Never heard the term Virtual Event Manager (VEM)? Luckily, the term is pretty self-explanatory:
A Virtual Event Manager is a tool designed to help facilitate your virtual events.
As more of our lives take place in virtual spaces, it’s becoming more important than ever to make sure our live online interactions are as seamless and engaging as possible.
But let’s face it, facilitating these experiences is HARD. Veteran tools like Google calendar might be great for 1-on-1 meetings or small groups, but it’s not great for larger, more complex groups like bootcamps, cohort-based courses, or online communities.
That’s where a Virtual Event Manager comes in!
While it's possible to manage events using Google Calendar alone, a lot can fall through the cracks due to lack of features and human error.
Here are some of the main challenges you might face if you decide to manage events without a VEM:
Awareness
It can be tricky to make sure the right people find out about the right events. What if you invite the wrong group of students? What if you create your event on the wrong calendar? Who’s who? Without adequate segmentation, you might end up with a confused group at your next session (or no one at all)!
Accessibility
By now, it’s likely that we’ve all had live online event join mishaps - can’t find the Zoom link, can’t find the password, got the time wrong, etc. Without an easily accessible join links and well placed event reminders, members might not know where to go or what information they need, which can lead to last-minute confusion.
Engagement
Let’s be honest - live online events can sometimes be dull. Getting members to consistently attend and interact can sometimes feel like pulling teeth. With our increasingly short attention spans, if you don’t continuously iterate on your event programming, you’re likely to lose attendees and momentum.
When you leverage a VEM, you can automate tasks and overcome human error. This saves you admin time and boosts attendance, all while helping you collect data that you can use to continuously improve your programming. It's a win-win.
Why is a VEM better than Google Calendar alone? Find out here.
VEMs help you create events, automate reminders, collect data, and more. Here's how they do it:
Think of a VEM as your event management switchboard. No more logging into multiple tools to set up your event calendar. Great VEMs save you time by:
Why publicize your events manually when you can automate? VEMs help you get the right people to show up to your live online events by:
Leverage event data to help your team decide what events to host next. VEMs make your events team more data driven by:
Virtually’s Virtual Event Manager (VEM) goes above and beyond these basic VEM requirements.
With Virtually, you can automate the hairy logistics of hosting events on Zoom. We take care of scheduling, sending reminders, tracking attendance and collecting feedback so you can focus on delivering an exceptional member experience while also playing well with your chosen community platform or learning management system (LMS).