Virtual event design may work differently from on-site event design, but the visual elements are no less important. Read on to find out why being able to customize your virtual event platform is a must, and discover how you can design a visually compelling online event experience with EventMobi’s event design and branding tools.

The Benefits of Virtual Event Branding and Design

Events are one of the most powerful tools for increasing brand awareness, as they offer unlimited opportunities for creating touch points between attendees and the brand.

At on-site events, the venue itself can be leveraged in a variety of ways to create brand visibility. This could include elements such as screens and projections, banners or roll-ups, down to details such as ensuring all of the chairs are your brand color.

In fact, branding plays a critical role in the attendee experience. When your guests first arrive, they should immediately feel that they have come to the right place and become immersed in their surroundings.

At virtual events, this is no different. Since your event platform serves as the ‘venue’ for your online event, it is vital to consider what custom branding capabilities are available when searching for the right tech provider to work with. For your attendees to feel truly immersed in your event experience, a generic-looking platform with your event’s logo in the corner just won’t cut it. You’ll want to leverage your brand colors, fonts and imagery to create a unique look and feel for your event that will wow attendees the moment they first log on to your virtual event platform.

By branding the home screen, menus, and pages of the virtual event platform in addition to your live streams and videos, you can easily create impactful brand exposure opportunities throughout your event.

Are you planning a virtual event?

Download the free Virtual Show Flow Template so you can build your run of show like a pro!

How to Get Started Designing Your Next Virtual Event

If you’ve never hosted an online event, or have only worked with a platform that offers limited branding options, you may be surprised to find out how impactful it is to create a branded event experience. EventMobi’s Virtual Event Platform offers you and your team full creative freedom to design the online event experience of your dreams. Here are some of our key features for virtual event design:

Create Unlimited Custom Pages with the Page Designer

EventMobi’s Page Designer has a complete selection of drag-and-drop widgets that make it easy to get started.

Your home page is the first thing attendees see after logging into your virtual event space via their computer or smartphone. This is your chance to make a truly great first impression, so let your imagination run wild! Using the Page Designer, you can create the virtual event design of your dreams:

1. Edit the home page background by either selecting a color or uploading an image.
2. Choose a widget type – this can be a banner or image that links to another section, or a dynamic widget showing the attendee’s personal agenda, the gamification leaderboard, countdown to the event date, etc.
3. Adjust the look of your widget – depending on the widget type, you can upload a background image or select a background color, insert overlay text, link to a different section, and more.
4. Simply drag your widget to the desired position on the home page. You can also adjust the size by clicking and dragging the bottom right corner of the widget.
5. You can switch between desktop and mobile view to ensure a great attendee experience on any device – which is especially important if you are running a hybrid conference (for which we recommend checking out our hybrid event platform).

Simply drag and resize widgets to create your page design.

The Page Designer will allow you to create unlimited custom pages, so you don’t need to stop at your home screen. You can use this tool to create beautiful full page designs to highlight different aspects of your event, organization, or sponsors.

Update Your Colors & Fonts On Every Page

Easy-to-use branding tools include a color picker for section backgrounds and text.

While the home page is a key aspect of your virtual event design, attendees will spend the majority of the event watching live streams or using networking features. To make sure your brand is present wherever they go, you can design your menus and sections to match your event theme. Simply adjust the background and text colors using the Branding tools, or those with some knowledge of CSS can use the Advanced Designer to import additional web fonts.

Customize Your Menus & Sections

Consider using an image as the left menu background for a cohesive and striking design.

Every event is unique, which means you’ll have your own ideas for what you’d like to highlight on high-traffic pages. With EventMobi, you have full control over what items attendees see on the home screen and menus. You can create your own sections, and customize names so they are most relevant to your audience. You have the option to choose a solid color for your menu background, or use an image for an even more creative look.

Showcase Your Sponsors with Logos & Banner Ads

If you have sponsors at your online event, there are numerous ways to offer them brand visibility. Not only can you feature sponsors on your home screen, you also have the option of inserting clickable banner ads into the left-hand menu, which guarantees prime visibility. These banners can also be in a GIF format showing rotating sponsor logos and messages. Of course, your own event logo can be prominently placed on the home screen, left-hand menu and loading screen as well.

You can include sponsor logos and banners on the home screen and at the top of the left menu.

Brand Your Live Stream & Video Content

Your live stream or pre-recorded video content is the heart of your virtual event, so your brand should be front and center here. Using EventMobi Studio, the platform’s built-in live streaming tool, you can add custom-branded backgrounds, logos and title overlays to your speaker live streams. If you’d like to take a hands-off approach and use advanced live stream production techniques (think branded motion graphics, tickers and transitions), check out our GoLive! Production Services – our team is ready to make your brand shine!

Get Expert Help with Your Virtual Event Design

Our design team can create your fully branded home screen design for you.

If you’d like to push your virtual event design even further but don’t have a graphic designer on your team, you can add our custom design service to your software package. Clients who purchase this option will be assigned a dedicated graphic designer to create a totally unique look for their virtual event platform.

Great Virtual Event Design will Create the Best Attendee Experience

If you want your attendees to feel immersed and excited when logging onto your virtual event platform, you will need to design the digital space to match your event theme and brand. This means branding capabilities should not be an afterthought, but one of the top priorities on your list when choosing an event tech provider.

