Event 101: How to Make Your Event Eco-Friendly

Integrating sustainability into our professional and personal lives is an evergreen process. From carrying reusable shopping bags, to forgoing plastic straws, to choosing The Impossible Burger on a menu, sustainability efforts have become increasingly mainstream as awareness around the environmental impact of our habits grows.

Guided by the familiar mantra to “reduce, reuse, recycle,” we’re highlighting some ways the events space can better practice #goinggreen.

Reduce.

• Go digital. - Put the agenda online! In addition to having the agenda on the event website, explore having your own app created or using a third party software, such as Bizzabo, to build out your agenda digitally. Often, these apps are interactive, allowing attendees to “favorite” sessions and message speakers. The best part? No need for a reprint should you have a last-minute change.

• Cut carbon through catering. - If there’s food at the event, opt for wooden or compostable utensils and dishes. Catering companies are typically able to provide more eco-friendly alternatives to styrofoam plates or plastic forks—you just need to ask! Better yet, have the caterers bring compostable bins for any leftover food that can’t be donated. And don’t forget: no plastic straws! When ordering food, stick to a heavily vegetarian menu. For meat options, opt for poultry, as beef has a much heftier environmental impact—one five-ounce steak omites 331kg of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, versus 64kg omitted by chicken. That’s equivalent of saving 29.6 gallons of gas, all by switching out one person's meal. (Washington Post, 2017).

• Say goodbye to goodybags. - Stray away from goodybags! If you feel it is necessary to give your guests a thank you, reusable tote bags are a great option.

Reuse.

• Give your materials a longer shelf life. - Having the year listed on the event website and certain materials is extremely important for clarity, but does it need to be printed on notebooks, T-shirts, and pens? If not, this is a great opportunity to reuse! Anything left over or unused from your event that year can be saved for the next edition.

• Say no to plastic water bottles. - Make your event a plastic water bottle free zone! Encourage attendees to bring their own reusable water bottle, to be filled by water fountains or water refill stations around the venue.

Recycle.

• Add recycling bins. - While it may seem obvious, ensure there are plenty of recycling bins throughout the event. Place them near trash cans to avoid someone tossing a recyclable item simply for convenience.

• Have a donation plan in mind for left over items. - When event day finally comes to a close, take an inventory of what’s left over. Food can go to a homeless shelter or food bank, and explore donating other left-over materials to local classrooms, The Goodwill or The Salvation Army.

Interested in learning about how cred can promote and plan your next event? Connect with us at events@credpr.com.

Speaking 101: 5 Ways to Promote Your Event on LinkedIn

With more than 500 million users on LinkedIn, it’s no wonder why the professional network platform is a powerful tool for promoting events. LinkedIn’s user base consists of 40 million decision-makers, 61 million senior level influencers, 40 million recent graduates and students, and more. If this sounds like the audience you’d like to attract, here are five ways to promote your event on LinkedIn:

1. Keep your audience engaged: Posting a status on your page is an easy way to promote your event within your network. Use this as a tool to announce event updates on venue, speakers, sponsors, and more.

   • Pro-tip: The best time to publish a post is on Tuesdays through Thursdays between 10am and 11am when LinkedIn users are most active. Also, don’t forget to use hashtags! #eventtips

2. Leverage your company profile: Use your company profile to keep your audience updated on event productions, while simultaneously building up your network of followers. Make posts announcing call for speakers, ticket sales date, topics to be discussed, and such.

3. Join LinkedIn groups: A great way to reach people outside of your network is to join groups that are relevant to your event’s focus. You’ll be able to post to this new set of audience, but keep in mind that these posts should always be tailored to attract the pool of professionals you’d like to see at your event.

4. Become a publisher: Go beyond a typical status update and write an article to share on LinkedIn. Keep your article engaging and relevant, and use this opportunity to share the nitty gritty about your event, such as a recap of the previous event.

   • Pro-tip: Keep in mind that your article can be made public to increase viewership on and off LinkedIn!

5. Create boosted content: Choose from many of LinkedIn’s offerings, including Sponsored Content, Sponsored InMail, and Ads. Promote your event in people’s newsfeed with Sponsored Content, in people’s inbox with Sponsored InMail, and across the platform with Ads.

