The ‘Social’ Buyers Guide

Online “Buyers Guides” offer a one-stop shop for buyers to find and compare vendors in specific markets.  These often are used both as a service for their community members and a revenue source for the host organization, which include: Industry or Trade Associations, Chambers of Commerce, Online Marketplaces, Procurement Networks, Magazines and Media, Franchise Organizations, etc.

Today’s Buyers Guides are often static listings of vendors’ contact information and a brief description, surrounded by an abundance of flashing banner ads. Companies pay to be listed and pay extra for prominent placement or advertising.  These guides seem to be designed to sell as much as possible advertising space, rather than being the most user-friendly website for a buyer to search and compare different vendors.

We recently used Webvent to create a “Social Buyers Guide” for a large association.  Vendor listings in the buyers guide are connected to community members, digital content, and live Webinars.  Educational content remains separate from sales pitches, but sponsors receive enough promotion to generate leads from those who are actively interested in their products.   Within Webvent, listed companies can demonstrate their thought leadership on specific topics within their industry and participate in the ongoing conversation among members in the community.

A Social Buyers Guide is designed to balance the needs of the buyers first, and then the needs of the vendors.  Vendors become active participants in the industry, rather than sitting on the sidelines trying to “pitch” their message into the market.

Turn Temporary Efforts into Permanent Assets with an Events Archive

Events require time and money to organize, advertise, collect registrations, arrange speakers, and host.  Typically, this effort is lost once the event ends – the content and interactions that made the event so valuable no longer benefit the host.

Today, an effective events archive allows you to convert your events into permanent assets that drive search engine traffic and participants to your site long after the event ended.  Viewers can find information about past events and content in a variety of formats – including videos, recorded presentations, audio transcripts, and questions and feedback from the audience.

Here’s what Webvent.tv looks for in an Events Archive:

1.  Video Playback: Most live webinars are recorded and made available either for free, or for purchase at an additional cost. You should convert your webinar recording into a YouTube-compatible video, and store text transcripts of the content. This will boost your content’s usefulness to your audience and visibility to search engines.

2.  Presentation Materials: Slides, documents, and links that session Presenters used should be posted in the archive and available to participants.

3.  Public Content: We won’t join the debate about free vs. paid content here, but at least some of the webinar material should be public, for improved search engine optimization if nothing else.

4.  Organized: Content should be automatically organized into a consistent layout, on the same page as the event announcement and online event itself.

5.  Post-event follow-up: After each event is archived, the host should send links and updates to all participants and no-shows. Also, work with your Presenter to promote the recording to their social network (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc.).

Archiving your events not only creates permanent assets for your community, but also can help grow your future events by moving your site onto page one in Google.

Webvent.tv believes that online events excellence should be easy and inexpensive.  Click here to receive a FREE “Webvent Score” that rates your events program against these best practices and more.  

Comment below if you’ve found other best practices for your Events Archive.

The Event Landing Page Turns Invitees Into Attendees

Your event’s landing page must do three things—give the complete context so the viewer can immediately decide if they should participate, provide a simple path to register, and allow participants to expand your audience through social networks and viral invitations.

Here’s what Webvent.tv looks for in the Event Landing Page:

1.    Event Context:  The event’s landing page should have at a minimum: Title, date/time, description, intended audience, cost, presenter, photo, and biography. Content is an important part of a landing page, but knowing what to include and what to omit is very important. It is important to keep in mind who your audience is and make sure that the information you provide is relevant to them.


2.    Registration:  The event’s landing page is useless if your audience cannot register for the event. The registration form should be simple, with a submit button that is visible “above the fold”, without the need to scroll down.


3.    Appealing:  Content should include an appealing reason to join, with an attractive presentation that is consistent with your web site


4.    Sponsors:  Sponsors name/logo should be listed on the event’s landing page with links to sponsor-specific information - to keep educational content of webinar separate from sales-oriented messages.


5.    Social:  To expand the audience beyond your existing community, participants and presenters should have a clear, single-click method to share events with their social network.

6.    Invitations:  The option to invite others via email to join, branded consistently in the same look and feel, and getting them on the event’s landing page in one-click.

7.    Reminders:  Participants often register days or weeks in advance, so the landing page should let registrants add the date and time (in the viewer’s time zone) to their calendar with reminders and links to join when the event is live.

Each event serves a different purpose, so each event should have a separate landing page. Organized this way, the event landing pages become a key part of your community growth strategy.

Webvent.tv believes that online events excellence should be easy and affordable.

