Opus recently released an e-book detailing the reasons you need a content marketing strategy for your event. Developing your own content marketing strategy is good—but it’s just a start!

Factoring video into your content plan is a step in the right direction: the Content Marketing Institute’s 2017 B2B Content Marketing Report ranked it as the sixth-most commonly used tactic by B2B marketers. The big question remains: how do I do it?

Luckily, Event Marketer recently published a helpful guide for designing B2B event content strategy—here are their thoughts on folding video into the mix:

1. Align your video content strategy with your overall event strategy.

You took the time to plan your event’s content strategy—alignment is a crucial part of effective implementation. If your event’s goal is to showcase a new product or service offering, your video content might focus more on manufacturing emotional responses and building excitement. If your event aims to educate users of your product, you might focus on a la carte training content made accessible to your attendees post-event. There’s a flavor of video for every type of event!

2. Tailor your video content to your audience.

This one’s basically a no-brainer for most marketers, but it’s worth saying anyway: you need to KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE. Effective audience profiling and accurate persona creation are great tools for promoting your event to attendees, but they’re also crucial for attracting and engaging digital-only consumers of your message. Any content that resonates personally with a consumer is much more likely to be amplified by your audience.

Keep your production values high and your content engaging.

3. Grab your audience’s attention (and hold on with both hands).

With online video content, competition is fierce. Your video needs to be laser-focused to meet your audience’s interests, and be produced with incredibly high standards of production and storytelling craft to keep them from clicking away to the latest cute cat videos.

4. Adjust your video content to different social media platforms.

Social media will be one of your most effective distribution channels for video content. That being said, it’s important to know that not all social media communities are created equal. Each platform has different tastes and standards for content length, tone, formats, and other more intangible elements. Avoid hamstringing your message’s effectiveness by planning modular content that can be properly tailored to each medium as necessary.

Plan ways to make your event more engaging for video audiences.

5. Make your event “shareable.”

When planning the look and feel of your event, don’t stop at the physical space. If you want your message to spread beyond the people who are in the room, you need to view your event as a storytelling platform that doesn’t lose its luster once it’s transferred to the small screen on someone’s smartphone. Plan to incorporate elements into your live event that will help it stand out to attendees who aren’t in the room.

6. Don’t compromise your brand’s standards.

Embracing video in your content strategy is one thing—pulling it off is another. Ten years ago, low-res, shaky handheld video might have given your event an authentic, “on-the-ground” feeling. Today, people expect Hollywood-standard productions and are easily turned off when their expectations aren’t met. Make sure your video content meets the same quality standards you’ve set for the rest of your marketing content; using video will be counter-productive if it actually ends up lowering your audience’s opinion of your brand.

Being new to video is no excuse to lower your brand’s standards.

7. Don’t forget to promote it!

The age-old question: if a tree falls in a forest with nobody there to hear it, did it actually make a sound? The same goes for poorly promoted video content. You can spend all your budget on producing incredible video for your event, but if nobody knows how to find it or that it even exists, what was the point? Make sure to include room in your event’s promotional budget for getting the word out about your video content as well. If you do it effectively, your video audience should end up adding to your live audience in the future.

Are you working on developing your event’s content strategy? We can help! Check out our latest e-book on the subject, or some of our other collective wisdom .