Webinar is just baby Step to a bigger Virtual Event Platform!

Without doubt, COVID-19 has led to the accelerated the adoption of digital technology across industries and the globe. With countries around the world enforcing travel restrictions, quarantine and circuit breaker, business communities have started to take online communication mediums to a new level not seen before. Businesses today are conducting regular meetings, training, seminars and their events “online”.

Recently, I sensed that there seem to be an increasing confusion on the buzz word “virtual event” between by those who used online meeting software and thought that usage constituted a participation in the virtual event arena?

Some of most common online meeting software which are easily available include ZOOM, GotoMeeting, Google Hangouts, Facetime, and Microsoft Teams etc.  Since the pandemic in 2020, I am convinced that everyone has at least one chance to come across such online meeting software – whether it is an internal meeting  between members or being invited to attend a seminar or a training session by a specialist in the comfort of your own place or office with a Laptop, desktop or mobile device.

Typically, these online meeting tools provided very limited features and mostly used in group meeting and most extensively in webinar.  Therefore we might say that these features are not in par with what Virtual Event Platform can deliver.  In fact, the virtual event platforms provide administrators with a multitude of ways to engage their attendees, starting with virtual booth, information counter, waiting rooms, upload pre-record video, perform live demo, breakout rooms polls, Q&As, live chat, and even provide a post-event analytic and data etc.

Nonetheless, we must agree that the online meeting software is definitely, a good ‘baby step’ which everyone has to learn in order to move further and appreciate the dynamic event experience delivered by these Virtual Event Platforms.