GPJ’s David Rich on Bringing Digital To Events

Are you overwhelmed by colleagues wanting to add social media tools to your events? Are you wondering where to start?

Start by listening this Podcast with David Rich, Senior Vice President of Strategic Marketing & Worldwide at George P. Johnson. David offers healthy insights and practical advice for event professionals that are wondering where to start and how to think about integrating digital technology into their events.

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10 Insights From The Interview:

1. What is it about experiences that transform people in a powerful way? It takes more than performers.  It’s People, environments, props, etc.
2. Digital Technology gives us more tactics than we have ever had before – to move people to action. More ways to interact, deepen connections, etc.
3. Don’t get mesmerized by the technology and implement technology for technology’s sake.
4. Start with your Goals and Objectives, then understand your audience, then look at what interactions are required to move people to action.
5. Look at where people are interacting online and meet them there. Don’t try to force them to meet in a new place.
6. In digital, it is easier to gather measurable data than face-to-face. That measurement can be translated into customer insights.
7. GPJ’s Digital Blueprint is a toolkit to help people organize their thoughts, develop a plan and not panic. You don’t need to panic.
8. Digital is a new medium with new requirements. In a face-to-face event, normally the scale of an event helps us blot out distraction. In Virtual Events, the opposite is true. You are looking at a 2 X 2 screen and there are distractions everywhere.
9. The difference between face-to-face and digital is comparable to the difference between Broadway and Film. In film, you want to be as subtle as possible because the camera can pick up each movement. In Broadway, you are trying to broadcast to the last row.
10. Meetings and Events are the original form of social media.

Bottom Line

Going Digital is not about using the latest shiny objects. It is about building experiences in this new medium that move people to action. Start with objectives and strategy, look at your audience’s behaviors AND THEN look for the tools and tactics.