by Aubrey Mellos | May 16, 2017 | Blog
Virtual events are a trend that won’t be going away and are quickly becoming a strategic must for associations. Virtual events can reach deep within organizations and impact a larger number of participants. Traditionally, only a select group of individuals are able to attend in-person events, leaving a majority with nothing. Virtual events are evolving the way associations offer education, are cost effective, powerful and an efficient way of extending your most compelling content to your entire community.
Here are five tips to ensure your virtual events are a success:
1 – Plan, Plan, Plan.
Virtual events require a significant amount of planning – maybe even more than place-based events. Ensure that you and your team have openly communicated about goals, intended outcomes, content and metrics. Develop and document a detailed event strategy with defined dates/milestones and pair with a corresponding production plan. A calendar of tasks and project deadlines will make for a smooth execution.
2 – Build-In Engagement.
Capitalize on the unique opportunities that a virtual event and the associated technology can offer. Leverage polls, self-assessments, chat features and integrated social channels. You can start the engagement well before your event and extend well beyond it is over.
3 – Leverage Experienced Production Partners
Having the right vendor partners is essential to the success of your event. Events that are poorly produced or using ineffective technology can leave attendees frustrated and dissatisfied. Be sure your partners can handle all support inquiries during the live event so that you and your team can focus on content delivery.
4 – Prep Speakers & Staff
Once the agenda is set, ensure that your speakers are well equipped to deliver stellar presentations that connect with the audience. In preparation of the event, take some time to guide your speakers on the technology and ensure they feel comfortable and encouraged. Additionally, make sure appropriate staff are prepared and have clearly defined roles for the live event.
5 – Promote & Build Excitement
You have invested significant time in planning and preparing for your event. Be sure to effectively market and promote your event with the same intensity as place-based events. Promote early, often, and increase the intensity as you lead up to the live event. Facilitate the engagement, open up discussions, and promote conversation through social media. Getting attendees excited before the event will promise a lively and robust event and even pave the way for post event conversations.
Virtual events shed a new light on member engagement strategies. They remove the barriers for attendance that exist with place-based events and as a result, extend your reach, revenue, and impact.
CommPartners produces hundreds of virtual events each year, including many that are executed from within an LMS environment. The seamless integration of CommPartners’ webinar and multimedia platforms within Elevate LMS make for a dynamic learning experience and hassle-free management for staff and presenters.
To learn more about how to make virtual events apart of your strategic reality, please contact us.
by Aubrey Mellos | Jan 31, 2017 | Blog
Webcasting, just like most things tech, is constantly reinventing itself and has evolved from a niche offering to a broad-based, versatile requirement for sharing knowledge online. Working for CommPartners, I have produced webcasts across a broad and diverse range of clients, each with individual needs, where custom and inventive webinar hosting services are often the only way to get the job done best. You know your members and how they prefer to engage, but are you leveraging the power of live streaming to grow your membership and reach?
The 3 most popular ways live event webcasting can be applied to your audience:
- Private Webcasts: These are webcasts where the content is streamed to a specific audience with the credentials to access it. Most organizations like to keep their intellectual “capital” limited to members and other paid parties, and this type of webcast is strictly for members only.
- Public Webcasts: These are free and designed to raise awareness and interest in the organization. Often an organization will utilize a popular live event streaming service such as YouTube or Facebook Live to webcast a portion of their content free of charge, in order to promote themselves and their mission.
- Private and Public Simulcasts: This is a newer category of webcast, where organizations simultaneously provide a private, special experience for their members and other paid or pre-registered parties while live-streaming a part of their content over free social media channels, in order to advertise the experience.
What a strong, exciting way to self-promote! Live event webcasting comes free with YouTube and Facebook, and most organizations already have a presence on these networks. While Facebook may be superior for organizational staff to post small live clips to promote their events, YouTube is the ideal place to provide a high-quality social media webcast experience, which can be shared rapidly among interested parties. As you know, to access a live event on YouTube, all you need is the link, and you can instantly connect to an unlimited number of viewers. An email blast advertising a live event on YouTube would likely be very well-received, as the prospect of participating in a live event broadcast draws viewers at a much higher rate than say a pre-recorded or archival program. By offering live event webcasting as a live promotional webcast on YouTube, the opportunity to organically reach new audience members increases exponentially!
