Are conference videos the next big thing?

Remember when TED Talks started becoming more and more famous? People were thrilled that these exclusive (and frankly expensive) conferences by the most prolific characters from politics, science, arts and design could be available for anyone to see from the comfort of their homes. One of the most important things tech revolution brought was the ability to distribute knowledge and information to practically any part of the world.

Ever since online video streaming became a thing, colleges and universities took the opportunity to "digitize" some of their courses, subjects or seminars and give students or audiences the advantage of watching them online. This soon caught up among the crowd and online universities were created, and even companies wanted to get in on that too. But what makes conference videos so successful and are they really here to stay?

There are many advantages for creating conference videos. Companies or professionals have to impart seminars on a regular basis to people from many places, which implies the conference speaker had to travel to several cities or even countries and repeat the same speech, which of course involves travel and accommodation expenses. Conference videos can save a lot of money and time, by giving just one conference live and then distributing it to other audiences by making it available on a platform people can access to by paying a fee.

Most conferences are made to be paid even just to cover for basic expenses such as the location, the equipment and the speaker (if it's not you); but even if the conference is free there's going to be times when some of the people who were expected to attend don't show up. Just because they didn't come doesn't mean they're not important to you as audience, so a great way to use conference videos is to email them the seminar they couldn't get a chance to watch live.

You might thing webinars are a very impersonal approach to your audiences but it's actually a good chance to get to know them even more than you would at a regular speaking. In conferences, there's only a limited amount of time for people to ask questions or give feedback (and sometimes people feel shy to ask in public), but when you post conference videos on a portal you have the chance to make it an interactive session where people answer polls, ask questions and even rates your performance. What better way than knowing how to improve or what your audience wants to hear next than asking them with lots of time?

Webinars and conference videos make it easier for you to reach more and more new audiences that can translate in customers. Why? It's simple, people who attend your conference already know about you or took the time to know about you before attending, but there's many people that don't know you but have nothing to lose by clicking play on your conference. It's a 'safe' environment for new audiences to get to know you or your brand and take the first step into engaging with you because they have the feeling you reached out first.

Some people are not convinced about trying conference videos until they see the benefits in numbers. Think about the cost of planning a conference, paying a location and other service providers, it's a hassle right? Now think of doing this in 10 different cities on 20 different dates.

The investment is pretty big and leaves a relatively small profit. Now think of having to make the conference only one and from that one time obtaining a high quality conference video. You'll own 100% of this material and you can store it and use it as many times as you want in the future to sell. Does sound more attractive right?