Workforces worldwide are grappling with how to retain top talent while still hitting KPIs and growth goals. Internal events have been the main point of connection and communication around company progress, but these have been difficult to pull off as more of the workforce remains remote. 

66% of employees currently work remotely, and 68% of Americans want to work remotely, even to the point of taking a pay cut. Managers and executives have tried countless options in this massive shift in workforce location. 

Executive teams and business owners used meeting tools such as Zoom and Teams. However, security was a significant concern initially and left a bad impression for many companies. The lack of control over cameras and microphones also created barriers to use and made the meetings more complicated than they needed to be. 

So companies pivoted once more to a webinar format. Webinars provided the control but often felt cold and impersonal to employees and executives alike. Many webinar platforms were also dramatically more expensive, and the tradeoffs weren’t desired. 

With 16% of companies hiring exclusively remote employees and enjoying 25% lower turnover than those not hiring remote employees, a new solution is necessary to allow your company to grow while bringing on remote talent. 

Enter virtual events.

With a virtual internal event, you can reap all the benefits of your internal meetings while providing a sense of connection and community using features such as Conversation Halls. You can also hold a virtual event for your entire company and use different Ticket Types to limit access to different tracks for various departments. 

Here are four tips on how to host an incredible virtual internal event: 

Take advantage of the tools in your virtual platform

Your virtual event platform is much more than a webinar or meeting place. Within your platform, you should have many options for expanding your internal events to drive engagement and communication with your team. 

Here are some of the top things we’ve seen: 

• Use your exhibition hall options to create booths for different departments or projects. Creating cross-department communication is always one of the top goals of company-wide meetings, allowing your team to put their best foot forward while taking advantage of the platform. If you have lots to show off, consider using ways to logically organize your exhibition hall to make the navigation easier. 
• Leverage gamification to drive your team to different areas of the platform. The best gamification systems allow you to include interaction off the event platform, so you can consider using those options to drive people to different pieces of your intranet for training elements. Ensure you give people a reason to care about gamification – include some good gifts! 
• Take advantage of any quizzes or polls to provide training inside your virtual event that your HR team can keep track of for required activities. Platforms should be able to provide you with lots of options for when something can be considered ‘passed’ as this is a requirement for many CE tracking systems. 

Make sure your content is made for virtual

Virtual content is inherently different from in-person content. The change of venue must be considered and taken into consideration, or else your engagement inside of the event will be much lower than you would like. 

Here are some ways to optimize your content for virtual internal event: 

• You should be presenting shorter sessions. Thirty minutes or less is becoming the standard for virtual events to help your attendees maintain attention in a virtual environment. 
• Create some stretch and food breaks. If your event is more than 1 hour, make sure you offer your team a chance to get up and stretch. Yoga breaks, lunch clubs, and meditation sessions are some of the most popular items we’ve seen used. 
• Make sure your speakers have high energy and are comfortable in front of a camera. You’ll likely want to schedule your highest energy speakers as bookends to your main scheduled sections to take advantage of the spark they generate. 

For more best practices on creating virtual content, read here. 

Streamline your registration

Your registration for the event should be seamless! Your company should take the front stage on your virtual platform, so you’ll want to ensure that the registration page offers you customization options if you are using one. 

Here are some of the tops ways to customize your registration page: 

• Provide a clear summary of your event for your team. Let them know why they should be attending this and what they can expect to hear or be able to experience. 
• Your registration page should be mobile-friendly, as 85% of people use a smartphone to access their email. Ensure that your team will have the best experience possible once they receive that email from attending your internal event! 
• Make sure that the registration page includes your company colors and other branding. Prominent images, menu colors, and more should be able to be updated to feel like it belongs to your company. 

Take advantage of support or packages

Your virtual event platform should be able to include your internal events in a package with any external events without a price increase. These events are critical to the growth and success of your company, and there shouldn’t be any reason why this isn’t included. 

Here are some things to consider when looking for a virtual event platform: 

• Pricing is an obvious concern. You’ll want a company that constantly evaluates how people use their platform and works to lower prices. vConferenceOnline has just announced a dramatic decrease in pricing to help companies struggling with inflation, uncertainty, and rising interest rates. 
• What level of support is provided? The best companies offer multiple levels of support ranging from self-service to a white-glove Fully Managed Experience. vConferenceOnline has just opened up their Done For You program and offers a free Fully Managed event with specific contracts. Keep reading for how you can take advantage of this limited-time offer. The better the support you can receive, the better your internal event will be. 
• How much experience does the platform have? Hundreds of virtual event platforms sprouted up during 2020 and 2021. However, many of these platforms lacked experience. You’ll want to ensure that the event platform has many years of experience with various event types and sizes to ensure your internal event runs smoothly. 

Internal events are one of the top ways to create and maintain company culture while communicating important information with your team. You need an experienced platform like vConferenceOnline to be able to help you streamline the process. With the help of vConferenceOnline, you can completely offload the event build process to our skilled team. Click below to see it in action and how we can make your internal events a success!