Online Events: It’s Time to Challenge the Idea that More Interactivity Leads to More Value
This is Part III of a series from Caspian Agency on the Four Fundamentals of thinking virtually for online events. Please see Part I HERE, Part II HERE, and Part IV HERE.
Pre-COVID-19, event producers didn’t get asked about content nearly as often as we would have liked. We were usually left out of the decision-making when determining what formats would be best for the content. And more often than not, these formats were not the best delivery mechanisms. Now, however, we have the opportunity to weigh in on both format and content structure, and we can be a part of crafting engaging experiences. But the rules of engagement are drastically different in the era of COVID. People can now tune in (and tune out) at the click of a button, meaning event producers have to be a lot more strategic about content delivery. So far, the default response to this seems to be, “More interactivity!” In my opinion, this is the wrong response.
Putting events online should never be about simply copying one experience onto a new platform. Instead, start with the purpose of the event, specifically with respect to interactivity. Is interactivity a stated goal of the gathering? If so, it’s time to ask why, and then pressure test this conclusion. What does it add to the event? Interactivity is not an inherently bad thing if it’s truly needed. The problem is that if it’s forced onto events as a default instead of a carefully thought out strategy, it will come off as inauthentic and unnatural, and ultimately, unsuccessful.
Interactivity is a Must
Let’s start with events where interactivity clearly is a must. It’s the core of the event, and without it, the gathering shouldn’t take place. The good news is that there are numerous ways to achieve this online. Culture norms around chat box participation are growing organically, and we can easily encourage attendees to utilize this function. Icebreaker is another platform allowing for one on one interactions, thus helping to facilitate personal connections that in-person networking sessions used to provide. And we’ve also seen the emergence of a Zoom hack, where events set up numerous Zoom links for a group to split off as they might want to and in combinations they choose. With the shift of events to online spaces, new platforms will inevitably become available in the coming months, so there is ample opportunity to choose the right platform for the level of interactivity to fit the goal.
That being said, in the quest for interactivity, it’s not about recreating in-person, but adapting and even benefiting from the digital environment. One of those benefits is that we are no longer at the mercy of time. Content can be both pre-recorded and interactive. All you need is a live host and moderators for interactive features such as chat boxes. These formats already exist. They’re called news broadcasts, and they have decades worth of experience to be mined for ideas and strategies.
The Interactivity is in the Agency
On the other hand, if the pressure test shows that interactivity isn’t a priority, this doesn’t mean that we discard the concept entirely. When thinking about interactivity online, it’s important to consider the historical behaviour of humans behind screens. Since the dawn of online culture, the goal has always been to keep people on a website through the use of sticky content. Remember that term from the first wave of Internet culture? The concept hasn’t gone away. It just goes by different names now. Internal linking structure. Sharable content. Related posts. But the goal remains the same. Keep people engaged with your content and inside the ecosystem. For event producers, this means giving people the opportunity to explore within the event. Allowing them to choose how and when they engage with it.
Think of online content in terms of lean forward or lean back. Lean forward content includes the more traditional interactive elements, such as chat boxes, where attendees are required to physically type in words in order to participate. With lean back content, it might appear to be passive viewing, but it doesn’t mean the viewer is passively consuming the content. Anyone familiar with YouTube’s list of suggested videos that appear alongside the viewing window knows there is some level of engagement. How many times have you gotten sucked into a “Next Video” vortex? I know I’ve lost hours to this. You may not be actively participating in the videos themselves, but you are choosing what you want to watch and when. If you replicate this concept within your online events, you are giving your participants extraordinary agency over their event experience. Let that agency be the event’s “interactivity.”
Don’t Just Lean Forward to Check a Box
There is no hard and fast rule that says events on a screen have to be interactive. It hasn’t been a requirement for the majority of our experiences with screens thus far, so why now? The idea that more interactivity translates to more value deserves to be challenged. And often.
Furthermore, it’s one that’s forcing a lot of online events to be something that they’re not. We don’t need to lean forward because we think we ought to. Instead, we can reimagine what it means to be interactive, and take another look at how that can be applied to events, even those that are lean back. So long as we are giving participants the agency of choosing how they want to engage with an event, they will feel a part of it. After all, that should be the goal of any event, online or not.
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