truly integrate those attendees into the proceedings.

Wirecast

The Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) has been live streaming its big conferences since 2014. To do that, the organisers use Wirecast. The video production software can be used with just a webcam, or you can produce a more sophisticated broadcast by connecting multiple cameras.

The footage can be streamed directly to Facebook Live, Twitter, Periscope or YouTube, from where viewers can make comments and ask questions. The system has built-in comment curation and display and you can also poll your audience, showing real-time animated bar charts and pie charts.

Kate Hadley, Head of Events at PLSA, says they select the key sessions from each event to broadcast: “While it is naturally tricky to choose between sessions, we look for those which we feel have the broadest appeal as they look at big picture issues with well-known speakers or those which have a practical element which will help our members with their day-to-day roles.

“To make it as interactive as possible, we encourage those who are using this facility to view sessions remotely to ask questions via the software. While we have as yet not built any formal feedback mechanisms for those using web streaming, the viewer numbers and the repeated requests for this type of content highlight its relative importance. We can say that we seem to have a surprisingly international audience with people from the UK, US and France tuning in.

“It is interesting to note that even those who actually attend on the day often value this type of content as they can share it with colleagues or use the version we upload to YouTube to check facts and figures used within presentations.”

Slido

If your preferred live stream tool doesn’t offer the ability for viewers to ask questions (or you want enhanced functionality, Event Consultant Paul Heil recommends you use Slido. Having previously been in charge of marketing the software, he’s seen it deployed at all sorts of events.

When used for engaging virtual audiences, you can embed the Slido interface into your website besides the live stream. Alternatively, you can insert your live stream embed code into Slido and provide attendees with a passcode to access it. As well as using Slido to crowdsource questions from your remote attendees, you can get them involved with polls and show them slides.

Paul says: “Live or streamed, audience engagement is key. The best way to keep the engagement high at a hybrid event is with an audience engagement tool like Sli.do. It can be displayed live at the event and also embedded into the live stream video for those viewing online.

“As long as the event organiser introduces and manages the tool correctly and has an event moderator motivating/inviting live and streaming participation, it’s a recipe for success. This way, those viewing the stream can make a question from their location and they can see their question appear live at the event and even have their question answered. This gives the streamed participants the highest level of engagement and participation possible without actually being at the live event.”

Glisser

Glisser is another audience engagement tool that can be used simultaneously by attendees at the venue and those online. Organisers can use Facebook Live or YouTube Live Events to make the live broadcast, which can then appear in a branded landing page created by Glisser. Through the URL, organisers can share slides in real-time, conduct polls and moderate incoming questions.

Jamie Vaughan, Chief Commercial Officer, Glisser says: “The participant will simply need to go to the unique URL pushed by the organiser, input their email (optional) and they are in. Of course, the organiser will need to set up the content and landing page beforehand, this is simple enough, and arrange for the sessions to be streamed. I have actually seen this done with a mobile phone on a tripod over Facebook Live and it was surprisingly ok!

“One point of note, streaming will often have a lag, 5-10 seconds. Normally the user is none the wiser but, with Glisser as a real-time content sharer, you just need to account for the time delay.”

Jamie adds that Glisser’s own experiences of hosting hybrid events have resulted in excellent remote engagement. “Here at Glisser we have been doing this for a while and it is really close to actually being there,” he says. “We did an event a couple of months back on the implications of GDPR for marketers, where we heavily promoted the physical, not the virtual but ended up with around double the amount of participants online. We received more questions from the virtual audience. I do not believe this is the death of physical events, far from it, I believe it amplifies the coverage.”

CrowdCast

With CrowdCast, organisers can amplify their reach with the ability to stream live events across multiple social platforms at the same time (including Facebook, YouTube and Periscope). The moderator can view questions coming in from each platform, consolidated in one dashboard, and centrally set polls to appear across all social sites. To enable people to participate outside of social media, organisers simply provide them with a unique URL or embed CrowdCast into their own website.

Keir Whitaker, Event Marketing Lead, at Shopify says: “We run a lot of webinars and use CrowdCast, which enables people to engage by asking questions. The MC usually encourages questions at the beginning, as well as in advance (we sometimes used Twitter for this) but mostly it’s verbal at the beginning and during breaks. The MC will then triage them and ask accordingly depending on the time allowance.

“We’ve also used ZOOM to record multiple people in multiple locations and that has worked pretty well. For more “true” live streaming from events, we’ve used other things like Facebook Live and Ustream. Facebook Live seems to work well and allows quite a bit of interaction.”

Grip 

We’ve covered asking questions, but what about networking remotely? Making connections might seem more of a challenge without the ability to “press the flesh,” however technology can help you do this virtually. Grip offers a brandable native app that can be used by online and offline attendees, as well as exhibitors. It utilises artificial intelligence (fed by attendees’ LinkedIn profiles) to match them together.

The system makes networking suggestions, which users can accept or dismiss Tinder-style. If both attendees express interest in one another, it’s depicted as a “handshake” and they can then exchange instant messages within the app. Grip even facilitates the establishment of user communities, which can stay active after the event.

Jack Geddes, Marketing Manager at Grip, says: “Our “AI Matchmaking Engine” helps attendees to network in a fast and effective way – recommending people to talk to based on their interests and business needs. We also have a web app for attendees that don’t want to download apps to their device.”

Conclusion

This super software selection makes it easy to show your remote attendees the love they deserve. Team your tech with a moderator who can select questions from your online audience to be answered live, making them feel part of the proceedings. And don’t forget about your virtual attendees between sessions; having a dedicated MC to interact during breaks can ensure you don’t lose viewers.