Leveraging the Most Out of Event Live Streaming
CommPartners, in addition to offering webcasting in private, controlled environments, also provides a suite of event live streaming services. We have worked with clients to both simulcast and live-stream events and select content to YouTube. Social Media webcasts are one of the most powerful organic ways to expand your reach. You are already using it to keep members, fans, and other pertinent parties up to date with your organization — So, why not leverage some of your intellectual capital and show the world why membership to your organization has its benefits!
To speak directly with someone at Commpartners about our live event streaming solutions, or to find out how you can add a social media webcast to your event or virtual conference — contact Meghan Gowen at mgowen@commpartners.com or give her a call at 443-539-4851.
Post Written by Bryan Ranharter, CommPartners Multimedia Producer
by Aubrey Mellos | Nov 17, 2016 | News
Columbia, MD – November 17, 2016. CommPartners, a leading provider of Learning Management Software, webcast, and event live stream solutions and Higher Logic, the leader in cloud-based community platforms announce they will be collaborating to fully integrate community and online learning. Traditionally these two spheres have been presented as separate components. Through this new partnership, Higher Logic clients will now be able to access online courses directly within a community framework, further leveraging the relationship among participants and host organizations. CommPartners’ clients will now benefit by having greater engagement through Higher Logic’s community platform.
“We have been talking for years about the need to bridge the divide between learning and community. This partnership provides the opportunity for a true knowledge hub similar to how we participate within a classroom environment.” Richard Finstein, CEO, CommPartners
CommPartners Elevate LMS will extend the value of Higher Logic Communities through simple and secure course access, centralized reporting of results, and simple setup and management. Elevate LMS is powering the Higher Logic Academy which will provide the company’s clients with educational offerings and training.
“Our partnership with CommPartners and Elevate LMS is a great opportunity to bring together the strength of online communities and social learning tools. Higher Logic and CommPartners already offer innovative services for any organization looking to improve engagement and connect people. We’re excited to debut the new Higher Logic Academy alongside CommPartners as a premier online learning tool.” Mark Lowry, CRO, Higher Logic
To learn more about CommPartners and Elevate LMS please contact Meghan Gowen at mgowen@commpartners.com or 443.539.4851.
About Higher Logic
Higher Logic is an industry leader in cloud-based community platforms. Organizations worldwide use Higher Logic to bring people all together, by giving their community a home where they can interact, share ideas, answer questions and stay connected. Learn more at www.higherlogic.com
About CommPartners
CommPartners is a leading provider of online education and event solutions. At the core of the company’s solutions is our Elevate Learning Management System. Elevate is the only LMS with fully integrated and embedded webinar, livestream and multimedia software to support learning, how and when it occurs. The connection between live, peer-to-peer knowledge exchanges and traditional continuing education programs leads to improved learning outcomes, as well as increased participation within an organization’s education offerings. To learn more visit: www.commpartners.com
https://www.newswire.com/news/a-new-social-learning-initiative-commpartners-and-higher-logic-17020728
by Aubrey Mellos | Nov 14, 2016 | Blog
Every day, each of us makes many decisions on how we spend our time and money. Some of these decisions require careful consideration and can take weeks or months, while others happen almost unconsciously, based on a feeling of comfort, expectations and trust.
All organizations, regardless of mission are in the business of attracting consumers to their brand and hoping that over time these people will have increasing loyalty and investment. That investment can be through a purchase or one’s actions. They are our members or stakeholders, channel partners, franchisees, or even people within our organization.
The question is; how can we influence potential customers, so making a choice to invest in us is an intuitive and easy decision?
