By Lynne Williams

Want to improve your online host skills or add a fun factor to your virtual events? I have several new hacks and resources to share. Also included below are a couple of events I attend weekly.

LinkedIn Events

On October 22, 2020, LinkedIn Marketing hosted a live webinar to share new updates about their events platform for both private and public events. They have a decision guide to help you determine the best path for your event.

The options available could be useful for the solo practitioner to the marketing professional for mega-events and everything in between.

To create an event, refer to this article from October 2019 or go straight to this link.

Here are some of the enhancements or important factoids that LinkedIn shared in their webinar:

• Add free registration form of event attendees
• More organic discovery features
• Personalized dynamic recommendations
• Notify page followers
• Promote events with ads
• Seamlessly retarget event attendees to nurture campaign
• Use keywords for the title for the event, and they will get used in the back end
• The event can be online or offline
• Broadcast link can be on LinkedIn Live (if approved) or via a 3rd party
• Speakers can be tagged and will get notified, and the speaker’s contacts will get notified, which they noted is very powerful
• Event visibility – can be public or private
• You can add in a privacy policy link, and here is LinkedIn’s Privacy Policy
• You can invite your connections to the event
• You can engage attendees through polls as part of the event to create continual engagement
• There will be some organic distribution
• LinkedIn will even recommend some events
• You can recommend the post to the attendees two times per week
• There is a campaign manager for brand awareness, consideration for website visits, and conversions
• There are targeting options available to promote the event
• You can measure event registrations and click event registrations and view image registrations as metrics

Audience Engagement Ideas and Other Hacks

• Annotation on Zoom
• Breakout Rooms
• Contests or competitions
• Games
• Gift Giveaway
• Happy Hours
• Improving Virtual Events
• Music on Zoom and Read More
• Polls
  • Direct Poll
  • Mentimeter
  • Poll Everywhere
  • do
  • Zoom polls at meetings
  • Zoom polls for webinars
• Names called out live welcome guests
• Pre Recording vs. Simulated Live
• Prezi Video
• Q & A Live
• Random Picks
• Social Media Contests
• Storytelling
• Teambuilding
• Ten Smart Hacks
• Trivia Night
• Video of a new roll-out or virtual tour of a location
• Wheel of Names and here’s an example
• Zoom Hacks by Bustle
• Zoom Hacks by HuffPost
• Zoom Settings

Event Management Platforms, Virtual Training, Webinar and Online Software, and More Remote Tools

• in
• io (free up to 50 people)
• Zoom Beta Test called OnZoom
• Save yourself time and get a very extensive list of over 300 links for your virtual endeavors while you support a local nonprofit

Online Learning to Enhance Your Skills

• ATD Virtual Training Design and Facilitation
• ATD Ways to Improve Your Virtual Training
• Dottotech Youtube Channel and Patreon and Website (every Wed 4 PM, I learn online)
• No More Bad Zoom (every Fri 5 PM, I learn online and participate in this happy hour #NoMoreBadZoom)
• Robbie Samuel’s Youtube Channel
• Workmatters How to Avoid Key Mistakes Leading Virtual Meetings

The above links are not a comprehensive list by any means, but you will hopefully find some of the links helpful as you spend your time online. Hope to see you at the Friday happy hour! It’s a BYOB!

Missed last week’s article Career Management & LinkedIn for Veterans? Click here!

Upcoming October Online Zoom Events

Register per the instructions on the website. Join our meetup (see step one of this Google doc). To attend the speaker meetings for free for a year, become a Bronze or BENG member. Your membership or sponsorship supports our nonprofit to help job seekers in career transition and self-employed and employed with career management. Consider sponsoring a job seeker in need and help pay it forward!

• 10/23 Career Success Group
• 10/26 How to Develop Successful Job Search Strategies
• 10/26 Uncover the Hidden Job Market
• 10/27 Navigating the Recruiting Process as an Applicant
• 10/27 Business Executives Networking Group Meeting
• 10/28 Call-in PowerThinking Resiliency Building
• 10/28 Business Executives Networking Group Meeting
• 10/28 Affiliate Event Beating the Applicant Tracking System
• 10/29 Building Your Professional Brand
• 10/30 Career Success Group & Open Forum LinkedIn Q&A
• 10/31 Affiliate Event Jump Start Your Job Search

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lynne Williams, Ed.D. Candidate (she/her/hers) is the Executive Director of the Philadelphia Area Great Careers Group, a nonprofit with over 6300 members and alumni. Contact Lynne by phone at 484-393-2951, email at director@greatcareersphl.org, on social media @GreatCareersPHL and #GreatCareersPHL and connect on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/lynnewilliams. Read our SCORE Success Story as a 2020 Small Business Achievement Award Winner!

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