The Top 10 OTT Vimeo Streaming Services

Posted on February 14, 2022 by Arena

The power of digital interaction cannot be overstated in today’s market landscape. Dive deep into the potential of Arena’s comprehensive Customer Data Platform (CDP) for eCommerce through an examination of the top OTT Vimeo streaming services.

Top Vimeo OTT Streaming Services: An Insightful Overview

1) Mary Fulton Fit

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Content: Health and fitness content
Supported Devices: Not listed
Pricing: $26.25/month or $262.63/year with a 14-day free trial.
Overview: With both pre-recorded videos and scheduled workout events, Mary Fulton Fit cleverly balances timely content such as morning sessions and on-demand videos, exemplifying adaptability.

2) MasterLectures

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Content: Video lectures on Christian theology
Supported Devices: iPhone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, and fireTV
Pricing: $19.99/month or $14.99/month with an annual subscription
Overview: Zondervan, a renowned Christian book publisher, has transitioned into the video streaming market. MasterLectures serves as an educational repository for those interested in in-depth Christian subjects.

3) ISC Sports Network

Content: Indiana sports events such as basketball, sports podcasts, and football
Supported Devices: iPhone, Apple TV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, and Xbox
Pricing: $4.99/month or $49.99/year with pay-per-view options
Overview: ISC’s niche focus on Indiana sports highlights the potential of catering to specific demographic interests.

4) Speed 51

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Content: Car racing events across the US
Supported Devices: iPhone, Apple TV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, and Samsung Smart TV
Pricing: $9.99/month or $79.99/year
Overview: A treasure trove for racing enthusiasts, offering both subscription and pay-per-view models, demonstrating versatility in monetization strategies.

5) GazeboTV

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Content: Classic TV series from Sullivan Entertainment
Supported Devices: iPhone, Apple TV, Android TV, and Roku
Pricing: No monthly fees with select content available for rent or purchase
Overview: Celebrating Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery’s works, GazeboTV showcases monetization outside standard subscription models.

6) PRO EDU

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Content: Photography education
Supported Devices: Apple TV, Roku, FireTV, Chromecast, iPhone, iPad, Android, and web browser
Pricing: $499/year or individual video purchases
Overview: Catering to photographers, PRO EDU offers a blend of technical and business-focused content, signifying the breadth of professional development offerings.

7) Grammy Museum

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Content: Music and associated material
Supported Devices: iPhone, Apple TV, Android, Android TV, Roku, and FireTV
Pricing: $3.90/month
Overview: Beyond the annual awards, the Grammy Museum taps into its brand’s legacy, offering intimate performances and interviews.

8) Y7 Online

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Content: Yoga classes and associated playlists
Supported Devices: Roku, Chromecast, iPhone, iPad, and website
Pricing: $16/month or $192/year with a seven-day free trial
Overview: Offering structured yoga sessions, Y7 provides variety and flexibility to its subscribers.

9) Park Avenue Synagogue

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Content: Jewish content and associated materials
Supported Devices: Apple TV, Roku, Android TV, FireTV, Chromecast, iPhone, iPad, and website
Pricing: Free to sign up
Overview: Serving as a digital conduit for religious content, it exemplifies the potential of religious institutions in the digital realm.

10) Full Moon Features

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Content: Thriller and horror movies and related media
Supported Devices: Not listed
Pricing: $6.50/month or $65/year
Overview: A haven for horror enthusiasts, demonstrating that understanding and catering to niche interests can be profitable.

Maximizing Streaming Potential with Arena

Establishing a streaming service is just the beginning. Ensuring long-term engagement and retention requires foresight and strategic planning. Arena‘s integration with Vimeo OTT and its potent CDP for eCommerce can be your guiding light, ensuring you harness the full potential of your content, engage effectively with your audience, and ultimately, achieve your marketing objectives.

Agency Reporting: all you need to know

Posted on January 12, 2022 by Arena

It’s common for agencies to create reports to improve communication with their clients, help them identify and achieve their goals, and attract new business. By learning how to create effective agency reports, you can build a better relationship with your clients and scale your agency by attracting new prospects. This guide is designed to help you understand what agency reports are, why they are important, and what to include in an agency report.

