When going digital, segments that you planned to feature live may not be as effective or interesting to a viewer watching remotely through a screen. To make sure your event remains engaging, you need to ensure the content is re-thought to keep viewers entertained. Simply live streaming a presentation won’t cut the mustard; you’re producing a TV show now… Break your content down into shorter snappier segments to keep the pace moving. Give someone the role of host to help guide the audience, make links and keep the energy levels high. Involve more people to add variety and involve different perspectives with interviews and pre-shot videos.

Videos can help the audience appreciate the context around a topic. Bring back the human aspect to your event through pre-shot customer case studies and interviews – or even user-generated content from employees or go live to them at home. This will help viewers feel involved and bring a sense of community that your webcast will need to help compensate for it not being a live event.

As you’re now designing your live event as a live TV show, you could create opening graphics and stings in order to bookmark different features and to break the webcast down into bitesize and watchable sections. Using ‘The One Show’ as an example, it’s made up of multiple smaller sections so to maintain the audience’s attention and other shows use video stings to trail what’s coming later to help build anticipation (and give presenters a momentary break).

Using simple, well designed slides and well thought-through video segments will aid the viewer in understanding complex points quickly. You’re no longer presenting on a large screen as you would be at a live event, so you don’t want to put overly detailed content on your slides. Critically, slides aren’t there for the benefit of the presenters – If your audience is trying hard to decipher what the small text on your slides is saying, they won’t be listening to what you’re saying. Your slides should be well designed to support the narrative with detail to compliment your points, not distract from what’s being said.

It’s all too easy to default to presenting your webcast as a one-way lecture as opposed to an interactive two-way street. It’s therefore essential to utilise various interactive tools in order to keep viewers engaged with the event content. You can increase communication between the viewers and presenter using tools like Glisser with interactive polls and hosting Q&A’s.

If there’s a big announcement that everyone’s waiting to hear on the webcast, make sure you schedule this towards the end to keep them watching and use ‘coming up soon’ graphics to tease it.

You’d never see a TV show filmed in a single wide shot. So, for maximum impact, you’ll need a combination of shots to choose from to make it more interesting to watch. Using multiple cameras will allow you to mix from presenter to slides when the presenter is covering a lot of detail – or you can cut to a wide shot of the set so that the viewer can see more of the theme and surroundings. And don’t forget the use of close-ups to emphasise big points.

Unless your presenters are very confident, you could consider using some prompting software but make sure you practice before the big day. If you’re the presenter, consider how best to present different parts of the webcast. You could look down the lens and address the audience directly, but keep in mind that this may need practise pre-event to master. Never forget to allow for rehearsal time, this will pay dividends and give everyone more confidence. And if you’re feeling unsure, get help from a professional coach on how to present on camera.

Get the most out of your content and make the webcast available on-demand for viewing later to increase the number of people who can watch it.

Webcasts can be a great way to communicate if you plan them carefully. They’re time efficient, they can be a cost-effective way to reach lots of people and can enable people to attend who couldn’t usually.

Be as creative as possible, use the tricks of TV production to keep people engaged and introduce human and personal touches to bring your content to life.

Whether a virtual experience can ever match up to the energy of being in a darkened room with presenters standing on a stage is a moot point. A virtual event is inevitably a different medium. One thing’s for sure though, on a virtual event your delegates aren’t trapped in a room until the coffee break, so truly engaging your audience to keep them watching is more critical than ever. So ‘Use the Force’ and tap into what they’re feeling and thinking.

To be really effective online, you have to understand who your audience is and carefully tune that content to them. Talk to your target audience ahead of shaping the content. What are they concerned about, inspired by, excited about? Then tune your content to reflect what they’re thinking and reference it throughout the process.

Next, find your event’s ‘why’: Why are you holding the event? What do you want your audience to think/feel/do as a result of attending? This is your Why and ideally, you need to keep measuring everything you plan to do in your event against it.

