Virtual summits can take your business to nauseous heights if you have proven networking hacks in your playbook.

Here’s the thing, there is more to virtual events than just joining a Skype conference call, picking out interesting people from the attendees to connect with, and sharing relevant info such as your business-level strategies.  

You’ll need the right networking tactics to pique the interest of your target audience and to stand out from the crowd.

That’s what we’ll share in this guide.

Continue reading to learn reliable networking hacks to get more value out of your virtual summits.

Virtual summit: What is it and why network in one?

Simply put, a virtual summit is an online event that can be in many variations and includes multiple sessions. 

Essentially, it consists of several back-to-back talks given by experts around a given theme, area, or niche. 

This can include the various business-level strategies for companies in a specific industry or a more granular topic such as the crucial role that product photography plays in ecommerce marketing.  

Complex forms of virtual summits can have multi-day events with one or many speakers, workshops, panels, or a combination of these things.  

Virtual summits offer a treasure trove of networking opportunities. These provide a scalable way to connect with professionals that share your interests and issues, compared to an in-person business conference. (Learn the difference between a summit vs a conference.)

Some virtual summit platforms offer a meeting room with a networking lounge where you can start conversations with other participants through a chat feature.  

Additionally, since everything is done online, you won’t have to scramble for time to meet everyone you want to in between sessions, allowing you to collect and exchange information easily.

5 virtual summit networking hacks 

While networking on online events isn’t as challenging as learning how to run a meeting or conference yourself, it’s no walk in the park either.

We laid out these tips to help you get a running start on your virtual summit networking efforts. 

1. Determine your networking goals

Data shows that 91% of participants consider keeping members connected as a primary goal of virtual events. 

However, networking during virtual summits takes more planning and intentionality since there are zero chances of running into potential new connections while in line at a booth or during a rigorous business conference.  

Identify your networking goals to focus your strategies. This helps you pin down where and how to invest your time and effort to secure relevant connections and grow your network. 

Start by answering these questions.

• Who is the most crucial brand or person you want to connect with? Identify your ideal networking persona to help you answer this question and eliminate options that might not help you meet your overarching goal for joining the event.  Knowing your target people and brands will also focus your networking efforts.  

• How do you find your target connections? Determine the potential attendees of the virtual summit or business conference you’re joining days before the event. This helps you prepare the right strategies to approach your networking targets.

• How many people can you realistically connect with meaningfully? It can be tempting to cast a wide net and talk to as many people as possible, but this can take too much time and effort, leaving you with less than optimum results. Set a specific number of people to target to focus your efforts and establish more meaningful connections.   

Share these goals with your team for accountability. This also ensures you are all on the same page when reviewing your virtual summit networking initiatives’ success (or failure).  

2. Gather all information from the conference committee

Unlike a business meeting where you usually know the participants, virtual summits are attended by hundreds of people you might know before the event. 

This can make networking challenging since you may not know whom to form relevant connections with and how to do it. 

The solution? Cull the participant list before the event. 

Most event organizers or the conference committee provide access to their event apps and guides in advance, allowing you and other attendees to know each others’ details and connect. 

This lets you look at the attendee list to find your potential networking targets. You can then prioritize which participants to outreach pre and post-event through email, phone, or social media. 

For instance, if the conference committee uses Whova, an all-in-one event management software for in-person, virtual, and hybrid events, you’ll see the list of attendees and their profiles on the app. 

With this, you can identify your networking targets easily and reach out to the right people. Send them messages, exchange contact details, and get on a Skype conference call (if possible) for further and more meaningful conversations. 

You can also leave a note about your networking targets in the app for easy reference later. 

Knowing the virtual summit attendees before the event can give you the upper hand, helping you find the most relevant people to connect with and plan your approach accordingly. 

3. Join a relevant meeting room

The average number of sessions per virtual event is 20, making it challenging to choose the right online summit meeting room to jump into to make your desired connections. 

Sign up for a matchmaking service or utilize the automated tool the virtual summit conference committee uses to connect with like-minded attendees and join relevant meeting rooms.

For example, virtual event and networking platform Brella uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) for smart event matchmaking. 

The platform matches and suggests the best people to meet based on your goals and mutual interests.  

With this virtual summit networking feature, you can find (and be easily found by) relevant people to meet and build professional connections. 

