Companies are waking up to the fact that remote work isn’t a perk to reserve for a tithe of your workforce. They must embrace it wherever and whenever possible — for the foreseeable future.
One way that this is happening outside of the traditional office space is with virtual live events. Due to the fast-tracked nature of the shift online, many companies are turning to API-based solutions to cut down on development time.
Here are some of the best ways to enhance your virtual live events with APIs that can leave your attendees with a positive experience every time.
1. Manage Attendance
A successful live event always starts with attendance. By running a live event, you’re choosing to restrict yourself to a specific time slot when everything will happen in real-time.
This requires the orchestration of dozens, hundreds, and at times even thousands of individuals. You must make them aware of the event, let them sign up, and then give them thorough instructions for how to attend.
Selling tickets for a live event is something that in-house virtual live event software often cannot address in a satisfactory manner — which is why many turn to Eventbrite as an external API solution.
Eventbrite gives an organization everything it needs to get people “in the virtual doors.” It facilitates the creation of event pages and the purchase of tickets. It also is very easy to embed on a company website or in an email campaign.
The API was already a popular option for countless events before the pandemic started. This head start has allowed Eventbrite to deliver a sophisticated, user-friendly API that makes it remarkably easy to sell tickets for your event.
2. Promote Using Social Media
Having a good ticket platform creates the “doors” for your event. But you still need people to find that virtual entrance if they’re going to enter when the time comes. That’s why lining up a good event marketing API is also a good idea.
Facebook is a common tool used throughout the promotional process. However, most businesses go about much of their social media marketing activities manually. They create pages, write posts, and push marketing content often in a context that is completely disconnected from an event itself.
When it comes to events, though, the pioneer in the Meta-verse space has created their Official Events API to streamline much of the promotional process. This can integrate with your existing virtual live event software, making it much easier to create event pages on Facebook.
From there, the API streamlines the large-scale distribution and promotion of your event page. This can make it much easier to market the upcoming occasion to a massive audience without pouring endless resources or strategic effort into the ordeal.
3. Level Up Audio
The last thing you want is to attract a huge number of attendees through a killer promotional campaign, only to have technical issues once the live event begins.
Even if the actual functionality of your software goes off without a hitch, if the quality of the presentation is sub-par, it presents problems. This can undermine the ability of your company to have virtual events that are genuinely as effective as their in-person counterparts.
One way to ensure that your presentation quality remains high is by using the Dolby.io APIs — including its spatial audio with a new manual placement feature.
The API doesn’t just deliver the crisp, clear audio that earned Dolby.io its reputation. It also utilizes cutting-edge tech to position speaker and attendee audio throughout a virtual event. Users can manually place sound objects throughout a three-dimensional space to impact how they hear the event.
This makes it easier to connect visuals with audio, creating a smoother, more life-like feel to the online interaction.
4. Maximize Event Data
Live events are a tricky business. It’s difficult to know who will attend, if people will stay for the entire event, and if external factors will impact initial estimations. That’s where an API tool like PredictHQ can be a lifesaver.
PredictHQ specializes in compiling and organizing data that can impact demand forecasting. This can be for an endless variety of different kinds of events — including virtual conferences.
If you’ve found that your events tend to fluctuate in attendance, PredictHQ can help you identify the reasons behind the fluctuations. This can enable a company to take steps to maximize the effectiveness of each event and properly forecast the demand of upcoming events, as well.
Hosting live virtual events is the way of the future. However, that doesn’t mean simply having an event online will equate to success.
Every live event needs a support network that can smooth out any wrinkles and ensure that the experience is accessible, positive, and user-friendly.
So, review the list above and consider where your own live online events are lacking. Then take steps to nail down the APIs that can help you take your next event from good to great.