Finally, find the relevant, human stories that will resonate with your audience; the stories that support your ‘why’ and bring them to life. This is the genius of Star Wars – we love the characters, their humanity and it’s the characters that make us care – it’s just the same with communicating in business. Human stories simply have more cut-through.

Video is the lightsabre of online events. Use it to increase audience interest and retention online. Create compelling video content such as case studies or feature pieces with human angles and plan to do it well in advance so you don’t have to compromise. Use videos to break-up presentations and create context and variety. You could also pre-shoot interviews or get attendees to send in user-generated content to bring alternative perspectives. This could lend a little of that community feel to your event that may otherwise be lacking online.

A common mistake is to approach an online event as a one-way lecture as opposed to an interactive two-way street. If you design a virtual event like you would a live event, you’re missing a trick. If you simply plan to have a series of presentations delivered to camera by succession of speakers doing what they’d do usually on a stage – just online, you risk missing the unique opportunities online events offer. Virtual events are an opportunity to build a deeper relationship with your audience so that they feel more involved with your brand and more engaged with your business, so think about ways to enhance 2-way communication between viewers and presenters by designing interactive moments into your event. And be creative! Tools such as Glisser, Poll Everywhere and Slido are great for creating interactive polls and hosting live Q&A’s. Make sure you choose the right one for your situation and needs and get your audience to rate each presentation & give feedback. The opportunity to learn what worked and what didn’t is hugely valuable. Use the force Luke…

You’ve got a great programme, you’ve put in the effort to make it compelling, so you’ll want to be sure that you don’t end up with a poor turnout on the day. Gaining commitment to attendance can be easier online but it’s also easier for people to forget, re-prioritise and opt for viewing on-demand later which is fine, but can kill the buzz.

To help mitigate this, be sure to start promoting your virtual event at least four weeks before the date of the livestream and encourage pre-registration to the event so that you can be confident that you’ve met your goals and in enough time to allow you to flex your marketing accordingly.

Create a promotional campaign that teases the target audience in advance. Create short video ads to give a sense of what will be covered and give your event a tone of voice so that it becomes a ‘must attend’ occasion. Services like Eventbrite can painlessly help promote, manage, pre-poll and diarise events for attendees.

It might be useful to think of your virtual event as less of a presentation and more of a performance on a live TV show. But bear in mind that professional TV presenters are the Jedi masters of their trade! A lack of confidence when presenting to camera will definitely show when your audience tunes in. Be sure that both the host of the webcast and any other presenters rehearse each segment like Jedi knights in training prior to the webcast launch so that everybody featured knows the technicalities of how to use whatever platform you’re using, how to share slides and how to present with confidence to camera. And rehearse, rehearse, rehearse – both presenters and technical crew. The more you rehearse, the slicker it will be.

If you’re unsure of the technology you’re going to be using, make sure you have a team on board who can give your virtual event the best chance of success. Unexpected technical issues and a lack of preparation for how you intend to fix them could risk everything you’ve worked for.

If you’re concerned that the broadband for remote contributors might not be fast or stable enough, technology exists to combine cellular and Wi-Fi connections to ensure the livestream doesn’t go down half-way through. Manage your risks rather than hoping for the best and plan what you’re going to do should the worst happen.

Clear audio, good lighting of contributors are other basic but critical details to get right. Ensure that you’re able to troubleshoot any potential technical difficulties ahead of the event and mitigate risks during the livestream.

Be sure to consider your audience demographic and time-zones when deciding on a suitable time to schedule your webcast. Ensure that your webcast is available to stream on-demand after the event to allow flexibility for as many people as possible to view it.

Avoid people missing the start of your webcast by encouraging attendees to install any software needed in good time before you start, so your online event starts as smoothly and as professionally as possible.

Virtual events are a great tool for engaging employees, building leads and sharing knowledge. By being careful not to make these common mistakes, you can produce a professional-looking virtual event that gives a true return for your investment.

May the Force be with you.

You need to think of the camera as being your audience, so it’s important to have in mind who you’re addressing. You could have a specific colleague or friend you could pretend is in the online audience. Try to imagine that specific person when you talk to the camera and speak as if they were in the room with you.