This also helps you narrow down and open conversation topics, such as the best methods to incorporate your email marketing and social media strategies. 

You get information on your similar interests and backgrounds and join a highly relevant event meeting room.

4. Leverage your board meeting participation

If you’re a member of your company’s board or regularly attend a regular board meeting, include it in your registration bio.

This helps you gain some clout over other virtual summit attendees and your networking targets. Your connections are likely to put more credibility into the info and tips you share, from your business-level strategies to choosing the right ecommerce platforms for beginners. 

Also, publicize your event attendance to get yourself out there and attract prospects and peers who might also participate in the virtual summit. 

Share the event announcement through your website, social media pages, and online groups and include a bit of your virtual summit registration bio and your board meeting participation.

Use your role and involvement in your company’s board meeting sessions to effectively network with fellow virtual summit attendees. 

5. Follow up and set up a business meeting

Stay on top of your established connections to keep them alive and make them last.

Do the following within the first three days after the virtual summit to help ensure networking success:

• Reach out to your event contacts through email and send them Thank you messages and requests for further discussions through a Skype conference call or other platforms. 

• Go through social media platforms for hashtags or mentions of the virtual summit. Connect to individuals talking about the event and set up a business meeting for those with great collaboration, partnership, and even sales potential.

Use free tools such as Google Meet to hold a secure business meeting to deepen your connections and grow your network. 

With your Google account, you can create a meeting for later, start an instant meeting, or schedule one in your Google Calendar and send invites to participants.

• Take note of and attend the post-event meetings or calls you set up during the event. Add them to your calendar to ensure you don’t miss any, or you end up ruining your newly established connections. 

• Check your email regularly for similar networking requests from other virtual summit participants, so you don’t miss out on more potential connections. 

You don’t have to be an expert on how to run a meeting to network effectively. Follow up diligently and connect with your prospects, and you should be good to go.   

Use the networking hacks now

Whether in-person or online, effective networking is about focusing on the people you want to connect with by sharing useful information and knowledge with them. 
While the process isn’t as complex or time-consuming as learning how to run a meeting or online event, with a bit of effort, thoughtful planning, and the networking hacks we shared, you can achieve success with your online event networking efforts. 

The post Networking Hacks: Tips for Networking on Virtual Summits appeared first on Guild of Bloggers.

If you’ve been working on the Internet long enough, chances are, you’ve encountered invitations to a virtual summit or an online business conference. 

These terms are synonymous, but if I ask you the difference between a summit vs a conference, would you be able to tell the difference?

Running a virtual business exposes you to these terms so it pays to learn more about them.

In this post, we’ll break down the differences between the two events — plus tips to help you get the most our of your attendance.

Summit meaning

A summit is typically a one-time, independent event with a fairly concentrated topic and agenda scope.

Your attendance and the opportunity to speak at this event are often by the organizer’s invitation only.

Conference meaning

A conference is a large gathering of representatives from various companies of a generally broad field.

Conferences can differ in their exclusivity. Some are ticketed but open to all, while others are open to the public without needing passes. Certain events can also require an invitation. 

Summit vs conference

So, summit vs conference: how do these two events vary? 

Below are their differences:

Target Audience

Summits cater to the interests of a more specific audience than conferences (which invite various professionals in their industry).

Summits are also usually top-level dialogues for or involving industry leaders, executives of brick-and-mortar and virtual businesses, and other high-caliber players in the field. 

Dialogue Topics and Objectives

Summits and conferences both entail idea-sharing discussions. When joining, you can expect to listen to thought leaders’ expert perspectives about the events’ featured theme or topic area.

However, the difference lies in their objectives for the dialogues or what their audiences can get.

Summits discuss big ideas, tackle big-picture questions, and propose solutions for an industry-related problem — whether on a micro- or macro-scale. 

Summits have a pre-determined agenda announced in advance to their participants. This lets them prepare ahead by studying the problem and initially thinking of ways to resolve it.

Because of this, business summit attendees aim to walk away with a concrete solution or way of moving forward regarding their industry predicament.

An excellent example of this is the CrowdStrike Asia Virtual Summit 2021, where delegates can glean insights from cybersecurity leaders on high-caliber supply chain breaches, an advanced, reliable, and sustainable security model, etc. 

