A virtual award ceremony is an excellent way to honor and appreciate individuals or teams for their exceptional contributions and efforts that led to the success of the business, industry, or organization. It is also an occasion to engage and make new connections while having some fun. When the global pandemic hit the world, the entire event industry had put a limit to the in-person event or award shows.
But with new shifts, everyone realized that the show needs to go on. Therefore, this is why the event industries pivoted to a virtual stage that has now gained extreme popularity. Virtual award shows are no exception.
Let us learn the 9 important tips required for hosting a successful virtual award ceremony;
- Make a Game Plan
First things first. To take your award show in the right direction, begin with an effective game plan. Understand the event objectives, learn the aspirations & expectations of your target audience to conduct a value-yielding virtual award ceremony. Ask a few questions to yourself to hold a successful online award show;
- How do you want to achieve your key business objectives?
- How will the attendees register for the award show?
- Will the event be chargeable or free?
- What key metrics will help you measure the success of your event?
- Will there be an on-demand functionality?
- What will be the date and time of your online event?
The above points will help you prepare a fruitful strategy on how to take your online award show.
- Plan a Show flow
You need to remember that distractions are just one click away. Therefore, it is vital to plan a proper show flow for your event. Keep an exciting theme, an attractive virtual stage with interactive and incredible speakers. These effective virtual ceremony ideas let you recreate the experiences of an in-person award show.
Make an appropriate line-up in which you want the sessions to happen or speakers to perform. Display this show flow on the virtual stage to keep the attendees aware of the ongoing and upcoming sessions. Also, pre-decide the duration of each activity or session to avoid any confusion on the event day.
Choose the Right Virtual Award Ceremony Platform
A virtual event platform plays a key role in elevating the level of your events. Hence, it is important to wisely pick your virtual venue partner that can seamlessly incorporate features and innovations that resonate with your business objectives. Remember to take a demo of the virtual platform to learn its functionalities. Also, it should be capable to organize live polls, surveys, Q&A sessions to encourage 2-way interactions in real-time.
It should also have a robust data trackability feature to let you assess the success of your event. Obtaining detailed data and insights helps you make necessary improvements for upcoming virtual events.
Some people are not very tech-oriented. Therefore, make sure that your virtual event provider is backed by 24/7 customer support to offer immediate assistance to the attendees in case of any login or sign-up issues.
Make Your Virtual Award Show Super Engaging
Keeping excellent engagement opportunities helps make your event more unique and bizarre. When we talk about an online award show, it is important to make the audience feel special and accepted. Celebrating the wins is essential to make your employees or attendees feel like they, and their efforts are truly valued. Prepare high-quality content and add exciting award categories to keep the participants involved and hooked throughout the event. Get noteworthy emcees or industry experts on board who embrace the art of delivering the content exceptionally.
You can also include a social wall, signature wall, or photo booths to let attendees connect, interact, and make new connections. A social wall curates information from different social media channels that contain event-specific hashtags, profiles, and pages. Photo booths allow you to take multiple photos that can be posted on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn to offer unique brand experiences.
Create a Room for Sponsors
Distinguished sponsors play a vital role in increasing the ROI of your virtual award show. Therefore, follow effective strategies to lure more sponsors for your event. Make them feel benefitted by providing more exposure and visibility using your virtual stage. You can create a complete 3D environment and display your exhibitor’s content and services on your digital screens. Make space for their brand logo to make it more visible to the audience. This way you can not only keep your sponsors happy but also help them with more qualified leads.
Promote Your Virtual Award Ceremony
It is vital to make the most of different social media channels and the company’s official website to enhance your reach to a wider audience.
Social media is the essence of this digital world, so create event-specific hashtags to market your award show. You can post multiple pictures, videos, and boomerang to let your followers and fan base know about your event. Design an attractive landing page with the date, time, and registration link of your online event. It is to ensure that you leave no stone unturned in welcoming more attendees.
You can also ask your exhibitors and speakers to post about the virtual event on their personal social media handles. This practice will let their followers and fan base know about your event.
Besides this, write SEO-optimized posts, send periodic reminder emails, and run promotional ads to spread awareness about your event.
Live-stream Your Virtual Award Ceremony
Conducting a live stream for your virtual award ceremony helps you enhance your reach to a wide range of audiences at a time. You can also practice multi-channel streaming to get in touch with several sponsors and attendees. Make the most of different social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook to live-stream your online event.
Deliver an Exceptional Experience
You need to make your audience feel special. Award shows are all about celebrating the wins, appreciating the employees, and motivating them to perform even better. So, try to be a little creative in the way you honor your awardees. Ask your platform provider to include immersive visuals, eye-catching graphics, lively imagery, and a thematic background to make the virtual stage more realistic. You can also add multiple emoticons, hoot and clap icons, or clapping sound effects that can be played in the background when someone has presented an award.
Perform a Dry-run
A test rehearsal is very important to ensure the smooth running of your virtual award show. This step involves testing the key features, performing multiple system checks, checking the Internet connection, and doing a dry-run with the speakers. It is a very crucial aspect that should never be neglected.
Besides this, you need to make sure that your platform provider has a 24/7 technical support feature that can deliver immediate assistance to the attendees.
Wrapping Up
Virtual award ceremonies are a happening event. If you can lure more attendees, promote engagement, keep your sponsors happy, add exciting features, games while generating handsome revenue for your online award show, it is indeed a perfect event.