Let’s face it, talking directly into a lens (if you’re not used to it) can feel really uncomfortable. It feels odd.  You might feel a bit awkward and there’s no energy coming from an audience that you can bounce off and work with, which makes it harder to stay focused. It’s really important to look straight down the camera lens when presenting because it shows that you’re engaged with what you’re saying, the message you’re delivering and it helps to build a connection with the viewer.

Another common mistake when presenting a webcast is not resisting the temptation to check how you’re looking whilst filming. As a viewer, seeing the eyes of the presenter flick away from the lens even momentarily can be really distracting. Make sure that you’re in frame and in focus before recording – then keep your eyeline fixed on the lens and avoid the temptation to glance away.

Remember, it’s not a staring contest and you want to appear relaxed when presenting, so feel free to look away for a second or two if it feels natural – but keep the lens as the resting gaze target that you always return to. To help, you could put an arrow on a sticky note above where you need to look as a constant reminder.

Sounds like common sense this one, but make sure you are physically prepared to present. Have a snack 10 minutes before you start recording to ensure that your energy levels are boosted (nothing worse than that ‘hangry’ feeling sneaking in when you’re trying to be bubbly and engaging!). Have a glass of water on-hand to stay hydrated and keep your voice clear. You could even prepare your voice with a couple of vocal warmups before you start so that you sound more natural on camera.

If you’re a little bit nervous on camera, you may find yourself speeding up when you’re speaking. This may not even be apparent to you at the time, but it will certainly be apparent to viewers who are trying to take in what you’re saying.

So it’s important to make a conscious effort to slow down and take a few deep breaths before filming and between your different key points. Allowing for your messages to air for a second after you say them will help make sure your points land properly and are able to be digested by the audience.

If you don’t appear interested in what you’re saying, your audience definitely won’t be! A perceived lack of interest will affect your delivery and therefore impact the connection with viewers in the messages you are trying to deliver. Try to find a clear narrative in your presentation and deliver it in an engaging way that keeps viewers interested.

This is where thorough planning of your presentation can really help. The pressure of having to read a script word-perfectly could make you come across as rigid or monotonous, so to sound more natural on camera, it’s better  to find some quiet time to memorise what you want to say and use an outline of the key points as your prompt.

And don’t forget to smile a little! It will make your delivery sound much more friendly and genuine.

Whatever you do, don’t make the cardinal mistake of using your slides as your prompt. Working this way means the audience just reads ahead of you and they end up simply waiting for you to deliver the things they can see you’re planning to say instead of listening to you.

Your slides should support what you’re saying but not spell it out. Use images and metaphors to keep the audience engaged and listening.

This could be a news presenter or even a particular YouTuber or internet personality. Watch their segments on TV or videos online and take notes on how they present to camera. Ask yourself what it is that they’re doing to make you feel engaged and connected? It’s this connection that you’re aiming to replicate with your audience. Try and incorporate these same things into your own performance.

Professional public speaker coach Naomi Venables says:

“As presenters move from stage to screen there are new rules in play.  While the story is still king, bringing that to life is different. The camera is much closer to the action than an audience in the room, so presentation skills need to focus on being even more present to your story, your words and how you bring them to life.  Crafting the best words and rehearsing has never been more important.”

This really is the biggest tip we can give – practise, practise, practise! Make a trial video of your presentation and film it in one long continuous take, then watch it back again – you’ll probably notice a lot of ‘ums’ and ‘errs’ along with other filler words or nervous movements. It’s important to be aware of them because they can become distracting. Being mindful of these behaviours will help you avoid overdoing them on camera.

Get used to hearing yourself and seeing yourself on camera – the more you do it and the more normal it becomes to you, the more you’ll be able to truly relax on camera and come across as a true natural performer!

