Going Virtual: Tips and Takeaways for Hosting Interactive Digital Events

Sarah Williamson, Coordinator, Office of the Vice President for Student AffairsZoom: 7 Areas for Success

7 Areas for Success At A Glance

1. Purpose of Event2. Roles Involved3. Inclusive Tools4. Engagement Opportunities5. Registration6. Recording7. Rehearsal

1. Purpose of Event

• What type of event are you holding?• Town Hall, Training Session, Social Event, etc.

• What level of engagement are you looking to have with the participants?• Q&A, Small Group Discussion, Polls, Chat Room

• Size of your event?• Depending upon your account, you may only be able to hold up to 300 or

1,000 people in a meeting feature

1. Purpose of Event• Would a Webinar or Meeting make more sense for your

event?• Webinars – Similar to lecture or auditorium spaces, attendees do not interact

with one another traditionally• Meetings – Ideal for interactive events where you will want audience

participation or utilize smaller group settings

• Note: At UMD, we each have access to schedule Meetings as part of our account, but the Webinar feature needs to work with DIT for license use.

Webinar vs.

MeetingComparison

https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/115005474943-Meeting-and-webinar-comparisonhttps://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/115005474943-Meeting-and-webinar-comparisonhttps://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/115005474943-Meeting-and-webinar-comparisonhttps://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/115005474943-Meeting-and-webinar-comparisonhttps://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/115005474943-Meeting-and-webinar-comparison

2. Roles Involved• Who is involved in the planning and execution of your

event?• Host• Co-Host• Panelist/Featured Speaker• Technical Support• Chat/Question Monitor• Emcee

• Having a team of individuals with clearly defined roles will assist in a smooth event.

3. Inclusive Tools

Interpretation Services:• Zoom offers the ability to insert

interpreters for 9 languages

• You do need to provide your own interpreter, but this will allow your participants to navigate to the channels available

Closed Captioning:• Zoom offers the ability to assign a

person to type the captions directly via Zoom or you can use another service to integrate

To ensure accessibility for your event, you should consider the following inclusive tools available to you in Zoom. There are resources at UMD that can assist in both areas.

https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360034919791-Language-interpretation-in-meetings-and-webinarshttps://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/207279736-closed-captioning

4. Engagement Opportunities

Polls• Able to create polls prior to the

meeting and edit during the meeting.

• Can allow choice of single answer or multiple answers.

• Can download a report of poll results after the meeting.

To execute an event that captures your audience’s attention, it can be helpful to consider utilizing one of the following engagement tools in Zoom.

4. Engagement Opportunities

Breakout Rooms• Only available in Meeting

function.• Allows for random or assigned

small group discussion.• Can also pre-assign rooms,

which can be helpful for large numbers of participants if not random assign.

To execute an event that captures your audience’s attention, it can be helpful to consider utilizing one of the following engagement tools in Zoom.

Chat/Q&A• Allows private and public

messages to be sent to the participants.

• In a Webinar, you can disable the chat function for the group and only allow host/panelists to receive.

• Q&A is only used in Webinar feature – if public, attendees can help to answer the questions or can also upvote other questions

4. Engagement Opportunities

Reactions• In a new update, Zoom released

additional reactions for use in Meetings – these help to gauge your participants feelings

To execute an event that captures your audience’s attention, it can be helpful to consider utilizing one of the following engagement tools in Zoom.

Non-Verbal Feedback• This function can be turned on to

allow the following: raise hand, yes, no, go slower/faster, away, need a break, clap)

5. Registration• This feature allows you to provide unique access links

to the event – which helps in security of event

• Allows you to place custom questions to capture information helpful to setting up the meeting• Do they need interpretation or captioning services?• Is there a question you need answered to appropriately separate into a

breakout room?

• This also allows for detailed reports to be created with who has attended your event, length of time, and possible answers to polls if enabled.