Interested in learning about how cred can promote and plan your next event? Connect with us at events@credpr.com.

Speaking 101: Anatomy of a Speaking Opp

Here at cred, we pride ourselves on securing the best speaking opportunities to meet the goals of our clients. To accomplish this with success, we’ve built an extensive process to make sure these goals are clearly defined, set, and reached.

The Planning

It all begins with the client kickoff. This is where we start our on-boarding process by diving into the company and speaker(s) to understand where speaking fits into their overall communication strategy. We've created our own process that asks the right questions to help us become successful.

Once we have an idea of the speaker’s high-level topics, we develop our speaking platform, which serves as the roadmap for our work.

The Day-to-Day

The bulk of our day-to-day work consists of content curation. We create numerous topics and speaking angles aligning our speaker’s expertise and background with key themes relevant to their industry and target audience.

Additionally, event research and outreach are the bread of butter of our speaker management. We’ve built a database of more than 10,000 events (and counting!) from scratch broken down by industry, deadline, past client feedback, and more, as one of our key research tools. It also helps us stay on top of any key deadlines, which we easily track on a weekly basis. We target high-value events that align with a client’s program goals, from conferences to webinars to meetups. We’ll even do opposition research to track where competitors or key partners are speaking.

Lastly, we’re constantly connecting with organizers early to understand what types of speakers they’re seeking, and fostering those relationships so we ensure we’re adding value to their agenda.

Our work isn’t only limited to engaging with our speakers and event organizers. We understand speaking is just one component of a company’s marketing/PR strategy, and are accustomed to collaborating with PR firms and marketing teams to ensure we maximize the impact of an opportunity. For highly competitive events, such as Cannes Lions and SXSW, we’ll work directly with our clients to develop a more curated session.

The Impact

Communication and planning are key. All event updates are updated in real time in our shared events trackers, so clients can see progress and a full picture of speaking activity.

Once a speaking opportunity is secured, we manage all event logistics—from confirming the session date, time, and topic, to managing prep calls, deadlines, and on-site details. We ensure speakers feel prepared and know what to expect before hitting the stage.

When an event is complete, we take feedback into consideration so we can iterate on future speaking opportunities. This allows us to refine and optimize future activity to build an impactful program. We’ll also gather feedback from the event organizer to help understand the audience’s take on our speaker’s session and how to make the next presentation stronger for future events.

Successful thought leadership comes from not one, but multiple successful speaking arrangements to target audiences, and we are passionate in helping speakers get to them.

Interested in working with us to help expand your speaking program? Connect with us at speak@credpr.com!

(Infographic: Gina King)

Speaking 101: 5 Helpful Tools to Stay Organized

We all come from different professional backgrounds. We hold different positions, work in different industries, have different titles and responsibilities, but one thing is the same: we all strive to stay organized.

Staying organized is an art form many of us struggle with. To kickoff the New Year, getting organized is essential. There are hundreds of fantastic tools to help you meet your organizational needs. Not sure where to start? Here is a breakdown of our top five favorites.

1. MixMax: MixMax is here to make your email life easier. If you are like us here at cred, then you live in your inbox. This gmail extension has great features to enhance and customize your inbox, including setting reminders, scheduling emails, and creating templates. It helps us keep our constant client communications in order, so important tasks don’t slip through the cracks.

2. Quip: When your to-do list needs a makeover, try Quip. This list can be used as an app for your phone and/or desktop, and can also be used in your browser. You can collaborate with other colleagues by sharing lists or tagging them in tasks, and you can add trackers, calendars, and spreadsheets to keep you ahead of your long list of to-dos (if that is even possible). We use Quip for some of our personal to do lists and for our team meeting agendas.

3. Zoom: If you haven’t heard yet, we started an office down in Sacramento! A huge part of our everyday schedules is utilizing video-calling tools like Zoom to stay connected to our long-distance friends. We use Zoom during one-on-one, team, and company-wide meetings and even use it for having virtual coffee dates to better get to know each other outside of work.

4. Slack: Slack is a must-have in our office. Collaboration is a huge part of our values, and we are constantly working together and communicating within our office. Slack allows us to chat individually, or in groups. We also have different channels, or group chats, where we post updates depending on the topic of interest for that channel. We utilize this tool for many reasons, especially for asking quick questions to those in and out of the office, and for updating each other on industry or personal news.

