In the midst of planning an event, your focus is mostly on getting each element ready to go at the right time. But after the event, what happens to all that time, effort, and expense? If the answer is “nothing,” it’s time to reconsider.
There are ways you can reuse event content after it’s all over, thereby making the event even more valuable. You can even reuse event content during the event itself to keep momentum and interest high.
Why Reuse Event Content?
Consider an alternative question: Why not reuse event content? If you’ve put all that effort, time, and money into creating it, it makes no sense at all to let it go to waste once the event is over. Many kinds of event content can be reused, either as is or after a little repackaging or repurposing.
Reusing event content has a number of specific benefits, aside from the general benefit of avoiding wasted resources:
- Create new content in less time: Some event content, such as recorded sessions, can be used as-is. It can also be used as the basis for additional content in different formats. This saves time and resources on new content creation, since part of the work has already been done.
- Boost brand messaging and reach a new audience: Use event content as the basis for a multichannel marketing campaign by repackaging content for different channels and audiences.
- Improve event ROI: Even if it can’t be easily measured, reusing event content does indirectly add to event ROI. And if you can devise a way of measuring the impact—such as pay-per-view or gated content—so much the better.
Ideas for Reusing Event Content
Especially if you’re holding a live event, the first step to reusing event content is just to plan to record everything you want to reuse. At a minimum this typically means hiring a videographer to ensure your recorded content looks polished and professional. Depending on your approach and your event budget, it might mean a larger team, with sound and lighting techs.
During the Event
You don’t have to wait until a corporate event is over to start repurposing content. In fact, you may already be doing this as part of the event itself. Most events these days use social media to generate interest in the event as it proceeds. For a multi-day event, it’s an effective way to keep people engaged, particularly if social media content is designed to encourage participation. This works well for live and hybrid events in particular, but it’s suitable for virtual events too.
Some ways to extend event content during an ongoing event include:
1. Create Social Media Content
- Publish still images and video snippets from keynotes and other sessions on social media.
- Post live event statistics, such as numbers of attendees; number of people attending specific sessions; or for a virtual event, hours of content viewed.
2. Write Daily Recaps
Write a recap of each day’s sessions and happenings for the event website and link to it on social media.
After the Event
Once the corporate event is over, there are even more ways to reuse event content. Recorded sessions of all kinds can be used as they are and repackaged or repurposed into other types of content.
Your options for reusing event content include:
3. Post-Event Emails
Send out a short series of post-event emails. Briefly recap the important details and add images and video clips of standout moments.
Pro tip: Don’t forget to include a post-event survey in your follow-up email. Find out how to create the survey here.
4. Write a Full Event Retrospective
Recap the entire event and publish on the event website or company website. Include images and video clips, statistics, and other details. If there was an awards ceremony or a gamification leaderboard, give shout-outs to the winners. Make sure to add links on all social media channels and in post-event emails.
5. Create On-Demand Content
Making recorded sessions available on the event website is one of the simplest and most effective ways to reuse event content. You can typically publish recorded content as is, without having to make any modifications. This can be an effective way to whet your audience’s appetite for the next event, as well as interest potential first-timers.
6. Gate Video Content
Many events make content available for free for people who attended. But for those who didn’t, you have the option of making content available either for a fee or behind a content gate.
7. Create Session Transcriptions
Transcribe the most popular sessions and use quotes and snippets in new written content on your event or company website, and on social media. Pull important quotes, statistics, or facts, and use them as the basis for a deep dive into the subject matter. These can be published as blog posts, white papers, articles, or any other suitable format.
8. Build Infographics
Create infographics that recap popular presentations. For instance, for a keynote that included lots of inspiring quotes or useful facts and statistics, create an infographic that visualizes the information.
9. Write Guest Posts
Invite your most popular speakers to write guest posts, either relating to their presentation, or on another subject. Along with the content, this can help you build long-term relationships, with the potential to have those people return for later events.
10. Analyze the Event
Take a meta approach, and analyze your event’s demographic data, discussing any insights it yields. Or discuss what you learned about event organization strategies.
11. Create Advertising Content
Use previous event content to advertise the next event. This is a common strategy for event series and annual events. A highlight reel of inspiring, insightful, or funny moments is an ideal advertisement because it shows people what the event is like more effectively than a blog post can.
Reuse Event Content to Extend Event Momentum and ROI
Events of all sizes can generate lots of content. And to maximize your corporate event’s value, it is vital to find ways to use that content once the event is over. Make reusing content a key part of your event strategy to keep the momentum going for as long as possible and to maximize event ROI.
