Develop a content strategy beyond the live stream
Jay Hamilton (left) directs on-site interviews.
During the week of your annual meeting, you are the focus of the industry. Many leaders are in attendance and news will be made. But have you developed a content plan beyond streaming the general sessions? In the rush to stage an event, the in-house comms teams can no longer go-it-alone without leaving good material on the table. Major meetings are the time of the year to bring out the canons and show-off.
What outside resources are hired for meetings. Event planners handle logistics; event producers handle live streaming general sessions and any entertainment. What's missing is the third leg on the stool – a media/PR company embedded with the in-house communications team to handle the fire hose of content and take full advantage of having everyone in the same room.
Think about it. Orgs contrac with an event planner who has also contracted with an event production team to stage the general sessions. Who is helping push out the fire hose of content and capturing additional behind-the-scenes digital nuggets.
interviews and It's also time to call in reinforcements to execute a communications plan. Most in-house comms teams are stretched thin (and stressed out) preparing speeches, writing press releases and responding to member requests. It can be a dizzying pace. Just as your organization hires event planners and production teams, communication departments need to look to similar event support. It's time to broadcast yourself and show-off.
A communications plan needs to take advantage of this opportunity to further unify the industry and not only report on the meeting, but to focus the spotlight on what's ahead in Washington, DC or in the grassroots. It's standard fare to For major meetings with hundreds of people flying in, your organization is the focus of your industry. It's time to not only live stream the general sessions, but also to cover you meeting like a journalist and produce valuable behind-the-scenes content for immediate and future postings.
Developing an event content strategy to flood all channels is often an missed opportunity. Take advantage of the hundreds of participants and become a content factory. Event production companies handle the general sessions, but most in-house comms teams are noat skilled to set up TV studios, changingpeting. need help to take full advantage of the in the spotlight and it's time to create content, produce videos and cover events at a dizzying pace. Are you taking advantage of everything your meeting has to offer when it comes to a content strategy and producing digital nuggets for your channels? Do you know which members have the largest social followings to post, re-post, repeat? Annual meetings often tax a small comms team's capacity. With full-time comms teams stressed out and at capacity when big meetings held, consider hiring our digital media team of former journalists who make sure that nothing is left on the table.
Sure, event production companies all stream the general sessions, but that's often not where the action is happening. An organization's comms team is often at capacity What if an event happens (or tree falls) and no one outside the conference center (the forest) here's it? Did it happen? Streaming a meeting is part of an event productions standard package, but creating a content strategy and calendar is often too coe
Planning a major meeting is no longer a few chairs on a stage. Many annual meetings are planned years in advance and are the major revenue generator for membership-based organizations. As the event approaches, there's an all-hands-on-deck drill that can overtax full-time staffs, asking them to perform duties not in their wheelhouse. This race to the starting line can exhaust small communications departments and lead to missed opportunities to tell the group's story.
Hiring Interim Help
Organizations have long hired event production companies to pull off the general sessions. But that's just the half of it. Associations are just beginning to think like a media company and "broadcast themselves" beyond the conference walls. This requires a skillset beyond the capabilities of event producers and staff.
Do you have a Content Strategy?
It starts with the goals of the conference and its "news." As former broadcast journalists, Hamilton Media DC begins working with org's by asking the question: "Why should we care?" "What's the news?" From there we draft an editorial calendar and divvy up assignments.
Hitting on all Cylinders
Hamilton Media's playbook for conference coverage:
Preview tweets/emails
Home page take-over with daily updating
Live sessions streamed to website and social channels
On-site TV studio and editing; post segments daily
Daily photo slideshows distributed on all channels
Email conf news blasts
Media coverage - pre-conference pitching; media partners as panel hosts
Edit and post to YouTube; add video channel webpage
Pre-conference membership and media outreach
Identifying member/speaker influencers (tags and reposts)
that will be drafting a content strategy With all that's invested in the event, you don't want to leave anything on the table and often there's a gap in the skillset required to quickly produce content and push it out.
T hire interim help to cover the conference from a journalistic mindset and produce original content during the annual meetings, uploads it to digital channels and handles media outreach. . the general sessions The meeting doesn't look beyond the trees to develop a communications strategy to push out the conference news to its key constituencies – members, policymakers, press and corporate sponsors. It's a missed opportunity to produce content that can be used for months to come.
Event newsroom where Hamilton Media DC helps cover the meeting
So, call in the reinforcements to develop an on-site content strategy. In the association world, all memberWashington, DC is a government town and home to thousands of associations representing industries from gravel to meat to media, keeping an eye on their interests. . Hamilton Media is is not the mantra for every organization who wants to directly connect with their fans – customers, members, policymakers, media, influencers.
Think ulrinkael a media companyo