Click here to receive a FREE “Webvent Score” that rates your events program against these best practices and more.   Comment below if you’ve found other best practices for your Event Landing Page.

The Events Calendar Demonstrates Activity In Your Areas of Expertise

Whether a simple list or graphical calendar, the events calendar charts your organization’s activities.  But it can be much more: by including topics and presenters, you demonstrate your expertise, leadership, and active participation in specific subject areas.

Here’s what Webvent.tv looks for in an organization’s Event Calendar or event list:

1. Visible: The calendar is worthless if your audience cannot find it; it should be obvious from your web site’s home page how to view your events.

2. Up-to-date: Automatically list and update events – nothing ruins a first impression like month-old events listed under “Coming Soon”

3. Inclusive: Include future and past events, web-based and in-person events, to show your audience when and where they can connect and learn

4. Comprehensive: Besides the obvious date and title, each event should include brief information about the presenter, description, and host - in an attractive and concise listing

5. Detailed: Click on any topic or presenter to view more details of what the event is about, biographies of presenters, who should participate, and how to register.

6. Permanent: Past events should have direct links to view recordings, slides, transcripts, questions, etc.  This converts your temporary content into a permanent, searchable asset.

7. Subscribeable: Your most die-hard fan won’t be visiting your events list every day to anxiously await the next posting.  Add a “Subscription” option with an RSS or email delivery mechanism to stay updated on additions to the events calendar.

Organized this way, the events calendar becomes a key part of your organization’s ongoing conversation with your community. It becomes a central place from where you schedule, invite, prospect, alert, and engage; and not a mere listing of dates and times.

Webvent.tv believes that online events excellence should be easy and inexpensive.  Click here to receive a FREE “Webvent Score” that rates your events program against these best practices and more.   Comment below if you’ve found other best practices for your Event Calendar.

New Update to Our Platform for Online Events

Webvent.tv believes that online events should be easy and inexpensive.  This week, we will release version 6.7, which continues our progress towards these goals.

We have added Adobe Connect as a conferencing platform alongside our existing Webex option.  Connect allows up 100 participants with an excellent VOIP option for presenters and participants.  We have also added “Single Sign On” (SSO) for both Webex and Adobe Connect, so that Webvent users pass seamlessly from your event page into the live conference room without having to re-enter their name or email.

This release updates the HTML title and “meta” tags on the events landing pages, so that users who Share the page on LinkedIn or Twitter will have better default text descriptions on those networks.

Another major enhancement is the Participants search, located under “Edit Site” > People.  Organizers can now quickly assemble lists of past Participants by name, webinar, and the status of their invitation/registration/attendance.  I use this to send a follow-up email for people who have been invited, but not yet registered for an upcoming webinar.  Please don’t annoy people with excessive email, but when appropriate you can now send messages to smaller groups.

We also fixed 16 bugs and modifications.  I won’t list them here because no customers reported any of these; they just bothered me and I think the result is better now.

Let me know what you think of this release, and suggestions for future versions.  Our next release will be in about 2 weeks, and will focus on improving the event archive layout and making it easier for anyone to add new Sites and schedule Webvents.

by Rick Borry, President Webvent.tv

Another Advisor’s Tech Company Going Public

Webvent is very proud to have another advisor on board who recently saw the company he co-founded listed at the NYSE. 

Scott Curry was co-founder of Active.com and The Active Network (NYSE: ACTV).  In 1997, he founded EnterOnline, the event registration component of The Active Network, which provides registration and management services for diverse events and organizations like marathons, triathlons, Little League Baseball, and the National Park Service.

Congratulations to Scott on this successful IPO!

LinkedIn's Successful IPO Validates Social Media as Investment

On May 19th, LinkedIn listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol LNKD, at a price of $45 per share. The stock peaked at $122.70 on the opening day, showing investor excitement in the business social network model that LinkedIn dominates.

Webvent offers a hearty congratulations to our Advisor Eric Ly, who was a co-founder at LinkedIn (NYSE: LNKD) and the founding CTO. He helped create some of LinkedIn’s core product features, and built the team that created LinkedIn’s third-party platform.  His work helped LinkedIn to achieve a quickly-growing user base now reaching more than 103 million.  Mr. Ly is now CEO and Founder of Presdo Match, a revolutionary product that creates social networks around conferences and trade shows and enables event exhibitors and attendees the opportunity to develop valuable business relationships through face-to-face interactions.

LinkedIn is the first of several anticipated social media IPOs, so watch for Zynga, Facebook, and Twitter yet to come.

