A postevent strategy
How can you make the most of digital content after an event?
It's a definite theme for me so far at this meeting (see my first post on Sunday's general session). I attended the session Improve Member Loyalty via Digital Event Strategies with Dave Lutz and Jeff Hurt, and here was there recommendation.
The tendency, they say, is to have a big digital splash after the conference, sometimes referred to as the afterglow. The idea is everybody will come for a day-long digital content bonanza with facilitated chat and sessions and interaction with speakers and other attendees, etc. They're all for the digital bonanza to extend the experience of the event, and they like that it's scheduled. But better than doing it all in one fell swoop, why not space it out, with a piece of it on one day, some more a few weeks later and so on? Not only does this extend the life of the engagement your attendees have with your organization, but the passage of time will actually work to keep the content fresh. All of your attendees are having experiences in their work, and these experiences are going to continually change how they view the content you provide--new ideas, new conversations will continue the sense of discovery.
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Comments
To borrow from your next post, why not both? I bet most associations' meeting audiences are bipolar in their preferences/needs for post-event content: some come home jazzed about the event and want to apply things ASAP, or maybe want to access content for programs that were conflicts or programs with good word of mouth from others (so they'd prefer the big splash/afterglow); others want information when and where they need it as they ease back into work (and would prefer steady serialization of content).
Posted by: Kevin Whorton | August 9, 2011 8:20 AM