On the other hand, business conferences are usually more open-ended and don’t have a tangible end goal since they focus more on exchanging opinions and new information.

Even if the speakers have something they want audiences to take home from their presentations, conferences still seek to be a venue for attendees to learn something they can apply to their industry roles.

Style and Program Flow

Summits are often more formal and plenary in nature, expecting delegates to attend all the planned sessions and presentations.

Summit attendees typically listen to the discussions, gather problem-solving ideas, and then network with the speakers and other participants after the event. Rarely do they have the chance to join in the dialogue.

In contrast, conference delegates have richer participation, idea-exchanging, and networking opportunities. The event usually involves break-out sessions where they can more actively discuss lessons learned and more. 

Compared to summits, business conferences are also more apt for inserting brand promotions and other virtual event ideas — including sales pitch meetings — between talks and sessions, or other parts of the event.

However, pitch meetings and open promotions occurring during summits can be unsuitable since these events deal more with discussing and solving issues.

Reasons to Join a Business Summit vs Conference

Why should you join a business summit? For one, you get to learn from leaders in your niche, sharing their experiences, applied techniques, and top-level insights on solving the same problems and questions you encounter.

Learning from them, you’ll have a renewed level of energy and determination to face those challenges with robust, novel strategies.

Summits also give you global perspectives and special networking, knowledge-sharing opportunities since these events accommodate a select, international audience segment.

The Salesforce Business Analyst Summit is a terrific example. It gathers business analysts worldwide seeking professional growth and strategies to resolve daily technical and career-related challenges.

The event features compelling presentations and 16 experts from whom delegates can learn about being a successful business analyst (e.g., enhancing data analytics and other related essential marketing skills) and more.

What about business conferences? Attending them benefits you since they leave you with new ideas in your head and make you want to jumpstart as soon as you return to work.

Plus, in business conferences, you’re not the only one learning from the experts. They and the other participants can discover fresh outlooks from you during break-out panels, pitch meetings, and other conference activities.

Quick Tips When Joining Business Summits and Conferences

Make the most of your attendance in a business summit or conference by executing the following networking hacks:

Look out for exciting, relevant virtual events.

To widen your network and continue growing professionally, constantly look out for relevant, well-organized virtual events.

Google them with applicable keywords, keep tabs on social networking groups and platforms, or check out companies hosting great virtual events.

Research on your speakers.

Virtual summits often tell you ahead who their resource persons will be, just like the Salesforce Business Analyst Summit I mentioned earlier:

Leverage that to check out their websites, LinkedIn and Twitter profiles, etc., and increase your familiarity with their background and credibility.

Doing this lets you better understand the speakers and their presentations and quickly connect with them during any Q&A session, post-event networking meet-ups and correspondence, etc.

Develop a social and email networking plan.

Amplify your online presence to boost your noticeability and potential connections. Plan for it in advance so you can focus on the presentations during the virtual event:

• Blog and post on social media before, during, and after the event to stay on top of the speakers’, organizers’, and participants’ minds. If you’re sending regular promotional emails for your virtual business, incorporate your social and email marketing strategies. Share clickable snippets about your blog posts on your newsletter.
• Use any dedicated hashtags and custom photo filters when posting before, during, and after the summit or conference. 
• Connect with the speakers, fellow delegates, and hosts on your social platforms. You can even subscribe to the experts’ and organizers’ email newsletters for other exclusive updates.

Takeaways between a summit vs conference

Virtual summits and conferences are both idea-exchanging, networking events. The former focuses on solving problems and overcoming challenges, while the latter concentrates on gathering additional knowledge and often welcomes more promotional activities.

These online events can drive significant career, network, and business development for you. Deliberately join attendance-worthy summits and conferences according to your current needs.

The post Summit vs Conference: Difference Between a Summit and a Conference appeared first on Guild of Bloggers.

If you’re oblivious about the virtual summit benefits you can enjoy from joining these virtual events, then you’re missing out on massive gains!

Virtual summits are goldmines of opportunities.

You gain access to valuable resources, learn from industry experts, and connect with other participants to grow your professional and personal networks.     

Don’t pass up the chance to join an online summit and experience the advantages that we’ll cover in this guide. 

Virtual summit meaning: A quick overview 

Before diving into the nitty-gritty of virtual summit benefits, let’s briefly go over what it means.

