UNLEASH 2009: Energizing Mediasite Users On-site and Online
Today’s post is a little different from our usual fare. It’s a.) the official supporting fodder for our Forrester Groundswell Award nomination and b.) a chance to document how we (as the makers of Mediasite) used webcasting and online video to grow conference attendance. At the very least, I hope our Mediasite users and event planners out there will find an idea or two to steal and claim as your own.
The challenge
2009 marked the third year of our now annual Mediasite User Conference known as UNLEASH. Our small but mighty in-house marketing crew set out to increase conference attendance in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, coupled with a proliferation of travel bans and budget constraints across the key verticals who normally attend.
Why care about increasing conference attendance at a time like this? Because we’re in an emerging market, and while webcasting for lecture capture, training and events is becoming more mainstream, our customers are clamoring to hear from each other (and us) to make them more efficient/productive/knowledgeable with Mediasite.
The campaign
We crafted an integrated campaign that included a heavy rotation of online video, customer testimonials, webcasting and – for the first time – social media.
Before the conference
The UNLEASH 2009 conference website featured interviews with past attendees.
- Online video: We used on-demand video to explain the benefits of coming to UNLEASH 2009, and we created an attendee highlight reel from interviews at UNLEASH 2008 with attendees talking about what they were learning, how they were networking and what they were going to do once they got home.
- Webcasting: In all 2009 conference communication, we featured sample webcasts from the 2008 conference, so people could get a taste of what fellow customers they’d hear from and what topics they’d hear about.
- Email: A series of dedicated emails invited our customers to check out these videos at the conference site, and begin networking online through Facebook (via Event, Group and Fan pages), LinkedIn and Twitter (sadly, Twitter won’t allow you to index super old tweets yet. We learned our lesson there: keep track and take screen shots as – you – go! We did have active tweeting using #mediasite and #unleash09 for the duration of the event though. You just have to take our word for it).
- Social media: We used Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to keep attendees apprised of conference deadlines, hotel availability and other housekeeping, plus introduced them to each other and frankly, just let them know we positively could not wait until they were here in our hometown. We also fed pictures from UNLEASH 2008 into our photostream on Flickr and Facebook.
At the conference
- Online video:
New online ad featuring headshot and quote from a customer and UNLEASH attendee
- Formal interviews: We taped more than 30 interviews with our customers, asking them why they chose our webcasting platform, how they would describe Mediasite to someone in three words and what brought them to UNLEASH. We also took professional head shots of each interviewee, which we are now featuring on our home page and in our advertising, with quotes from those interviews.
- Customers interviewing customers: And on Day 2 of the conference, two customers volunteered to do their own videos about the event, which lead to three installments of Mediasite User Group TV (or MUG TV, Introducing MUG TV from UNLEASH 2009, Day 1 Sessions and Day 2 Sessions), which we again featured on our blog, World of Webcast, and also posted those new entries to Facebook and Twitter.
- Webcasting: Our Event Services group webcasted all sessions live to a virtual audience who watched from around the globe. These attendees could ask questions of the presenter and we encouraged all moderators and presenters to look into the camera from time to time to keep them connected with what was happening in the room. Many of the virtual attendees interacted online through Facebook and Twitter with the on-site attendees.
- Email: We emailed surveys for each session (to eliminate paper, we went green this year) and constantly asked for feedback throughout the conference. Online and on-site attendees replied regularly, with more feedback than just the completed survey.
A Facebook photo album of pics from an UNLEASH attendee
- Social media: We and our customers posted regularly to Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, leading to inside jokes, sharing pics and more video embedded in our company blog. We kept our professional photographer on-site for the duration, who gave us pics at the end of each conference day that we could upload to Flickr.
A side note about our awards program: We’re now in our 5th year of the Rich Media Impact Awards, an awards program where we honor our customers who are accomplishing impressive feats with our product. We used online video to invite our customers to apply. And then to be nominated, our customers submitted a video telling us about their measurable improvements. A customer panel evaluated all submissions, and during UNLEASH, we webcasted a live stream of the awards ceremony (which has had over 1,000 views since April), and many of our honorees’ colleagues and families were watching, emailing and tweeting wishing them well. As soon as the presentation was over, everyone was invited to a casino night, and customers and staffers alike kept taking pics and tweeting into the wee hours.
The online catalog of Rich Media Impact Award nominations
After the conference
- Online video: We posted interviews conducted at UNLEASH with our own people and customers to the blog after the conference, linking back to the UNLEASH conference site.
- Webcasting: Each attendee received a link to the full conference webcasts catalog, and all customers who didn’t attend got a link to our sample catalog which features webcasts of some of the most popular customer presentations.
The UNLEASH 2009 conference webcast catalog
- Email: We sent a conference round up email to connect everyone to all the social media that got off the ground during the conference. And since the conference, we feature one webcast and one award winner in our monthly customer newsletter and quarterly prospect news.
- Social media: All social media sites are still active and adding more members, and the conversations have morphed from event-specific threads to customers helping customers and general social goodness.
The results
Bringing these people together – physically and through video, social media and webcasting – led to:
- 15% increase in conference attendees; virtual conference attendees, even though it was the first year we offered this option, made up 10% of overall attendance.
- 500% increase in Facebook members for the Event, Group and Fan Page (allowing us to claim our URL www.facebook.com/mediasite), and LinkedIn Group.
- Double the number of Twitter followers.
- A network of more than a dozen Mediasite users on Twitter who now provide regular feedback to us, bloggers, reporters, prospects and other Mediasite tweeps.
- 10% increase in membership of the official Mediasite User Group, now 902 members strong.
- 85% of conference presentations delivered by customers, a 26% increase over 2008.
- Increase in conference satisfaction, on a five point scale:
- “I’m glad I came to UNLEASH” – 4.7 in 2009, 4.4 in 2008.
- “I would recommend UNLEASH to a colleague” – 4.6 in 2009, 4.4 in 2008.
As one attendee put it, “This is, by far, the most productive conference for connecting with other users and discovering new ways to take our Mediasite program to the next level. Reaching out to the web 2.0 community will foster even more fantastic dialogue because it will open the conference to a wider audience. With the state of the economy, the virtual pass will allow our peers who can’t be there in person stay on target with the new information being shared, and create an unparalleled networking opportunity.”
So sincere thanks, people of Mediasite: for coming to Madison, for talking with us and your fellow customers, and for your continued trust in Sonic Foundry and Mediasite.
An update: we won! See all the winners here: http://forrester.typepad.com/groundswell/2009/10/winners-of-the-2009-forrester-groundswell-awards.html