Business presentation via Zoom call? Or prime-time television? I know which one I’d rather watch… We’re so used to consuming such great quality entertainment on TV these days that it’s pretty hard to get overly excited about a webcast. This is why it’s time to consider your approach and take a bit of inspiration from TV shows – because there’s no reason why it can’t be just as entertaining and enjoyable to watch. Be creative and have fun with it. Accept that you might not be able to cram in all the detail and prioritise your messages. Then, think about how to tell stories, interview people to get different perspectives and make your points land in more creative ways.

How do you get your webcast to have the impact of a TV show? The key is to enhance it with pre-prepared content – such as video, animation and graphics to maintain pace and variety.

Creating short video stings to use as intros and outros to your various segments really helps increase production values and playing pre-prepared content like video case studies or reports will add depth and different perspectives.

If you’re the main presenter, doing this yourself (unless you’re technically savvy and have 3 hands) may mean finding a willing third party to help you mix your content seamlessly. How does this work? Using a relatively inexpensive piece of video switching kit such as the ATEM Mini a tech-savvy person can perform the role of vision mixer giving them the ability to mix between various livestreams & sources such as cameras, videos and slides, making the whole production more TV-like. For instance, they could play an opening title video to introduce the subject matter at the start of the webcast and then switch to your video input to start presenting the webcast. Whilst you talk, a name strap could appear to introduce your name and title and so on. TV production values on a budget that really increase the watchability of your webcast.

Add some life into your webcast by introducing humour and emotion into any additional video content you create. You need to ‘think human’ and assess what people will relate to. For example, an animation could work well to explain certain complex topics you’re talking about or to tell a story succinctly. Check out our guide on How to Tell your story through animation.

Another worthwhile ‘TV-inspired’ technique could be to create short video clips as teasers for what will be coming up later in the webcast. Animations such as ‘coming up next…’ or ‘coming up after the break…’ will keep your audience watching. Another classic TV-technique is to build up to the main item on the agenda or the big announcement throughout but cover it towards the end of the webcast to ensure that your audience stays tuned throughout.

Make your webcast more dynamic by using multiple presenters through live or pre-recorded interviews. Allowing a variety of angles to tell your story will make your webcast more watchable. You could consider including people that your audience wouldn’t necessarily expect to hear from to add an element of surprise. One of the benefits of webcasting vs. a live event is that potentially you can free up budget to spend on higher production values – like special guests or subject matter experts. Or you could invite colleagues and various team members to present and give more of a team/community feel to your webcast. Lastly, investing in some presenter coaching might be worthwhile to make sure that your delivery is polished and professional on-camera.

Back to the technical side of proceedings, having a backdrop can really level-up the professional look to your webcast. Choosing which backdrop to use for your webcast will depend on your price range, how big your room is and how wide an angle the camera is set to. Go for something abstract to give you flexibility with positioning. A simple curved panel works well and could be complimented by some TV-friendly furniture. Adding some soft furnishings like branded or on-brand coloured cushions can help create more of a studio-feel.

As a general rule of thumb, the higher the interaction level between you and your audience, the higher the engagement you’ll have with those watching. Engage with your audience by utilising online tools such as Glisser with polls and chat allow your audience to feedback and contribute their opinions to the webcast too.

Presenting from home should mean you’ll be at ease and at your most relaxed on your webcast. However, you need to present with energy! If you find it daunting talking down the lens of a camera as opposed to a room full of people, it may be worth asking someone else to be in the room when you present to give you someone to focus on (watch your eyeline though!). Our advice is to rehearse the entire ‘show’ multiple times before streaming and make sure everyone else presenting is well versed in how the webcast will run.

You can increase the accessibility of your online event to those who may not have otherwise been able to attend by recording the webcast as it goes live and allow it to be viewed later on, on-demand.

It goes without saying that it’s worthwhile planning your webcast meticulously so that you can make the most of it. With a bit of planning and implementation of these 8 tips, you should be well on your way!

Firstly, it’s key to make sure you’ve fully assessed your intended audience. Do you really understand the demographics and characteristics of your attendees? What one key thing is on their mind right now? If you don’t yet have a clear picture of your audience and what they’re thinking, assessing these factors by sending out a short online survey in advance is a good idea. Having your finger firmly on your audience’s pulse will allow you to decide how best to tune your content to suit them & keep them watching.