5. Registration• Utilizing Zoom

Registration, you are able to customize headings using your own logo or banner

• Questions can be customized and you get to set if they are required

6. Recording Events• This feature allows you to record

the meeting to either your local computer or the cloud

• Need to understand the laws around recording and consent for your event – and understand that people may choose not to be recorded

• It is always good practice to announce verbally and in writing on screen if you have a plan to record

7. Rehearsal• Events run smoothly when everyone understands their

role – utilize a rehearsal to ensure roles are defined and the timeline of the session is clear as possible

• Include all that have roles in the production of the event

• Webinar feature offers practice sessions

• Meeting feature does not, but you can utilize the already set up meeting to practice

Bonus Tip• While Zoom is fairly intuitive, there are plenty of

resources to access that help you to understand Zoom for your event:• Zoom User Resources provided by Zoom - Multiple sources including:

• Support & Resource Collection - Main Hub• Live Training Webinars • Zoom Video Tutorials

• Zoom & Virtual Meeting Logistics Courses from LinkedIn Learning - Multiple courses available.

• Zoom Web Conferencing Service Offering from DIT - Multiple articles available.

https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-ushttps://www.linkedin.com/learning-login/share?forceAccount=false&redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.linkedin.com%2Flearning%2Flearning-zoom%3Ftrk%3Dshare_ent_url&account=41910388https://umd.service-now.com/itsupport?sys_kb_id=0077fd43db7700104cb03562399619a5&id=kb_article_view&sysparm_rank=6&sysparm_tsqueryId=8732ac88dba6dcd04cb035623996190d

From Instagram Live to Zoom WebinarKristen Byers, Digital Content Strategist, A. James Clark School of Engineering

@umdclarkschool IG Live events

Research convos for incoming students

● Working on retention ideas to help with summer melt

● Incoming engineering students often ask how they can get involved in research

● What if we asked faculty members to discuss their research—specifically how undergraduates can get involved?

Inspiration from @umdpublichealth

● Awesome IG Live event series

● Dean Lushniak and Kelly Sherman ‘21

● It’s a conversation!I love it!

Setbacks

● For IG Live events, toughest part was finding willing hosts○ Somehow, that was easy

this time around?

● Faculty members balked at using Instagram○ Settled on Zoom webinars

Planning

● Clark Ambassadors (current undergraduate students) served as hosts

● Not a lot of time to promote, so we focused on reaching our intended audience (incoming ENGR students) directly○ Email○ Social media (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter)

Final schedule

JULY 15Engineering peptides to target a fungal pathogen

Amy Karlsson

(link to recording)

JULY 29Biofilms: Your friend and your enemy

Birthe Kjellerup

AUGUST 12Energy, nanomaterials & data analysis

Lourdes Salamanca-Riba

(not too late to register!)

http://go.umd.edu/faculty-research-july-15https://go.umd.edu/fac-chat3

Event highlights

Event highlights (cont.)

https://docs.google.com/file/d/1sq69Pq7Hca9SsDpegLeK_ndfR--BQ91b/preview

Tips & takeaways

● Ask for help

● Content is king

● Write an event outline/run-of-show

● Create opportunities for interaction

https://docs.google.com/document/d/13ZEmxoMPc_O1nhQuMMM7QqFpPfIEwazEjX4R8_-J_7A/edit

Going Virtual: Digital OutreachGolshan Jalali, Media & Digital Communications Coordinator, Office of Community Engagement

Pivoting In-Person Outreach to Digital Events● OCE planned to host a large drum circle on

April 1 (Census Day). ● Quickly had to pivot to a digital event. ● Define your purpose; Determine who your

audience is and what you want to achieve with them. Strategize your key goals, concepts, and how you’re going to accomplish your objectives.

● Make sure your goals have measurable outcomes that validate the “why” of your purpose.

Instagram Live: Count Me In Series● Hosted a weekly Count Me In Series

every Wednesday throughout April on OCE’s Instagram Live.

● Moderated by Dr. Stephen Thomas (SPH) and included 4-5 guests for each week for a 60-minute Q&A and a musical performance.