Production Checklist for Successful Webinars

Even though webinars are rising in popularity in all sorts of industry areas, how many have you participated in that have been done really well? What do you want the participants to learn and how can you set up the expectation for engagement that keeps them listening. And even more important, how can you boost webinar attendance rates?

Last week I was happy to attend Hubspot’s webinar about quick tips on producing your first webinar. The entire process of webinar production, from selecting your webinar platform through post webinar actions were included in this highly interactive online event. The most challenging subject for all attendees was how to promote and boost your webinar attendance rate. Check it out and learn best practices for crafting and promoting your webinar to drive the most leads and informed attendees.

http://www.hubspot.com/how-to-produce-a-webinar-thanks

Here at Webvent.tv, we strive to embed these and other best practices into our webinar network platform, to create the easiest way to produce webinars within a community.

Why Does Webvent Share Revenue With the Community Owner?

Community owners are the experts who know their community and deliver relevant content to their audience. They are the ones who make the investment to build and maintain the community, whether it is part of their daily job, part-time activity, or personal interests. These passionate people know and love the community's topic.

Vibrant communities require commitment from a dedicate core group, and these people should be rewarded for their time and passion. We think that many communities can benefit from a live, online component - where people meet and interact when the cost in time or travel makes face-to-face meetings impractical. On Webvent.tv, community owners can run high-quality webinars to engage and attract attendees into their community, while providing sponsors the opportunity to present themselves to these attendees. We share the revenue generated from sponsorships with the community owner, because 'paying' community owners for their time and passion leads to more interesting content, spurs quality conversations and connections, and most importantly: it builds the community.

by Nick Kuppers, CEO Webvent.tv

How Dutch Schools World Wide Connect

The NTC (Nederlandse Taal & Cultuur) Schools community is a network of Dutch schools outside the Netherlands. These schools offer extracurricular lessons in the Dutch language and culture for children in the age of 4 to 12.

In February, the community kicked off on the Webvent.tv platform with their first webinars in the U.S. region. On the first Thursday of each month, teachers, parents, and school directors gather around a specific topic, which is presented by one of the schools. Topics include things like: how to optimize homework, how to get sponsors, and how to organize a Dutch culture day. The most recent webinar was presented by the NTC school ‘t Klokhuis, located near New York City.

One of the directors told me that Webvent is a great platform to get together, collaborate, and learn from each other on a frequent basis. Once a year in June, teachers and board member gather in person in the Netherlands during a live event with training and workshops. But travel time and cost make it hard for everyone to attend each year. For me, it has been 5 years since my last live event, and the most valuable part of being there is to connect with teachers and hear their stories.

“We love the live component in the community NTC schools world wide and how the community is organized. We can upload and download documents, refer to recorded webinars and during webinars we get to know each other better which makes it easier to connect anytime for any specific question. We all have the same objective, which is to improve the quality of the Dutch education for our children”.

http://ntcschoolsworldwide.webvent.tv/

Ingeborg van Rooij, is Secretary of the first Dutch school in Boston, Community owner of NTC schools world wide, and Community Manager at Webvent.tv

Webvent.tv: Matching Online and Offline Social Business Networks Through Web-based Conferences

Every business revolution brings a new way to reach potential customers. Before the Internet, vendors mailed out thousands of letters, and then followed up with cold calls to prospects. The Internet revolution brought a Web site for everyone, and it became easier to find and reach potential customers through search and email. Today we are in the social revolution, where individuals and organizations present and promote themselves to the world through online social networks.

Technologies come and go, but in business the social behavior patterns of people has been the same for decades, especially for businesses that sell their products nationally or internationally. These businesses network through trade shows and conferences, they sponsor analysts to create white-papers, they participate in Request For Proposal processes, and they pitch their companies and products directly to potential customers. Today our challenge is to provide technologies to accomplish sales goals through social networks.

We aim to do this, not by replacing in-person meetings or events with a different distribution medium (the Internet). Webvent.tv supports moderated communities (collaboration) that produce webinars, break-out sessions, and one-on-one communication, enabling connections year round, and thus increasing the visibility into potential business opportunities for all parties involved. Revenue generated from leads and sponsorships gets shared with community owners, rewarding their efforts and knowledge as moderator, while providing new income opportunities for subject matter experts to create a business for themselves around a topic or product.

Eventually, the whole social graph around the topic or product will collaborate and contribute to the success of that community for all parties involved: buyers, vendors, subject matter experts, influencers, event planners, government, media, etc. The social networks that we are creating online today simply mirror and enhance the social networks we have seen in the physical world for many years.