5. Google Calendar: Don’t we all love Google applications? We take advantage of all things Google, but a personal favorite is Google Calendar. Calendars are meant to keep track of important dates, calls, meetings, events, etc., but that’s nothing new. The great thing about Google Calendar is being able to share co-worker’s calendars, so we are always on the same page. We are always moving and shaking, and having a calendar that we can sync with other coworkers is a must.

The best part about organizational tools is there are a bunch to try and see how they work for you. We’ve listed a few of our many favorites, now what are yours?

Speaking 101: Storytelling Elements for Public Speaking

Whether you are speaking to a small room of five people or an auditorium of 5,000, storytelling will make your presentation memorable. Studies show people are more likely to retain information when it is told through story. Here are some helpful tips to get you started:

1. Keep it simple.

Make sure the details you’re sharing are necessary to the story. Too much information can be overwhelming for the audience and make your story hard to remember. It’s easy to add fluff, but it’s hard to refine your thoughts to align with what matters.

• Tip: Edit, edit, edit. Read through your story multiple times and take out unnecessary fluff.

2. Use emotion.

Make people care about what you’re saying. Yes, statistics and data can be helpful, but using a genuine, real world example that utilizes emotion has been proven to be more effective. It makes the information stick with your audience and has a lasting impact.

• Tip: Use names! Giving a face to a story makes it more personable and memorable.

3. End strong.

Every good story has clear conflict resolution. This is where your message should be clearly defined without open ends. It should be obvious and leave the audience feeling inspired! Use wording that will resonate with your audience and remember to keep it short and sweet.

• Tip: Try limiting your message to one sentence or just a few words. Setting a word limit can help center and focus your thoughts.

Speaking 101: Connecting Beyond the Digital World

The live experience is not dead.

While we can listen to free music on Spotify, we jump at the chance to see our favorite bands in concert. While we can FaceTime family from across the country, we endure the pains of traveling to spend the holidays together. While we can go on YouTube to watch keynotes and presentations, we travel to different cities to  hear thought leaders share their ideas live.

Why? Technology allows for valuable connection, but in-person interactions create irreplaceable and authentic experiences outside of the digital world. An Eventbrite study found 78% of millennials  are fueling the “experience economy”—spending more money on experiences rather than materials.

Here are four reasons why it’s valuable and important to attend events in today’s digital era.:

1. Learning IRL Instead of URL

Listening to a speaker in person offers a rich opportunity to actively watch, listen, and receive information. According to a recent Forbes article, “like artists, the best speakers are original and relevant in the moment. You can’t get that online. The best reinforce a mission, catalyze an audience, even inspire action.” Face-to-face interactions help motivate and mobilize people, rather than just being another message on the other side of a screen.

2. Networking

Nothing beats gathering people in one place in real life. According to The Muse, “conferences are one of the single best ways to network.” Instead of having to come up with an icebreaker, a conference provides a common topic to chat about: the conference itself!

You may not only make new connections, but also could potentially make new friends. Thirty percent of millennials say they met someone at a live event that became a good friend. Who knows, the conversations you have at an event may be even more valuable than the content.

3. Ask Questions, Get Answers

When a session includes a quick Q&A, make sure to bring your questions! While you may already follow a speaker on Twitter or have their email address, make the effort to introduce yourself personally and ask a question directly. The answer they provide face-to-face may be more extensive than over a tweet or email. Conferences allow for direct access to experts and thought leaders seen on stage.

Events allow you not only to gain insight from speakers, but also from other industry professionals. Gather intel from fellow attendees on topics and ideas that are of interest to you. Translate those insights into actionable takeaways that you can implement at your company.

4. A Change of Scenery

How often do you actually set aside time to learn something new relating to your field or industry? Conferences and events offer the opportunity to embrace a posture of learning. Take advantage of listening, asking questions, and participating in discussions at events. Embrace the change of scenery and extract all that you can from the experience.

People appreciate live experiences, even with an abundance of online content available. Watching videos from behind a screen is not the same as watching a speaker live from the audience. People truly value the event experience: learning from speakers in live settings, networking with other attendees, and implementing relevant takeaways.  

Interested in attending more events? See where we’re speaking next and subscribe to our monthly newsletter today!