What is an Agency Report?

Agency reports are detailed reports showing data that’s been collected from reporting and monitoring tools. This lets agencies see what’s working and what’s not working and take actionable steps to improve their business. A common purpose of creating agency reports is to show investors and clients how well an agency’s strategy is working.

Why are Agency Reports Important?

A report conducted by HubSpot indicates that 23% of agencies fail to meet client expectations and goals. One way to solve this is through effective reporting. It’s important to create reports that use data to tell a story to communicate opportunities, strengths, and your agency’s value. It should give you an overview of what you’ve done over the past week, month, or year.

Agency reports help you evaluate and optimize your own strategies, but they also help you sell your agency’s services. By achieving and demonstrating results through an agency report, you can show them off to scale your agency and attract new clients. It can also facilitate transparent communication with existing clients by showing them exactly what results you’re getting for them.

What to Include in an Agency Report?

An agency report should include sections for goals, key metrics, and value added.

Goals

Start by working with your client to identify your shared goals. Set both short-term and long-term goals and be specific. Goals should be clear and achievable, and they should always include trackable metrics. In this section, you can also include which digital agency tools you’ll be using to achieve these goals. If you need more information on goals-based reporting, check out this helpful article.

Key Metrics

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When adding key metrics to your agency report, consider which statistics your client values most. If your metrics aren’t important to your client, it’s unnecessary to include them. You should also add metrics that align with your set goals. For example, include statistics relevant to customer engagement if your goal is to get the client’s audience more involved.

Examples of important metrics you can include are listed below.

It can also help to include non-qualitative metrics like social media reviews and customer feedback.

Value Added

In addition to key metrics, make sure to include the value provided for your client. This is your chance to demonstrate how you positively impacted your client, and you should include everything you think is relevant. Show how your actions led to the desired outcome and how you will continue getting results for clients going forward.

For example, if you helped a client run a successful online virtual event, demonstrate how you helped them prepare, manage, and achieve their desired outcome. You could mention how you helped them prepare a virtual events script, advertise their event on social media, and convert viewers during the live event.

By sharing these details, your current clients will see the value you provide and will be more likely to continue working with you. It also allows you to scale your agency by attracting new clients once they see the impact you’re having on other clients.

Additional Tips for Agency Reporting

Once you’ve included goals, key metrics, and value added on your report, consider the following tips for better agency reporting.

Create Frequent Reports

If you only provide your clients with an agency report once or twice per year, you’re missing the point. By publishing weekly reports, you’ll keep your client informed with the most up-to-date information. This gives you the opportunity to collaborate more often as new challenges arise, and it can make each client meeting shorter and less stressful.

Use Reporting Templates

If you have multiple clients to generate reports for, use agency reporting templates to make the process more streamlined. Templates can be customized for each client, but they eliminate the need to recreate reports from scratch. This lets you focus on the important aspects of reporting while saving time on tedious tasks.

Create Multiple Reports

Trying to include all reporting metrics on one document can create a tangled mess. Instead of cramming all your data, create multiple reports that categorize data by channel. While this step isn’t mandatory, it can make complex reports more readable, and it can prevent your clients from becoming overwhelmed.

Include Future Plans

By including a section for next steps, you can show your clients how you plan to improve results in the future. This section is important because it allows you to connect the dots between previous results and future outcomes. This is especially true if your previous results fall short and you want to demonstrate how you can turn them around going forward.

How Arena Can Help Your Agency

Before you focus on generating reports for your clients, you need to make sure you can deliver them results. Arena has software tools that will allow you to satisfy your clients and scale your agency.

Arena Live Chat can be added to a website or live stream to improve engagement through surveys, polls, Q&As, and instant messages. Agencies can personalize live chats with GIFs, reactions, and emojis and add conversion cards to sell products and services.

To post quick updates as a live event unfolds, agencies can download Arena Live Blog. This tool can share images, videos, text, and social media to viewers, and it comes with more than 15 customization options.