● Kick-off event on April 1 had technical issues #InstagramDown

Special Guests- Mayor Patrick Wojahn, City of College Park - Daniel Jones, Partnership Specialist, U.S. Census Bureau - Stephen Kenny, UMD Government and Politics, Public Policy Student and University Senator, Senate

Executive Committee Member- Gloria Aparicio Blackwell, Director, UMD Office of Community Engagement - Anika Sikder, UMD ‘17, Research Assistant, Maryland Center for Health Equity - Dr. Georgina Dodge, Vice President for UMD's Office of Diversity and Inclusion- Michael Locksley, Head Football Coach, UMD- Lisa Miller, President, Prince George’s Property Owners Association - Emily Berry, UMD ‘21, President, Resident Hall Association- Maryland State Delegate Joseline Peña-Melnyk- Alexandra (Sasha) Marquez, Student Co-Chair, TerpsVote Coalition; Director of Civic Affairs, UMD SGA - Rya Griffis, Community Outreach Coordinator, The City of College Park - Greeshma Anand, President, UMD MaryPIRG, - Tiffany Blossom, Vocalist/Musician- Katy Gaughan, Professional Percussionist

Preparing Guests & Catching Boomers Up-To-Speed● Remember that not all of your guests are tech savvy.

● Anticipate the troubles people may have by preparing easy to follow guides or FAQs or resources to provide support.

● Moderator/guests were prepared with a script of talking points, an instruction manual to familiarize themselves with joining an IG Live, and were on-boarded with rehearsals.

A Summer Bop

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLqAfiq8Iis

Video RecapThe series engaged more than 300 viewers and

included 15 special guests.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYFQMnOJkIw

Archiving IG Lives

● Instagram now lets users save Instagram Live broadcasts to IGTV, Instagram’s app for longer-form videos.

● Any likes or comments from the original video won’t be included in Live video replays, and the number of viewers of the Live video will start again once shared to IGTV.

● Before, IG Live streams were only available to view during the live broadcast when it appears in the Stories section of the app, which disappear after 24 hours.

● After you've ended a live video on Instagram, you can download the video to save the video to your phone's camera roll. Keep in mind that only the video is saved, and not things like comments, likes and viewers. Users also have the option to save the IG Live video to their camera roll and re-upload if they choose.

Count MD In: Virtual Panel● Count MD In Census 2020 Digital

Action Campaign and virtual panel on Monday, June 22.

● A resource guide and toolkit of key messaging and resources was developed to aid and inform digital activations.

https://www.facebook.com/100004552907616/videos/1485066038321812https://www.facebook.com/100004552907616/videos/1485066038321812

Count MD In: Virtual Panel● Moderated by Dr. Stephen Thomas

(SPH) and OCE Director. Guests included election officials, policy makers, U.S. Census Bureau reps.

● Used WebEx and live streamed through Facebook Live.

● Live virtual panel engaged more than 500 viewers during the broadcast and currently has over 1,000 views on Facebook.

Interactive Features Inspired from SPH

UMD SPH The Color of Covid-19 in Maryland Facebook Live Webinar

https://sph.umd.edu/event/facebook-live-webinar-color-covid-19-maryland-confronting-racial-and-ethnic-health-disparities

Interactive Features Inspired from SPH

Poll Questions using Poll Everywhere

https://www.polleverywhere.com

Interactive Features Inspired from SPH

Poll Questions using Poll Everywhere

https://www.polleverywhere.com

Interactive Features Inspired from SPH

Poll Questions using Poll Everywhere

https://www.polleverywhere.com

How to Look Good on Live Streams/Zoom

● Find natural light, if you can’t, find a place with good lighting The light should also be in front of you, not behind you or directly above you (it casts shadows on your face that are not flattering!).

● Try to get the camera on eye level so that you’re not looking down on the camera (therefore, your audience).

● Find a good background, neutral background, or use signage with branding. ● Primp before you Zoom. (Zoom Settings → Video → Touch Up My Appearance) ● Mute yourself automatically after you speak. ● Sit up straight and lean forward a little towards the camera. Sitting back makes it look like

you’re slouching and disinterested in the conversation.