A virtual summit is a collaborative event held on online channels and platforms. It includes live or recorded interviews and discussions with speakers who are usually industry experts, business leaders, and authorities in specific fields. 

Most virtual summits are similar to an online conference where panels of speakers present sets of niche or specific topics within an industry or a subject. 

These events can run for several days with live sessions for additional engagement and interaction or pre-recorded content doled out in multiple sessions per day.  

Summit vs. online conference

There is a difference between a summit and a conference.

Summits are usually independent, one-off events commonly focused on an overarching subject, and you can join and participate via invitation.  

A conference is typically a meeting with a huge number of attendees from specific organizations and industries who come together to hear speakers discuss niche or particular interest topics. 

Unlike summits, though, conference attendees primarily listen to the speakers and are less likely given a chance to join in the dialogues.

Essentially, conference attendees join the event to learn, and interactions among participants and speakers happen after the event.

(Here’s an in-depth guide about a summit vs. online conference.)

4 Virtual summit benefits

Data shows that 80% of participants join virtual events for educational purposes, with networking as the second biggest reason for attending. 

Learn some of the virtual summit benefits and why you should join this kind of event.  

1. Access great content and resources

Virtual summits provide one of the best online venues to access relevant content about a specific topic or niche. 

You’ll get reliable, well-put-together resources and learn tried and tested tips, best practices, insider strategies, and expert advice (among other things). 

With 80% of online event organizers offering on-demand virtual sessions, you’re likely to access the summit’s content after the event ends. 

The Virtual Martech Summit held on February 24 – 26 is a classic example of this.  

You can also learn from discussions with other participants and gain new knowledge to apply to your business situations and operations.   

Many virtual summits are free, so you get valuable content, resources, and even insights by only spending your time and energy. 

2. Grow your network

A virtual summit is a fantastic digital space to connect with other participants, business leaders, and industry experts for future collaborations. 

It is where you can put your networking hacks into play to form connections and potentially mutually beneficial professional relationships. 

If available, leverage event matching tools such as Grip. 

It offers an AI-powered networking and matchmaking feature that gives you instant event participant matches based on your areas of interests, profiles, and products. 

The platform uses machine learning to refine and improve participant matching accuracy as users engage with it and interact with its proposed profiles (or matches). 

Here’s what a sample participant profile on Grip looks like. 

With this technology, you create and update your profile  and get immediate recommendations of the best virtual summit attendees to connect with. 

You won’t need to go through the event’s participant list and read each attendee’s profile to find people to add as connections to ultimately grow your network. 

Also, most virtual summit platforms offer chat and messaging features, allowing you to reach out to your networking targets and start conversations easily. 

A bigger network is one of the best things that can come out of your virtual summit participation, so implement networking hacks and be strategic in your approach to optimize your efforts. 

A solid virtual summit networking strategy can help you establish connections that contribute to your company’s growth and success. 

3. Save costs and learn from anywhere

While virtual summits take away the face-to-face experience, it does offer a more convenient way to participate in these events. 

For instance, since everything you do in the event is online, you can join the sessions from anywhere. This eliminates the hassles and time-consuming aspects of traveling to another location to attend a summit.  

It’s also easier to fit an online event around your schedule since you can easily pick and choose to join sessions you’re only interested in from the convenience of your home or office.

On the other hand, virtual summits let you sit and watch all the sessions and join all the participant discussion rooms. 

You get less of a time crunch since you can easily pop in and out of any online event areas, networking lounges, and session rooms. 

Reliable virtual summit platforms that organizers might use also include notifications features, alerting and reminding you of events and sessions you want to join. 

If the virtual summit committee uses platforms such as PheedLoop, for instance, you’ll get to access the platform’s notification center.

The feature allows you to receive real-time event announcement alerts, direct messages, and video calls so you don’t miss any sessions, connections, or chances to participate.  

Here’s where you will find the notification on the event interface. 

4. Interact with and learn from industry authorities

With virtual summits, you can learn from multiple speakers, listen to industry experts, and ask questions.  

Most of these summits often offer several mini-events and sessions with many resource persons about various topics related to the event’s overarching subject.

Additionally, you get to know new industry leaders and authorities, and some of them will offer free or discounted materials of their own, such as newsletters and whitepapers.

