How to Unlock the Full Value of Your Event Content

During the gold rush, eager miners would sift through earth in hopes of finding those little yellow nuggets. This would often take quite a bit of time –– and sometimes they couldn't find anything at all. But the moment they uncovered a fragment of gold, they could be set for ages.

Mining for golden content after your event can mirror this experience. We’ve all been there: Scouring recordings for that eye-catching headline, that meaningful takeaway, that key sound bite –– or worse, failing to capture the content in the first place.

Luckily, we’ve compiled some steps and best practices that will help you capture, identify, and repurpose usable content from an event.

Read on to learn how to unlock the full value of your event content.

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First, plan ahead

Like most things in life, preparation is key when it comes to getting the most out of your event content. To set yourself up for post-event success, you need to start prepping before your next experience begins.

Make sure you’ve nailed down the goals and objectives for the event. Being crystal clear on intended outcomes will help you determine what material to collect and provide you with a heads up on things to keep an eye out for during the experience so you can fill your coffers with content that will pay dividends later.

Look beyond the event right in front of you: Consider, for example, upcoming experiential marketing activations and content you might be able to gather this time around that you can use to promote future experiences. Beyond that, consider what assets you can collect related to:

• The event theme
• Speaker expertise
• Topics to be covered in breakout sessions
• What will happen during breaks between sessions
• Who will be attending (and who might miss out) and what they’ll want and need

By planning ahead, you’ll pave the way for a  smooth post-event path. 

Make your event content work hard for you  

Part of planning ahead is considering potential future applications for your event content and how you’ll make your content assets work as hard as possible. Content atomization can help with this.

The content captured during an event can be used in many ways. It can help you strengthen your community and generate an ever-growing archive of assets that ultimately fuels almost all your marketing activities.

Content atomization comprises three methods: repurposing, remixing, and refreshing. You can take an existing piece of content and turn it into something new (for example, extracting an editorial article, social post, and email copy from a long video recording), bring multiple pieces of existing content together and turn them into a new piece, and refresh decaying evergreen content so it stays relevant. All these practices help you extract additional value from your event.

As a marketer, atomizing helps propagate consistent messaging across your distribution channels, efficiently increases your content volume, and positions your brand as a consistent authority on topics relevant to your business. It also opens the door for your audience to engage with your brand in whatever way works for them.

Imagine the relief of being able to pull three social media posts, one editorial article, a TikTok video, a webinar, and several quotes from a single event session. This is atomization at its best.

Let your marketing priorities guide how you’ll approach content atomization.

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Review your priorities 

Remember those goals and objectives you set for your event? They likely stemmed directly from your business goals and marketing priorities. Now, they’ll inform how you decide to use the event content you gather.

Whether you’re aiming to push your product, your presence, or something else altogether, align with stakeholders on how content can help support your business objectives and communicate your message.

For example, if you want to highlight your brand as a thought leader, consider repurposing content from the big-name speakers at your event. You can extract the key learnings they provided and develop additional content assets related to those takeaways.

Or, maybe thought leadership isn’t a core goal, but your organization is focused on building a thriving community. If that’s the case, consider capturing moments of active engagement and connection among attendees. Q&As, networking moments, and comment threads could all lead to content opportunities.

The beauty of content atomization is that it can be used following any type of event — virtual, hybrid, or in person –– as long as the experience is recorded.

That said, virtual events often provide the easiest post-event experience because content is readily available when you’re using a virtual event platform. No matter what type of event you’re producing, make sure you’re in agreement with stakeholders on your wider marketing priorities, some of which might be:

• Thought leadership
• Community growth
• Organic traffic growth
• Brand engagement
• Gaining marketing qualified leads (MQLs) and sales qualified leads (SQLs)

Remember, event content doesn’t only have to be presented within the context of the specific experience it came from. So don’t limit yourself –– determine the applications that are likely to have the biggest positive impact on your business objectives. Then, go forth and conquer.

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Pinpoint the content that’s pure gold

Event content analysis is often time-consuming, but it can also be very fulfilling. Shared experiences typically yield a lot of high-quality content, and you might not have the resources to atomize all of it immediately. So you’ll need to prioritize.

Fortunately, there are a few different approaches you can take.

Flag soundbites as they’re happening 

Ever heard a speaker drop an incredible truth bomb? Those are the moments you want to bottle up and save for later.

Easily capture all the truth bombs, mic drop-worthy moments, and other golden soundbites by:

• Taking time-stamped notes: Mark pivotal moments during presentations, identify when key ideas are brought up, and note any laughs or memorable reactions from your audience.
• Checking each speaker's owned channels: Sometimes thought leaders publish extra content to their website or social media channels. There could be extra material available that’s already been edited for public consumption.

See what the data says 

Look at your data and analytics to find out what the most popular aspects of your event were among attendees. Take those positive data points as a sign –– these are moments that might also perform well as atomized content. Consider capturing these moments and distributing them across various channels to give attendees a simple way to share information that resonated with them. After all, you struck gold once –– you just might do it again. 