Once you’ve done a deep dive into your audience’s characteristics & mindset, you need to decide what format your event should be. The key factor to bear in mind here is that you will need to go the extra mile; beyond creating a presentation that you might create for a live event if you’re going to keep your viewers engaged.

Depending on your content, ask yourself: Do you think that a simple presenter-to-camera approach will be interesting enough to keep people watching? Or would a studio sofa-based discussion-style setup be more likely to keep your viewers’ attention? There’s lots of options here, so think about TV show formats that could best suit your vibe and budget.

You’ll need to be as creative as possible to deliver your key messages with impact and make them memorable. You’re crafting an entire virtual experience for them to (fingers-crossed) enjoy, so keeping the delivery fun and varying the type of content will increase the likelihood of keeping viewers’ attention. There are some great online tools that allow you to interact live with your audience to boost interaction & generate insights. There are loads of platforms available which can deliver online events and give you analytics to measure how your audience received the event. Do your research to work out which one works best for your particular situation as they will all have their pros and cons.

Preparing rich content in advance, to stream during the webcast can really compliment your event. Whether this is a video or an animation you’ve commissioned, customer case studies, user-generated content or just simply creating visually-engaging slides with well-designed graphics – these visual aids will boost the impact of your messages and make sure you look professional.

All your content needs to be tailored to suit an online event as opposed to a live event. For example, when creating slides to support what you’re saying in your presentation, they need to be well designed and simple to understand. Your audience will be viewing the event on a far smaller screen compared to a projection screen in a venue, so there’s little point in sharing complex graphs or charts for your audience to spend time trying to analyse, if in doing so they completely miss what you are saying. Information overload is a real danger here, so be sure to simplify your messages, design them well and use them to support what you’re saying. If you have more to say than can comfortably be covered in the event, consider simultaneously releasing a document or white paper in advance of the event to prep the audience and fill in the details.

Any customer case studies or animations you produce need to add context and perspectives to your narrative. Live video links from another location can work nicely. For instance, dialling other members of your team and interviewing them. Look for different angles to your story and keep things varied and test the technicals thoroughly beforehand.

There’s something about a ‘live’ event that instinctively makes us want to attend, to diarise it, to be there. You can tease it, build up to it and create suspense and anticipation. The same thing goes for virtual events – being live beats on-demand in driving attendance hands down. But what can you do if you can’t control all the elements to make them live?

Whether your online event is best suited to being ‘live’ or if it’s better suited to being pre-recorded and made available ‘as live’ is a key question to answer early on so you have enough time to plan.

If you want to feature contributors who are unlikely to be able to join live, or you’re not confident in their broadband connection, pre-recording them is the best option. Pre-recording means you can still schedule your event with all the build-up of a live event; with a date and time to attend but you can relax in the knowledge that the risks presented by all elements being live have been minimised.

And you don’t have to pre-record the whole thing. A blend of pre-recorded elements and live reaction in a studio set-up means you can have the best of both worlds. And with the ability to react live to pre-recorded pieces, you can always re-frame things should circumstances have changed since recording.

Pre-recording parts of your webcast will also give you the opportunity to tighten things up and improve elements by tweaking the edit and adding graphics before making it available, without losing that sense of being ‘live’.

Rehearse, rehearse – then rehearse some more. Your presenters may be confident public speaking in front of an audience, but when they’re looking down the lens of camera as opposed to a room full of people, it really is a whole different ball game.

When delivering a presentation online you need to increase your efforts to build a connection with people who aren’t actually there in the room. This is a real skill. Be sure to rehearse your presenters and do some trial-runs on camera, using the technology. The more they rehearse, the better rapport they will be able to develop with the virtual audience when it comes to the real thing. Invest in some coaching for them on the subtleties of presenting on camera to give their performances some polish.

