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