When looking at your data and analytics, consider:

• The most popular tracks of the event
• The session with the highest number of viewers
• The presentation that racked up the most comments
• The keynote address, which sets the tone and topic for the event and is typically ripe for atomization
• Performing a search around the event’s social media hashtag to uncover content folks reposted

Your event data can help you identify and repurpose content that’s likely to see similar success beyond the confines of your event experience.

Dig for hidden gems 

Avoid overlooking sessions with lower attendance. Some intimate moments bring the community together in incredible ways. This is often content that will resonate with a wider audience and is begging to be shared.

Watch closely during the event: What produced an emotional reaction? When was the chat on fire? When could you hear a pin drop?

Beyond that, use your instincts. Sometimes you just know a powerful moment when you experience it.

Bring these moments forward in your content –– shine the spotlight on them. This is the content that resonates with people. They’re also the repurposable nuggets that can help market your experiences to future attendees.

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Once the event wraps, take action 

As soon as your hybrid, in-person, or virtual event ends, you’ll need to get to work gathering your existing assets and addressing your content atomization needs.

Offer on-demand recordings

People are busy, and sometimes attending an event at a specific time simply isn’t in the cards. Many people have family, friends, responsibilities, and work that limit their flexibility.

Herein lies the beauty of on-demand recordings, which allow your audience to watch –– or rewatch –– event sessions on their own terms. Crying baby? Hit pause. Hear a clever tip and want to jot it down? Rewind. 

On-demand recordings cater to today’s content consumption habits where one size does not fit all.

For an in-person event:

• Save digital session recordings in an organized and easy-to-find folder after the event
• Edit content as needed (as it will most likely come to you raw)
• Transcribe the content to make it easier to repurpose into editorial pieces and social media posts
• Consider hiring a service, team, or agency to edit and transcribe the content for you if your budget allows  

For a virtual or hybrid event:

• Trim content as needed in your virtual event platform
• Share recordings with all registrants by sending emails
• Host it on your website

Publishing event content on your site helps support your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts for relevant topics and can help generate leads. Gated or not, anyone visiting your site will be able to see available content.

Emailing recordings makes it easy for attendees to share your content and provides on-demand content to the folks who wanted to attend but couldn’t make it at the scheduled time.

Create editorial content

Even though 73% of consumers think video is one of the best vehicles for learning about a product or service, not everyone prefers to digest information via audio or video. Some want to read all about it. 

Cater to them — and to the SEO gods — by creating and publishing editorial content off the back of what your presenters shared.

Various tools can turn your audio content files into a text transcript, which can help you easily create articles or guides from your event content.

For example, this personal narrative  was created following EventMinded, a Hopin-hosted mental health summit for event professionals. The piece leans on video, images, anecdotes, and social media snippets related to the event to create an entirely new piece of content.

Editorial pieces that can emerge from an event include:

• Best-of listicles sharing takeaways or learnings 
• Summary posts for each session of a virtual event
• Personal essays inspired by stories shared during an event
• Reflection posts from your event team about what they learned
• Multimedia-rich posts featuring screenshots from presentations

The possibilities are truly endless. Consider the editorial content you want to build out right after your event ends as well as pieces that might feed your marketing machine well into the future.

Mold event content into podcast episodes

Fifteen years ago, only 22% of adult Americans had heard of podcasting. Now, 78% of adults are aware of the medium. This begs the question: Can you afford to miss out on that audience?

Podcasts provide a way for you to showcase the insights and takeaways from your event. Podcasting can help:

• Give listeners a more in-depth understanding of event content and help them apply what they’ve learned to their own lives.
• Reach a wider audience, including people who couldn’t attend your event. 

The process isn’t as complicated and intimidating as it sounds, and you don’t need a sound-mixing specialist on your team to get started on production. Instead, look for an agency or a freelancer who specializes in podcast production. Develop a podcast strategy, then hand over your treasure trove of recordings and your episode briefs, and let them work their magic.

Creating podcasts based on your event content is a great way to keep the conversation going long after the event has ended. Not only that, but it’s content that’s accessible on demand whenever and however many times the audience wants to listen.

Feed social media channels

Meet your audience on the social media channels they’re already using. Whether it’s sharing top tips, in-depth research, or entertaining stories and memes, presenting relevant and engaging content can go the distance with your audience on social media. 

Consider test driving some of the following content ideas:

• Share graphics of insightful speaker quotes 
• Turn funny presenter anecdotes into TikTok content
• Curate presenters’ slides in an Instagram carousel 
• Hold interactive Instagram Stories polls using statistics shared during the event
• Post a Twitter thread of top takeaways from each hour of your event (bonus points if you then link out to your on-demand recordings)

Content atomization is key here –– look to pull from original and already repurposed event content to quickly create engaging social content.

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Extract maximum value from all your shared experiences

Mining the right content can feel daunting, and often requires some legwork. But if you take a strategic, thoughtful approach, you’ll net out with a well of content you can continue dipping into –– and that continues to drive results –– long after an event is over.

Whether you’re just starting to discover the power of post-event content, or you’re in charge of the company’s content strategy and looking to support your wider marketing team, you’ll want to identify and capitalize on all opportunities to realize the full value of your shared experiences.

Event technology makes it easy to tap into and distribute event content.Contact a member of the Hopin team today to get help extracting as much value as possible from all your shared experiences.