I pose this question with a specific challenge in mind. My company helps clients provide, and in many cases monetize, online education through a learning management system (LMS). Our client organizations dedicate a significant amount of resources in their learning platforms and development of content, banking on the notion that if we build it they will come… and spend money. However, while knowledge cuts to the core of what attracts people to these organizations; expectations for participation are often not met. We find that some are having success while others are more challenged. When you look more closely at the reasons for this, you find that participation in one’s education offering has more to do with organization strategy than a learning strategy.
Where Community Comes in
Over the past several years, we are witnessing a movement towards open, transparent dialogue and sharing of ideas through social media and other means. This represents a profound shift for groups in their quest to build a following. It moves them from creating and directing to facilitating and empowering. A tangible way we see this happening is through significant growth of private online communities where conversations occur under the identity of a sponsoring organization. An online community changes the paradigm and invites dialogue. It also provides an on-boarding strategy to welcome new participants and break down social barriers which often lead to greater participation.
Private Communities and Online Education
As private online communities have evolved, these platforms have been created as separate and distinct areas within an organization’s Web presence. An organization’s LMS is typically in a different area therefore creating two, unique silos for community engagement and learning. Idea sharing happens in one area, while people enrolling and connecting through webinars, courses, listening to Podcasts or collaborating in a workshop happen somewhere else. This separate existence can cause fragmentation and a slowdown of momentum. Just like in other parts of society, social, community and learning go together.
Participation in learning calls for an investment.
People will resist that structure if they are not comfortable. Community cultivates comfort to make these decisions more intuitive.
LMS as a Component of Community
If our participants are already invested in a destination where they participate and share strategies and ideas about real life experiences, why would we disconnect them from where they go and move them somewhere else to start over? In a sense, this is what we do when we create a partition between private communities and our Learning Platforms. In contrast to this, a more effective approach is when the LMS is a component to a community building on the existing relationships and patterns of engagement?
Our Work with Higher Logic
Over the past year, CommPartners and Higher Logic have collaborated about bringing together our two platforms to support the ideas shared in this post. Our initial efforts have been directed to create the HL Learn Online Academy where online training is embedded within the HUG Community and leverages the relationships that are supported through this outstanding resource. We believe this is the ideal way to showcase the many benefits that occur when learning is a component of community.
Richard Finstein
CEO, CommPartners
rfinstein@commpartners.com
If you have questions or would like more information on the CommPartners – Higher Logic initiative you may email info@commpartners.com
by Aubrey Mellos | Aug 30, 2016 | Blog
Because associations serve a dual bottom line, they are always looking for ways to do well while doing good. As mission-driven organizations, they are called to serve those missions, but “no money – no mission.” There is a constant search for programs, products, and services that will raise revenue and benefit members and other stakeholders, the industries and professions that they represent, and the general public. Unfortunately, those opportunities aren’t always easy to locate.
Right now, both in the US and globally, the education and employment sectors are being profoundly disrupted. In their new whitepaper The Association Role in the New Education Paradigm, Shelly Alcorn (Alcorn Associates Management Consulting) and Elizabeth Weaver Engel (Spark Consulting) make the argument that associations are uniquely positioned to play a vital role in helping current and future stakeholders adjust and even thrive in this rapidly changing environment by drawing on their historic strength of experience in educating diverse audiences outside the constraints of the traditional classroom setting.
Globally, millions of workers, particularly young workers, are without jobs, and millions of jobs, many of which require “21st century” skills, are unfilled. Student debt in the US is at an all-time high. We are facing, in short, a “wicked” problem, one that is so complex and touches so many socioeconomic factors as to defy easy solutions. In the whitepaper, your authors argue that associations are a key player in solving this “wicked” problem and bridging the gap from education to employment.
CommPartners will be hosting a live webinar on Monday, September 12 at 12pm ET, in which Shelly and Elizabeth will share highlights from their research into the dramatic changes affecting the realms of both education and employment, why they believe these changes represent such a tremendous opportunity for associations to benefit the professions/industries we serve, and the real stories of associations that are fully embracing their role in nurturing the next generation of professionals and members.
Bridging the Gap: The Association Role in the New Education Paradigm | August 12, 2016 12pm EDT
We hope you can join us!
