Lessons Learned from Organizing a Successful Online Event

Last year I came to Sweden to write my thesis at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology. I also wanted to make an impact on my country and help other Brazilian students to have similar opportunities. This way, I founded BRASA Nordics, a hub of BRASA (Brazilian Student Association), the largest student organization for Brazilians abroad, in Northern Europe.

Organizing a large online event would be a very interesting way to launch the organization and get visibility. Thus, I told Gustavo Beck, who works with me at BRASA Nordics: "Let's organize the largest event ever done by a BRASA's hub!".

Some people said that it was unlikely to have more than 30 participants. However, after an aggressive advertising strategy in collaboration with BRASA London, the LinkedIn Workshop had 325 subscribers (Brazilian students, mainly studying abroad), from 117 universities in 18 countries.

Some unforeseen events arose during the organization of the workshop, that became lessons. Therefore, in this article I will tell the acquired experience in the following topics:

1. Choosing an impactful theme and speaker for your event
2. Aggressive event promotion strategies
3. Selecting a platform for subscription
4. Selecting a platform for streaming
5. Strategies to convert event participants into followers
6. On the day of the event
7. What to do after the event

1. Choosing an impactful theme and speaker for an event

The choice of the theme is one of the most important decisions for the event. It is very usual to see events about very abstract or very specific subjects, that do not cover the interest of a large share of the organization's public.

If you want to make a huge impact with a single event, take these two aspects in your decision: it must be of the interest of your target group and provide knowledge to solve a real need of them.

I use this strategy for a long time, even for articles and posts. An interesting example is an article that I wrote teaching junior enterprises to get a sponsorship of USD10,000/month in Google Ads, through the Google AdGrants program. It solved their largest pain, which was prospecting clients, and this manual went viral in Brazilian junior enterprises.

This same strategy was responsible for the huge interest in the LinkedIn Workshop: most of the students are aware that it is an important tool for their professional careers, and they need to learn about that with an experienced professional, e.g. to get their first job.

The choice of the speaker is also very relevant. Despite some students may have enough knowledge to give a lecture, their initial career stage probably won't arouse much interest of the public. This way, try to find a person that is in a more advanced professional stage than your target public and use that in the advertising.

Also, avoid boring speakers, as the audience will get disappointed. Look for someone with good communication skills and that engage the public. For these reasons, the perfect choice for the LinkedIn Workshop was Karen Pesse, a young Brazilian who had a senior position at IBM and is migrating to Microsoft. She is able to present her experience in a very relaxed and engaging way, which the public loves.

2. Aggressive event promotion strategies

The more you advertise your event, the more successful it will be. In addition, for online events, the sky is the limit.

The available tools are different from each organization, so it is up to you to map and make the most of them. Anyway, to provide some ideas, these are the strategies that were used for the LinkedIn Workshop:

1. Partnership: We made a partnership with BRASA London. Besides the networking, it helped because they shared their previous experience in events organization, provided more staff, and advertised to their public, which at that time was larger them ours.
2. Instagram: BRASA and each one of its hubs has its own Instagram profile, totaling around 90 accounts. So we used not only BRASA Nordics' profile. We made a post and requested all the profiles to share it in the stories. It gave the event worldwide visibility.
3. WhatsApp: We made a text and an image advertising the event, and each one of us shared in our groups.
4. Facebook: A very effective tool is publishing in Facebook groups, as you can choose groups with your target public. We put mainly in universities' groups. One important factor was that the speaker is an influential alumnus at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, so her post in the University's group had a huge engagement.
5. LinkedIn: BRASA's global profile, which has thousands of followers, posted about our event.
6. E-mail: A student had contact with staff at a University that sent an email about the event to several students by an email list.

Lastly, to make the images, I highly recommend using the platform Canva, which enables people to make really professional images in a very easy way, even without having previous experience.

3. Selecting a platform for subscription

Using a subscription platform is better than Google Forms, as it will look more professional and help you better manage the data. It also enables you to send e-mails to the subscribers in an easier way, and with fewer chances that it will go to spam. We used the platform Eventbrite and got really satisfied with that. Also, if you are not charging the tickets, the platform is free.

4. Selecting a platform for streaming

The largest concern that we had during the event's organization was about streaming. In the beginning, we were expecting to do the event in Zoom, but the number of subscribers increased and we realized that it was above the maximum allowed by our license. Furthermore, premium licenses are expensive. I also checked companies that provide streaming services for events, but the prices are really high for a student organization.

