It's What Happens After the Event That Counts
By Lorelle VanFossen, posted October 19, 2008 at 12:00 pm | No Comments ยป
While you may be putting all your energies into preparing for your WordCamp event, don’t forget that what happens after the event counts just as much.
Use Simple Tags and Hashtags
People attending a WordCamp event get all excited about what they are learning and who they’ve met and want to share that information with their friends and readers. Begin preparing for the live event and its aftereffects by having an easy-to-use and remember tag and hashtag (for Twitter and similar services).
Use a tag combination that is simple and easy-to-remember. Friends of mine emailed and called me asking what the “dx” after the WordCamp Portland hashtag on Twitter meant. The Twitter hashtag for the event was #wordcampdx. For mysterious reasons, the WordCamp Portland team decided to drop a “P” in the airport abbreviation for Portland (PDX) when they brought WordCamp and Portland together. This confused many, so #wordcampportland and #wordcamppdx were also used and required tracking as well. This still didn’t stop Twitter discussions of the event from being the number one hashtag on Twitter the day of the event, drowning out political babble and the other three WordCamps that day.
Some WordCamps and events will use a different word for each service tag such as wcabcflickr for Flickr images, wcabctweet for Twitter, and awcabcblog for blog post coverage on Technorati. Don’t do it. Keep it simple.
- Use the same word across all the social media and tracking services.
- Use the word “wordcamp” in the tag name as many search for “wordcamp” and you want your WordCamp event found.
- Avoid complicated combinations such as “wordcamp5xv83″.
- Include the year as a two digit number if you want to distinguish annual events, but it is not necessary, such as “wordcampsf08″. Why not have the same tag year after year?
After an event, attendees dig through Twitter, blogs, and other social media looking for coverage and feedback on the event. Make the tags and hashtags consistent across all services so those hunting after the event for video, podcast, or live blogging coverage of the event they missed or wish to see again, or see for the first time what they missed, is easily found.
Video and Record the Sessions
Do not underestimate the power of preserving the event through video and audio recordings as well as photography. After an event, people want to know what happened and share their experiences. Others who couldn’t attend are eager for a glimpse inside the event.
Have video and audio equipment and volunteers ready in advance for the event. Ensure you have every event and speaker covered with enough volunteers to preserve the presentations. Consider having volunteers ready to upload the programs immediately after they happen to get the most viral exposure associated with your event.
Be signed up for a audio and video accounts and ready to upload before the event. Be familiar with how they work and what their limitations are.
Upload videos to YouTube, Viddler, or other video sharing services. Each one has different limits and constraints. YouTube limits videos to under 100megs and 10 minutes in length for free uploads. Viddler allows for longer and larger presentations.
Convert audio recordings into MP3 files and upload them to audio sharing sites, iTunes, Zune, and other audio services.
If the speaker used slides that really summarized their presentation visually, ask them to share them on SlideShare or other slide presentation sharing service. If you can find a slide presentation sharing service that incorporates audio and slide sync, why not upload the audio with the slides for a more powerful presentation to share with attendees and others.
Some WordCamp producers want to protect themselves and their speakers’ rights by having them sign Release Agreements which allows the content to be shared without compensation or copyright violations. If your WordCamp event requires these, make sure that all the speakers are emailed these in advance and volunteers follow through to ensure they are signed and returned.
The key to making these a success and viral is to upload them as soon as possible with transcripts and/or notes for audio and video files, helping them to be easily discovered through searches and shared around the world. Remember, if you don’t, others will, and you can’t control the quality of their recordings, and often have trouble finding them later.
Assign Someone to Recap Blog
After people attend an event, they often do three things. They tell all their friends who couldn’t be there about how great the event was, and they often want to repeat the experience by reliving it through blog posts, videos, and podcasts. They also want to connect with everyone they met during the event, whether or not they got their business cards.
Assign a volunteer to collect all the live blog posts, video, photo, tweets, and podcast coverage of the event during the event for publishing to the WordCamp blog as fast as possible, even during the event as they are published
The day after the event, plan a get-together with two or three volunteers or team up virtually to dig into search engines, Technorati, Flickr, blog searches, and everywhere they can to find any coverage of the WordCamp event and create a giant list and publish it on the blog.
Have at least one person monitoring the searches for the next week to add to the list or publish new lists of coverage on the blog.
These recap posts help those who attended share the news with others, as well as relive the experience themselves. They also create giant directories to show appreciation to the attendees’ coverage of the event and methods for attendees to track down each other.
The more centralized the coverage, the more attention and energy is created around the after glow of the event, which builds a lot of credit and exposure for the next event.
Connect With Attendees and Sponsors
It’s important to keep the lines of communication and network created by the event open and active as soon as possible after a big event like a WordCamp.
Within 48 hours, all sponsors, donors, and business supporters must be contacted by phone, email, and/or snail mail with thanks and appreciation for being a part of the event.
Take care with your thank yous. During an event, some sponsors go out of their way to help and aid the process, making it flow like a river throughout the day. Others are snarly and selfish, holding back or getting in the way. It doesn’t matter. After the event is time to put aside all tensions and mend fences. Whether they gave one dollar or hundreds of thousand of dollars, they gave. Thank them and give them the respect beyond what they deserve. Keep the good will flowing as much as possible.
Within two to three days of the event, you should do two key things involving attendees.
First, plan a WordPress Meetup to following within two weeks of a WordCamp event. People are still talking about it, still energized, and eager to meet with each other. A WordCamp isn’t an ending, it’s a beginning to build relationships with other WordPress and blog fans in your community.
The WordPress Meetup can be in a social place like a restaurant, bar, school, or community center, or even an office conference room. Open it to the public, not just WordCamp attendees. Have some snacks and food or bring your own (BYO) and share. Make it informal or formal with a speaker but social is always preferred.
Second, after everyone has recovered and the dust has settled with all the emails traded back and forth as people build relationships after the event, send out a thank you email to all attendees to not just thank them for attending but for supporting the event. Include an invite to the WordPress Meetup and encouragement for more networking with other WordPress fans.
Get Feedback
During the event, questionnaires and surveys should have been handed out or available on your WordCamp blog in a survey or contact form.
Talk to sponsors and those involved in producing the event. Get their input and feedback on how to improve the event for next year.
Review all the feedback with your WordCamp volunteer team. There will always be gripes, but look at the overall feedback and take notes to help you plan your next event.
Write up a summary and your team’s conclusions and distribute it on your blog, via email, or publish it here on the WordCamp Report. Provide a copy to WordPress officials so they can add it to the wealth of information they are gathering and providing to WordCamp producers and coordinators.
