What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word “event”? Bright lights, designer outfits, and time crunches? Well, not anymore. Chances are 90% of the events on your calendar this month are through a screen. Virtual events are all the fun, minus the hassle of reaching the venue. They save you time, money, and energy!
You can host internal and external virtual events depending on your event’s goals. If you’re looking for ideas for your upcoming events, get your reading glasses on because this will take a while!
What Are Internal Virtual Events?
An internal event is one that you have within your organization, with your stakeholders and employees. There can be several reasons to have internal events, ranging from workshops and seminars to emphasizing company values.
Internal events are necessary to build rapport with employees, so they can work with a positive mindset and be successful in their work. Co-workers developing personal relationships with each other will make them better at collaborating with one another.
Whether it is a diversity and inclusion workshop, a felicitation ceremony, a celebration of milestones, or even an office Christmas party, you can take all of your internal events online. Ice-breaking and team-building events can also be hosted virtually.
By hosting these internal virtual events, everyone can attend from wherever they are. You can even expand your internal events to employees from various branches of your company. Whoever is locally available can visit the in-person event, while the rest of the crew and those from other branches can attend the event online. This combination is called a hybrid event, and it gives you the best of both worlds.
Suppose you have an annual staff gathering to encourage team-building between your employees across the world. In that case, you can invite your international staff to join the event virtually and perform the same exercises online. This is another example of an internal hybrid event where all your staff members can stay in the loop.
Tips for Your Internal Online Event
The best way to bring people together is to start with a common cause, something that they all believe in. Pair it up with a theme that they might really enjoy, and voila! You have everybody’s RSVP.
Whether formal or informal, keep in mind that you should have it all planned, start to finish. You need to know the approximate number of attendees, duration of the event, and the event’s purpose beforehand to plan it efficiently. Keep some backup activities in mind in case anything goes south. In case of formal events, include the agenda of the event along with your meeting invite so that everyone can come prepared. If your office e-mail service doesn’t already do it, send meeting invites with an option to add the event to their calendar.
Keep your audience engaged at all times. The awkward silence between presentations or during a technical malfunctioning can be deafening. Virtual event softwares can enrich the online collaborative experience by conducting polls and games to keep it fun.
Observe your employees’ reactions to various segments of the event to recognize what’s working and what isn’t. Take feedback from the participants and try to keep that in mind while organizing your next event. You can even track attendees behavior using specific analytics and metrics data.
Internal Virtual Events on HoloFair
Our 3D virtual events platform, HoloFair, has hosted incredible internal virtual events. For instance, Pyxis & Partners hosted their first virtual staff gathering using HoloFair. This event typically took place in Umm Al Emarat Park in Abu Dhabi, UAE. However, in 2021, Pyxis and their sister companies decided to host it digitally for the first time. HoloFair’s team was tasked with recreating this majestic park in 3D and coming up with appealing activities for the staff.
Without fail, our team created the virtual environment from scratch and incorporated engaging activities such as Treasure Hunt, Wall of Fame Tunnel, and more, for the employees of Pyxis and partner companies. This three day event was a complete success and saw a total of 2.7K+ visits over the event days. Sounds exciting? View the event here.
What Are External Virtual Events?
External events are essential for your company’s growth. They are a gateway for your products, services, and brand to reach new crowds. Going virtual with your external events takes that to a whole new level. You can now have people from Australia and Argentina join your event in a matter of minutes. Even people in your own city are more likely to attend your event from behind a laptop screen than take the train, or drive through traffic.
Your external online events can be networking events, charity functions, product launches, and even press conferences to launch new marketing campaigns and talk about financial success. Organizing customer appreciation parties and VIP events can increase the loyalty of your customers and help retain them.
Even these events can be held in a hybrid manner. If you’re hosting a global town hall, a product demonstration, or an award ceremony, combining in-person and virtual experiences will make your events more entertaining.
Perfecting Your External Online Events
You may host several external events throughout the year and chances are, each one has its own theme and is aimed at slightly different people. Determine the target audience for your event.
Sometimes, your audience may not be the general public; it might be another business. With B2B events, you could be aiming to cultivate healthy relationships with other businesses and collaborate with them to help each other grow in the industry.
When you’re choosing the right kind of platform to host your online event, do not take your attendees’ computer literacy for granted. If they’re an older group of people, they might find it hard to navigate through your event using a screen. Ensure to include clear instructions and guidelines to help your visitors navigate with ease. The kind of speakers and panelists you invite to your event should resonate with your audience as well.
You also need to actively promote your event on your social media and get your speakers to do it too. Collaborate with social media influencers, advertise on related blogs, put up banners on your website, announce giveaways – you know the drill! Do what you must to get an optimal turnout.
Give catchy sneak peeks on your landing page and perhaps offer an early bird discount. Set up a countdown timer to build up the excitement and actively engage your attendees with timely reminders.
External Virtual Events on HoloFair
HoloFair had the pleasure of hosting numerous external events, such as career fairs, conferences, and exhibitions. Particularly, one of our memorable external online events was a virtual exhibition and conference for Emirates Steel.
This exciting event had several engaging areas and included a completely customized venue made of 3D steel. The digital event included live-webinars, interactive booths, timeline tunnel, mini cinema, and a mini library. Have a look for yourself here.
Weighing the Scales
Internal and external events have different purposes and require different approaches. The main aim of internal events is to improve existing relationships and nurture them, while the goal of external events is to bring new clients in and make new networks. You must curate your content accordingly.
In an internal event, you have to put in effort to reach your employees and motivate them through team-building activities. In contrast, in an external event, advertising your product and selling your brand in creative ways takes up most of your content.
Your internal events require some research into your participants and the departments they work for to provide a tailor-made session for them. While external events need attractive landing pages, innovative booths designs, and discount codes.
Nonetheless, whether your online event is internal or external, they both have some common things that need paying special attention to. Keep your objective and theme clear, and do not steer away from them. Determine the most effective way to advertise your events as different kinds of audiences react to different modes of promotion. Providing virtual event suppliers with timely content is crucial to running an online event smoothly. You have to be ready for all kinds of technical surprises and equip yourself with ways to deal with them.
After the event, take feedback from your attendees and work on issues faced to perfect your future events. Use analytics and metrics data to further analyze your ROI.
An added tip: Attend a few virtual events and observe the things you like and dislike about them. Think about the features you think they could have worked better on and see if you have any version of them included in your event agenda. Watching others do the same things you do in different ways will broaden your perspective and shed light on things you may have missed otherwise.
You’re All Set!
Now that you know the key differences between internal and external online events and how to organize them, you can thrill your employees and customers with engaging events. Just make sure that it is interactive, short, and entertaining.
Internal and external events are both equally crucial for the overall development of your company. Although external events put you in the limelight, the stage is shared by your employees and the work they do.
The way you treat your employees will reflect in the way they treat their customers. If your employees are happy, so will be your customers!
To learn more about how you can host your internal and external online events on our 3D virtual events platform, HoloFair, contact us directly.
Visit our Portfolio, YouTube, Instagram, or LinkedIn to view previous events and learn more.
Our Services: Virtual Events Platform | Virtual Exhibitions Platform | Virtual Conference Platform | Virtual Training Platform | Virtual Career Fair | Virtual Events Software | Virtual Events Solution