This way, an interesting choice would be streaming on Youtube. However, there was an issue: to do live streaming on this platform, it is necessary to have at least 1,000 subscribers on the channel. Because of that we got in touch with the global team of BRASA and requested to use their Youtube channel.

Fortunately, they accepted, and also provided a really nice auxiliary tool: Streamyard. This tool streams directly to Youtube (and many other platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn, even simultaneously). During the event, you only need one staff and the speaker(s). The staff stays at their dashboard to set the scenarios, put and remove speakers, etc. The layout looks really professional. The speaker(s) also stay at the Streamyard website, where they do the live stream, and also receive the comments of the audience in real-time so they can answer questions.

Before organizing this event, I had never heard about this kind of streaming tool. I highly recommend using it, as it is easy to learn (we learned how to use it in one hour), and it is not expensive. There is a free license, and a professional license costs USD20/month. Other companies also provide similar tools.

Regarding Youtube, we set the video as unlisted. It means that only those who subscribed, hence received the link, could access the video. After an unlisted live stream ends, the video stays on the platform and can still be accessed through the link. From the 325 subscribers of the LinkedIn Workshop, around 230 people watched during the live stream. After that, the number of views reached 390, as part of the subscribers was not available at the time of the event but watched later. Some of them watched more than once.

5. Strategies to convert event participants into followers

It is important to notice that all the public to which we advertised belongs to our target group. We look for Brazilian university students, as they may be studying/willing to study in Northern Europe or even indicate other students that are in the region. Focus on your target public, as the goal of organizing events is to convert them to your company/organization.

Many participants maybe do not know much about the company/organization that is providing the event. Therefore, at the beginning of the LinkedIn Workshop, we put a brief video presenting BRASA and also talked about our local hubs. Focus on showing value in what you offer.

Also, take into consideration that it will be much easier to convert them into clients/members if they follow your profile on social media. Make all the effort to make them follow it, but of course without being inconvenient.

This way, we put our profiles in all the posts, messages, and emails sent with the event's link. It is important to notice that you must make the action of following you as easy as possible. So we not only put the @brasanordics and @brasalondres but also the URL link so they could more easily click and follow. During the event, we also put our logos with our Instagram profiles at the bottom corner of the screen.

The other action was a draw of a mentoring session with the speaker and a BRASA's sweatshirt. We used the traditional method of requesting the participants to follow our Instagram profiles and tag friends on the post. We got a huge number of qualified followers.

6. On the day of the event

A participant gave feedback that "she loved the event, unlike other boring LinkedIn workshops" that she participated before. The main reason for that is that some speakers teach the content theoretically step by step, in a very massive way.

To have success, you must interact with the audience and generate engagement. These are some tips to achieve that:

1. Imagine yourself in the audience of the event. Would you be satisfied with that? What could be improved to make the experience better?
2. Interact with your public: make them feel part of the event. In online events, the audience is far from you, and it is very easy that they get tired. Take into consideration that they are at home, and can easily quit your event and do any other thing. Thus, I recommend putting doubt sections several times during the event. Also, talk in a relaxed way, read their comments, and mention their names. This way, you will get their attention.
3. Talk about experiences. Generic information can be easily found on the internet. It is important to provide this information, but do it in an authentic and practical way. During the event, the speaker Karen Pesse showed real experiences that she had on LinkedIn, network with high-level professionals that she made through the platform, real profile cases, etc. It was a great way to present each topic of the lecture.
4. Draw a prize. People love winning prizes, especially if it is useful for them. At the end of the LinkedIn Workshop, we draw 5 participants to have their LinkedIn profiles analyzed live by the speaker. It made the audience stay connected until the end of the event. Also, even people who were not selected liked that, as they experienced it in a practical way and understood how they could improve their profiles.
5. Generate value for the speaker. Do not think only about your company/organization and audience. The speaker is spending a lot of time to provide a good event, so retribute it. Advertise the event in a way that will bring visibility to the speaker, be very transparent about the organization of the event, be very responsible, thank the person, and try to make something else. During the event, I introduced DiversiBe, an organization founded by the speaker Karen Pesse. She aims to bring diversity to Belgium's job market through mentorship and the dissemination of opportunities. Its LinkedIn page got many followers from the audience.

7. What to do after the event

It is very important to collect feedback from the audience so you know their opinions, what you did well, and what can be improved the next time. Also, send an email thanking them for participating and reinforcing the value of your company/organization.

The final step is to analyze the results obtained by the event and think: what is the next move?

I hope that these tips help you organizing an event!

If you liked it, have a suggestion, or used it in your event, please send me feedback!