Many online events, including an online conference, provide details of their resource persons. This allows you to reach out to the speakers after the event for other content, resources, and even services to help your business.   

This allows you to connect with industry leaders, gain expert advice, set up strategic meetings, and form professional relationships for future collaborations.  

To sum up the virtual summit benefits

Whether you’re a seasoned or newbie business owner, joining virtual summits provides tons of advantages for you and your company. 

With online summits, you get to interact with and learn from industry experts, expand your network, connect with business leaders and relevant contacts and gain access to valuable (and often free) content and resources — all from the comfort of your home or office. 

The post 4 Virtual Summit Benefits That Business Leaders Shouldn’t Miss Out On appeared first on Guild of Bloggers.

Kajabi vs. Teachable: Which platform is the best place to house your online courses?

That’s a valid question that many online course creators ask.

After all, the Internet offers several learning management systems (LMS) — but Kajabi has the best features to get you to your knowledge commerce goals.

Learn from this Kajabi review the features that make Kajabi reign supreme among the k-commerce platforms.

What is Kajabi?

Kajabi is an industry-leading LMS platform that knowledge entrepreneurs and enthusiasts can harness to share their expertise and earn from it.

Being all-in-one, Kajabi offers robust functionalities covering all essential aspects of promoting, monetizing, and delivering effective online courses for business profitability and success.

Kajabi Review

Kajabi has a clean, user-intuitive interface to painlessly build and operate your site, knowledge products, and k-commerce business.

It also gives you free rein when customizing various elements according to your needs and preferences. Let’s explore them in depth in this Kajabi review section:

Website Building

Kajabi helps you build an attractive website introducing your knowledge products — from design to navigation, menus, pages, and more.

First, establish essential aspects by heading to Website > Site Details to set up your website information, homepage display options, branding, colors, etc.

Opt to begin from scratch or leverage any of the numerous customizable Kajabi themes and templates in the platform’s gallery:

Suppose you selected a Kajabi theme. Modify its sections and settings, such as your hero image, call to action, header and footer, testimonials, exit pop-up, and many others.

Your adjustments to your Kajabi theme can even go as deep as your font styles, sizes, and colors; image, logo, and header-footer dimensions; SEO-friendly titles, URLs, and meta-descriptions; language, etc. 

This helps your site accurately reflect your personal and k-commerce brand image.

The Website tab is also where you’ll build specific pages, such as a Kajabi login page (for your students), thank-you, 404, a blog section, and all others.

To simplify creating these pages, Kajabi offers templates. 

Let’s use the Kajabi login, for instance. Note: this page is important because your students can’t access your courses without entering their account credentials on your website.

Your Kajabi login page entails fewer block sections to ease your enrollees’ entrance to your site. But it still offers many customization settings to fit your branding and other preferences.

Here’s how the customization page appears (under the “Header” category):

You’ll encounter similar but page-unique adjustments for your other site pages.

Product and Course Development

Kajabi eases your course development, design, and sharing functions through the Products tab on the platform’s side panel.

Note: You can also use Kajabi’s products to record and resell content from your virtual summit. To create surveys, manage online communities spaces, etc.

From Products, click “+ New Product” at the top right:

You’ll then see several product options, but you can begin with “Mini Course,” and this page appears for you to edit your course outline and content:

There, you can add videos, quizzes, categories, descriptions, pricing, automations, bundle options, course image, and more. You can also control course visibility and other settings.

Clicking the “Customize” option below your title (“Mini Course” in the example above) lets you design your course and other products.

You can enhance the current Kajabi theme used for your site or pick another one unique to your course.

Similar to website customization, adjust relevant course page settings and sections, e.g., product syllabus and sidebar, welcome body, search bar, and more.

Here, you can even display the course progress, courses to cross-sell, customize your start and call-to-action buttons, etc.

Additionally, Kajabi helps you manage your courses by adjusting settings for announcement alerts, comment reviews, video engagement statistics, and others.

Marketing Strategies

Kajabi offers extensive marketing features (more than any other LMS platform) to help you promote your courses effectively and get numerous enrollees. 

First, Kajabi enables you to establish your general marketing settings (e.g., email domains, sequences, and delivery, contact information, etc.) for smoother campaign building later.