The post Virtual Event Design: How to Create a Beautiful, Branded Event Experience appeared first on EventMobi.

With EventMobi’s 1:1 video meetings feature, it is now easier than ever for attendees to connect at your virtual event and have meaningful conversations with each other or with sponsors and exhibitors.

When planning a virtual event, one of the key questions is how to best facilitate effective online networking. This is something many planners find challenging as they can’t rely on the intimacy of a physical venue. At in-person events, attendees encounter familiar faces and new acquaintances on the show floor, during coffee breaks or in the lecture hall. With virtual events, the dynamic has changed. Attendees don’t necessarily know which tools are available to them for connecting with others – or how to use them most effectively. This means there needs to be a conscious effort on the part of the planner to educate attendees and encourage them to try out networking features that may be unfamiliar.

Key features for networking at virtual events

Virtual event platforms offer a variety of different of features to enable networking amongst attendees. Some of those are more community-based, such as group discussions or session chat. Here, attendees can have text-based conversations with multiple people at the same time. While these forums can be used to discuss larger industry issues, they also enable attendees to find like-minded individuals, or those from the same city or with shared interests. However, when attendees want to chat one-on-one to discuss important topics more in-depth, a different feature is required.

These situations are when private chat and video meetings come into play. In the past, attendees who visited in-person events that offered an event app could already take advantage of these features. They could find other people via the attendee list, send them a chat message requesting a meeting, and then invite them to a scheduled appointment which would typically take place on-site. With virtual events, the process is the same – except in-person meetings are replaced with 1:1 video meetings.

Benefits of 1:1 video meetings for attendees and exhibitors

While the majority of events nowadays take place online, 1:1 video meetings are the best way for attendees to forge deeper connections. Most people are familiar by now with the concept of video conferencing and are comfortable talking to others using a webcam and headset. Getting a glimpse into each other’s homes or offices also helps attendees get to know each other better and provides easy icebreakers – be it a dog in the background or an unusual piece of furniture.

Because virtual events are less restricted in terms of time and space, they offer attendees more flexibility to connect with each other at their own leisure. While convention centers will always close at some point, virtual event platforms are accessible around the clock. This means attendees can network with each other outside of set event hours – or even after it ends. This can be a lot less stressful than squeezing a meeting into a calendar full of sessions!

For exhibitors and sponsors, there are clear benefits to connecting with attendees via 1:1 video meetings at virtual events. Compared to a crowded, noisy show floor, it’s much easier to focus on the other person and have a memorable conversation from the comfort of one’s home or office. Company representatives can share their screens to showcase products without having to first set up hardware at an on-site booth. They also have the option of sharing links to resources that attendees can review and download immediately, rather than them having to carry a bag full of brochures around the show floor.

What type of events benefit from 1:1 video meetings?

Networking is an integral part of almost any type of business event. Even if the focus is on a different aspect such as education, meeting others from the same industry or background is an important reason why people choose to attend business events. Here are a few of the most common event types that benefit from 1:1 video meetings:

Association events

Community is one of the main drivers for association membership, and online events are ideal for members to network with each other –unconstrained by the cost and travel restrictions of in-person events.

Job fairs

The global pandemic has taken its toll on the job market, so it’s more important than ever to enable conversations between employers and job seekers in a secure and comfortable setting.

Internal company events

Especially for large, international companies, virtual events are ideal for bringing employees together for team building and educational purposes. 1:1 video meetings can be combined with gamification to foster new connections among employees.

Industry conferences

Large conference organizers can boost lead generation for their exhibitors and sponsors by offering 1:1 video meetings between company representatives and attendees.

EventMobi’s easy-to-use solution for 1:1 video meetings

As many attendees are new to virtual events, we have designed all of our features to be intuitive and easy to use. As a best practice, planners should communicate what key features will be available and offer instructions ahead of the event. This way, attendees can familiarize themselves with the platform in advance and take full advantage of the tools that will help them achieve their event goals.

To use the 1:1 video meetings feature within EventMobi’s Virtual Space, users simply need to navigate to the attendee list and find the person they would like to connect with. On that attendee’s personal profile, users then click the ‘Schedule a Meeting’ button.

They will then be prompted to enter the meeting details, including the time and place as well as a personal message. To schedule a 1:1 video meeting, they need to check the ‘Video meeting’ box.

Once a meeting invitation has been sent, the invitee will receive a notification via email and within the Virtual Space. The invitation can then be accepted or declined by the recipient. The sender can view the current status of the invitation from the Messages area of the Attendee Dashboard.

Meetings that have been accepted can be accessed from the Messages area or the Agenda area of the Attendee Dashboard. To join the video meeting, each attendee will just need to click on the ‘Join Meeting’ button.

When joining the meeting, a new tab will open with the Virtual Space 1:1 Video window. Here, users will be able to meet face to face, share their screens and text chat directly from the meeting room. This room will be available to both parties for 24 hours, so even if the meeting starts or runs late, they won’t have to worry about rescheduling! 

Exhibitors and sponsors have the option of adding company representatives to their virtual booth. Attendees can then simply schedule a meeting with them by navigating to the rep’s personal profile.

Want to see 1:1 video meetings in action and learn more about EventMobi’s Virtual Event Platform? Sign up for one of our upcoming webinars today!

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