Finally, the classic boy scout motto, be prepared! Ensure your internet connection is good and test all audio thoroughly. Have help on hand in case you have issues during the webcast. You may need a different range of skills to your usual production team to ensure the webcast runs smoothly. Have the right people on hand so that you are not panicked if you do have any technical issues or have any fumbles on camera. Just remember try to have fun with it and enjoy the experience!

First, ask yourself: What is the end goal of the animation? Who are you designing this animation for? What do you want them to think or do once they’ve watched it? This is your ‘why’ – the reason why you’re making it and it’s critical to keep this at the forefront of your mind throughout the production process to make sure that you end up with something that delivers results. As you develop your ideas, have in mind a clear call-to-action for the end of your piece to guide viewers towards their next step and cause an effect.

Sketch a clear and structured storyline for your animation. A good script is the foundation of your video and it’s important to get this right before starting on the visuals. Make sure it’s concise and focused on the content that’s most important. Don’t try and cram everything in. Too much detail will make it hard to watch and reduce your capacity to make something people can really connect with. Take a step back if you can’t see the wood for the trees and get other people’s opinions. Fresh eyes are invaluable.

Pace your script with your viewers in mind. Animation is great for delivering stats, but too many in a short space of time can be tiring to watch. Make sure you aren’t overloading your audience with messages so there’s enough time for the narrative to really sink in.

And consider how the animation will be used. Will you need to make shorter social-media-friendly cuts of the piece to hook people into watching the whole thing? Remember, attention spans online are notoriously short.

Next, you need to find your tone of voice – this needs to feel right for your brand and style of animation. Animation is a wonderfully diverse medium for use of humour and communicating with a sense of tongue-in-cheek, but it needs to fit with your brand voice and subject.

Your choice of music and voice over is key to creating the right feel for your animation. Take the time to try loads of different options until you find what truly brings it to life. Often, this may not be the style you’d choose to listen to in the car! Try to find music that matches the movement and pace of the animation – something that adds to the feeling or emotion you’re trying to create. The sweet spot you’re looking for is a moment when everything works together in harmony and forms something truly special. This can take time to perfect, so seek opinions of others and plan time for this stage in your schedule. If you get it right, the animation should in part be inspired by the music and vice versa, so don’t leave finding it until the end of the process or you’ll miss a trick.

No matter what the subject of your animation is, there should always be a hook or a story to engage the audience – you just have to find it and home in on it. Here, it’s key to think human. Viewers will probably respond better to the more human aspects of your product or offering so find the stories that will bring those aspects to life. How does it improve people’s lives? How does it help your customers?

Think of a storyline that will deliver your key messages effectively and interestingly. Facts and figures are aren’t always engaging on their own – it’s all down to crafting the delivery carefully and making it more personal or emotive for the audience.

For statistic-heavy content, you could introduce a fun character to help lead viewers through your story. Using a character can help the viewer build an emotional connection to the piece and make it more engaging & memorable. A detailed storyboard or animatic to illustrate the character’s personality and plan how it will be worked into the animation is critical. Changes at this stage are cheap – less so once hours have been spent crafting it…

The magic of animation is that it can help the viewer to absorb more information in a shorter time as opposed to, say, reading an article. Use symbols and images to allude to messages, make the most of your audience’s attention span and make it easier for them to digest. You can hint at important information using visual cues – it doesn’t always need to be overtly stated in the voice over. The visuals can do a lot of the work independently if well designed.

TV is peppered with fantastic animated adverts & news programmes that use animation to explain complicated things more simply. Don’t try to make your animation deliver too much. A simple concept communicated well can be much more powerful and if combined with further reading, you can always add the detail separately.

Of course, you want your customers to know all about your idea, product or service, that’s a given but be cautious not to throw in too many technical terms and detailed information. Viewers may simply switch off if too much is crowbarred in (remember those short attention spans) and you’ll risk losing them completely. When the animation ends, you want your audience to have enjoyed watching it.

Above everything, emotional connections tend to create the longest lasting memories. Use a little light-hearted humour if you can. This is where animation really wins as a tool because it gives you the ultimate freedom to communicate your messages.

A picture is worth a thousand words, after all!