What sets Kajabi apart from other k-commerce platforms is its Pipelines, which are advanced funnel creators automating and simplifying your entire sales-marketing workflows.

Kajabi provides several industry-approved, entrepreneur-tested Pipeline templates to choose from and alter:

Here’s a sample “Sales Page Opt in-Value-Offer” blueprint:

Kajabi also powers your marketing campaigns with email sequences and broadcasts to automate based on your defined triggers and get performance analytics.

Promote your online courses as well with Kajabi’s Events, such as webinars, product or course launches, and in-person activities. They go with your emails and automated actions.

Here’s how the page for adding your event looks like:

Maximize Kajabi’s Forms to let people register to your online conference, subscribe to your emails, avail of your offers, and fall under suitable segments you create. Check out some settings below:

Don’t forget that, earlier, I mentioned Kajabi letting you craft SEO-friendly website details. Harness this marketing tactic to boost your online presence and get enrollees.

Sales and Monetization

Earn from your courses by linking payment processors, creating and handling coupons and sales offers, and building your checkout pages — all with numerous settings to select from.

First, Kajabi accommodates PayPal and Stripe integrations and permits sending receipts, payment cancellation and refund, and sales tax inclusion, among others.

When creating enticing sales offers and coupon codes, Kajabi offers boatloads of modification preferences to get you the figures you’re targeting.

Moreover, Kajabi equips your business with seamless checkout page building settings. Pick from its templates and customize their block sections like those on Website and the course page:

People-related Tasks

Finally, in Kajabi’s People panel, you can manage your enrollees’ profiles, membership, and segments, and perform other related tasks, e.g., resetting passwords.

This tab is also where you can add and manage your affiliates (another marketing strategy) plus all transactions and purchases made through them.

Kajabi Pricing

Comparing Kajabi vs. Teachable and other Kajabi alternatives, you’ll see Kajabi’s pricing is cost-effective since it offers a sizeable set of features covering k-commerce operations.

All three Kajabi pricing packages get the same primary functionalities and vary only in the volume of specific elements you can access plus other nifty (but non-essential) features.

Kajabi’s pricing packages come in monthly and annual billing plans, with 20% discounts for the latter. Kajabi also gives you a free 14-day trial and lets you start without charges. 

Here’s the cost list:

• Basic. Monthly billing: $149/month. Annual billing: $119/mo.
• Growth. Monthly billing: $199/month. Annual plan: $159/mo.
• Pro. Monthly plan: $399/mo. Annual plan: $319/month.

Kajabi review: The superior platform for k-commerce success

Kajabi immensely delights knowledge entrepreneurs with full customization, truckloads of incredible features, and affordable pricing plans — in exchange for heaps of sales and marketing opportunities.

This makes the platform ultimately superior among other LMS tools, ruling out any “Kajabi vs. Teachable” and other comparative questions on Kajabi alternatives still swirling in your head.

Leverage Kajabi now to skyrocket your way to k-commerce success.

The post Kajabi Review 2021: A Superior, All-in-One Platform for Successful Online Courses appeared first on Guild of Bloggers.

Hosting a virtual summit is one way of growing your email list, boosting your sales, expanding your network, and becoming an industry leader.

However, launching an online event takes more than slapping together a few virtual sessions and throwing in a few fun interviews with guest speakers.

It takes A LOT of work. You’ll need to carefully plan your virtual summit, figure out the logistics, get speakers onboard, implement your networking hacks, and promote your event (among many other things).  

The good news is, we’re here to help. 

In this guide, we’ll cover why virtual summits are beneficial to you and a few tips and tricks on how you can host one successfully to support your digital marketing efforts.  

Why host a virtual summit?

If virtual summits take so much work and effort to put together, why host one in the first place?

It’s because of the many virtual summit benefits, including:

• Establishing your company’s reputation within your industry. Having industry experts at your virtual summit helps make your company more credible and influential. With this, attendees such as other business leaders and marketing consultants are more likely to see you as an industry authority and someone to learn from. 

• Building relationships with potential partners and industry players. Virtual summits provide a space for gathering and meeting key players within your industry. This gives you many opportunities to form connections and future collaborations.

• Growing your email list. A virtual summit helps you capture your target audience’s email addresses in exchange for joining your online event. With permission, you can use those email addresses for your other marketing initiatives. 

