Anything but small things: micro-events make a big difference

If you’re not telling your story through video, your competitor is. Video content has quickly become the main channel of communication with your target. And if you don’t talk to your audience the way they prefer, you’re already falling behind. But effective video content goes beyond what you see on social media.

Organizations are looking for the “right video” for all their content needs, including for events. While video has become mandatory during the pandemic, it’s clear that both hybrid and virtual events are here to stay.

Adding another level of sophistication to the event landscape is moving away from hosting just one or two big events a year. Companies are starting to complement their key thought leadership initiatives with micro-events, which can be webinars, live video streams, networking opportunities, shared or intimate, targeted events.

Promoting ongoing engagement

Micro-events are compressed in size and scope (ideally 30-45 minutes), are traditionally held virtually and take place several times a year, with the exact number depending on the company and the goals it seeks to achieve.

The ultimate goal of micro-events is to create an ongoing engagement model where you can more consistently share, promote, and consume video content, and increase engagement with your target through ongoing communication.

If an organization were to depend solely on a major event to communicate critical and urgent information, this could result in a missed opportunity. to connect with your audience. Current micro-events, combined with consistent communication between events, allows you to quickly react and move forward, and not just keep up with the times.

Just as polished as in person

One of the biggest misconceptions is that a micro event can be less polished than a traditional event. Simply put, it’s not. Just because an event is micro doesn’t mean you treat it as such. It must be performed with the same level of discipline and thoughtfulness as a traditional event.

At the same time, the general approach to creating content for a micro-event will differ from the traditional one.

In a virtual environment, it’s best to keep the content engaging, focused, and to the point. Typically, having different speakers and/or new content every 10 minutes will keep the audience engaged. Depending on the subject matter, this may not always be possible, but the goal should be to make the content on camera as energetic and interesting as possible to keep your audience engaged.

How to step into micro-events

When a company is ready to get started with the micro-event model, they immediately want to address the platform issue – what tool are we going to use to deliver content and events? But really, this should be the last step in the process.

First, you need to define what success looks like and develop a video content strategy that promotes the desired behavior. This could mean more sales, more signups, or more landing page visits.

Making more videos for the sake of making videos won’t work anymore – you need to determine what behavior you hope to influence and how success correlates to that. Establishing these key performance indicators (KPIs) will not only serve as the basis for your micro-events, but you will be able to adjust them accordingly after each event to ensure that you are tracking any overarching or larger business goals. .

Knowing the KPIs, you can start to figure out what you want to say and who in the organization should say it. Conducting outreach to your key audience is helpful in learning what can be valuable to them. This may come from quick surveys, email and/or social media surveys, or from feedback you have heard at other events you have organized.

Crowdsourced ideas and proposals can become themes for events throughout the year. If there is no time to collect information from the target audience, choose one or two topics that you think will be most useful to them, based on key findings or trending topics in the industry.

Based on these initial micro-events, you can analyze your KPIs and event metrics and pivot as needed. Ideally, there should be end-to-end communication between your events to build momentum and keep conversations going from one event to the next.

Choosing the Right Hosting Platform

At this point, you can look at hosting platforms. KPIs plus the type of content you want to present should be the determining factors when evaluating a tool.

For example, if the purpose of your micro-event is to host a small, collaborative session between attendees, a basic web conferencing tool would be a good choice. If the event follows a more traditional path—an individual presenter shares information—the webcast tool will provide more options for event management and participation, such as polls, live Q&A, and multi-streaming.

Knowing how you want your audience to interact with the content and the type of experience you want to give visitors will help you narrow down choices much faster as you evaluate different features and functions and rule out if they can help. match your goals.

Maintaining momentum after the event

After all the preparation and planning, your micro-event went off without a hitch, and now you can sleep peacefully, right?

In fact, there is still work to be done after the event. The period between events is perhaps one of the most important parts. This is when you need to provide a regular cadence of event related content. Content that is either new, has already been published, or dives deeper into the topic of the event is successful because of its added value.

Follow-up with additional content will allow you to collect feedback, keep your company in the spotlight, and foster an ongoing dialogue with your audience. Plus, you’ve already created a lot of new video content, so repurposing it and continuing to use it throughout the year maximizes its value.

Benefit from micro-events

It may seem like a lot, but the benefits are great. There are many companies that are trying to capture the attention of your target audience on a daily basis. Micro-events enable your organization to consistently deliver relevant content, improve visibility, and strengthen meaningful connections to your goal.

With feedback and ongoing discussions, you’ll know what resonates (or doesn’t) and adjust content, event themes, and even business goals faster. So keeping your finger on the pulse, you’ll work smarter, not harder, because you’re delivering thoughtful, more active content that matters in the moment.

It is important to remember that people are hungry for content, and somehow, in one form or another, they will find what they are looking for. The key is to make the content they find yours. Optimize content for search with SEO keywords identified and included in content titles and descriptions.

Also, make sure the content is tagged with enough metadata so that with a large selection in the resource center, the target can find exactly what they are looking for using filters and search fields.

Micro-events are a way to present your thought leadership to the right people at the right time and for the right purpose. While this may be a departure from how your organization has approached video content and events in the past, micro-events can have a significant impact on your business.

Donny Neufuss is Director of Business Development and Strategic Partnerships at Sonic Foundry..