• Generate more sales leads. When you achieve the right balance between being informational and sales-focused, hosting a virtual summit can help you generate and even qualify leads. Data shows that 86% of online event attendees report equal or higher engagement levels than in-person events, so use this to your advantage to get more leads. 

Additionally, let’s end the confusion on summit vs. online conference. 

Summits are geared towards more specific audiences, such as a particular industry, while conferences include various company representatives from broad fields.   

Summit discussions focus on big-picture topics and ideas and uncover solutions for industry-specific problems, both on a macro and micro level. 

However, business conferences tend to be more open-ended with no concrete end goal since the focus is on exchanging opinions and new information. 

Now that you know the difference between a summit and a conference let’s go over how you can host a successful summit.

Steps to hosting a smashing virtual summit

Launching a virtual summit requires tons of work, preparation, and it involves many parts. 

This guide will break down the process and the best strategies for hosting an online summit.  

1. Iron out your online event logistics

Like any event, virtual summits require careful planning to be successful. 

Outline the most crucial parts of your online event, including:

• The event date and time
• Deciding on whether you will run a free, freemium, or paid virtual summit. 
• Prepping and creating materials, such as Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and promotional content
• Listing down your potential speakers, including the deadline for sending out invitations and getting their confirmation
• Creating an attendee registration website or landing page

Identify all necessary event logistics and get a head start on your prep, so you don’t end up scrambling to get everything ready (or forget anything critical). 

2. Outline the content you want to cover

Virtual summit content includes everything from your summit name, branding, and overall theme to the specific guest speaker interview topics, such as strategies to manage your ecommerce projects. 

Planning what topics to cover will help you create and put together your content more seamlessly, whether for your specific audiences (such as marketing consultants), promotional materials, or your pitch to getting speakers on board. 

The infographic created for Pareto Sales & Marketing Virtual Summit is a great example of this. 

The compelling, comprehensive infographic details everything potential speakers need to know about the event. 

The clearer your content is to your audience (and potential speakers) and the value they can get from participating, the more likely they are to get on board.   

3. Choose your software and hardware

You’ll need specific hardware and software systems when you mastermind online events. 

For instance, you’ll need a good webcam, microphone, computer, and access to reliable, fast internet. 

You’ll also need the right software, such as a virtual event platform that includes landing pages. It also helps to choose an online event solution with features such as an email autoresponder, payment processing, checkout systems, membership website, and more. 

For instance, online event platform GoToWebinar offers a wide array of tools that let you plan, promote, and host your virtual summit. 

The platform allows you to host your event with up to 2,000 people. Its features include tools for audience engagement such as polls, screen sharing, custom branding, and email marketing. 

You can also access a detailed analytics dashboard. 

You’ll get valuable insights, such as attendee reports and source tracking, to identify which of your promotional channels generated the most sign-ups. 

Reliable hardware and software can help you run a seamless virtual summit with little to no hitches. It will also provide a better experience for your participants and speakers.

4. Promote your event

Set aside ample time to promote your mastermind online event — ideally a month before the start of your virtual event. 

The promotion period is also an excellent time to lay out the groundwork and implement your networking hacks. 

Optimize your event promotion through channels that work best for you, such as email and social media. 

60% of online event organizers use social media to drive significant registrations because of its effectiveness in increasing sign-ups.

You can also share your upcoming virtual summit details and invitation with your online communities and run affiliate programs to encourage sign-ups.

Virtual event platform solution HeySummit offers native tools to optimize your event sign-ups, such as letting you set up an affiliate program to help get your event out to wider audiences.

With an affiliate program, you can incentivize people such as marketing consultants or a fellow industry leader with big, established audiences (including speakers) to help promote your event for you.

Wrapping up our tips on hosting a virtual summit

Now that you know the essential steps to hosting a virtual summit, you can start creating your first online event.

While the tips here are by no means comprehensive, you can use them as a guide to help kickstart how you will mastermind online events and turn them into smashing successes. 

Hosting a virtual summit is a lot of work, but the trade-offs can be excellent. This includes letting you put your networking hacks to great use to build relationships and establishing yourself as an industry leader.  

The post Online Conference: How to Host a Successful Virtual Summit appeared first on Guild of Bloggers.