Finally, Arena Customer Data Platform (CDP) can be paired with the Live Chat and Live Blog tools to collect user data from multiple touchpoints. With it, you can build unique customer profiles to understand their brand preferences, purchase history, interests, and live events engagement activity.

Conclusion

Agency reports are a great way to keep clients informed and to attract new business. If you need help creating one for your agency, consider implementing the steps covered in this guide. Always include goals, key metrics, and value added in your reports.

It’s also important to build reports frequently, use reporting templates, break up reports, and include next steps. If you need help getting results for your clients, consider adding one of Arena’s software tools. To learn more about Arena, click the link below to speak with an expert.

Book a demo session

Most common mistakes with Virtual Events

Posted on January 11, 2022 by Arena

Hosting a virtual event presents its own unique challenges. Some apply to in-person ones, while some mistakes are specific to hosting an event online. This guide was created to show organizers the most common mistakes when hosting virtual events and how to avoid them. By avoiding these mistakes, you’ll be able to create a virtual event experience that’s purposeful, engaging, and effective.

Virtual Event mistakes

The following are the five most common mistakes virtual events organizers make.

Lacking structure

Developing and executing a structured plan is a virtual event key to success. Without this, your event can experience awkward pauses, overlapping speakers, miscommunication with attendees, and more.

To make sure your event is structured, start by creating a schedule. Add time slots for each speaker, segment, and meal break. It’s smart to include Q&A sessions throughout your event so attendees can have their questions answered, and you can also survey your audience with a live chat tool.

The next step to improving your virtual event structure is to post your agenda before the event starts. By doing this, your audience will know exactly what to expect, and it eliminates the need to go over the agenda during the event introduction.

Finally, incorporate some flexibility in your agenda and create backup plans in case things go wrong. Technical difficulties, speaker absences, and late entrances are common problems that can arise. By having a little flexibility and a solid “plan B”, you’ll be able to tackle these challenges with ease.

Wasting time on irrelevant topics

Another one of the most common mistakes virtual events suffer from is time wasted on irrelevant topics. If the purpose of hosting the virtual event is to build relationships with attendees, it’s not a great idea to spend half of the event trying to sell products. By straying away from your goal, your event will lack a targeted direction.

To avoid this mistake, create a clear goal for your event. Once you have a goal in mind, ask the following three questions.

“What do I want my attendees to take away from this event?”
“What content can I share to help me achieve my goal?”
“What parts of my agenda do not serve the purpose of my virtual event?”

By eliminating parts of your event that aren’t important, you’ll be able to create a more concise and engaging virtual event. Create a purposeful and engaging virtual events script, only add content that’s relevant to your goal, determine which metrics are most important to you, and focus on adding value to your attendees.

Trying to mimic an in-person event

Virtual events aren’t meant to be structured like an in-person event. This is one of the biggest mistakes virtual events organizers make. At an in-person event, networking is more natural, attention spans are greater, and distractions are minimal. With an online event, people can’t meet each other face-to-face, leaving the event early is much easier, and distractions are unrestrained.

Technology allowed events to seamlessly transition from in-person to online, but the strategy for running each is different. To create an effective live stream event, host one that has the excitement of an in-person event without trying to completely replicate an in-person event.

Start by tightening your agenda. Because attention spans are shorter online, virtual events should typically be shorter than comparable in-person ones. Long content blocks and drawn out speeches don’t translate as well online as they do in-person.

Next, provide guidance when it comes to attendee networking. Casual conversations are more natural in-person than they are online. Therefore, assign discussion topics when sending attendees into breakout rooms. This gives your audience a talking point and can prevent awkward conversations.

Finally, make your virtual events as easy to access as possible. A huge advantage of virtual events is the ease of packaging and accessibility. When deciding between different software tools, choose those that let users access content in multiple ways and from different devices. You can also provide content libraries, summary posts, and quick video-clips to your attendees.

Not having a moderator

Having an assigned moderator is a great way to improve your live event. Without a moderator, virtual events can lack direction and smooth transitions. A moderator is a great person to provide an introduction, introduce new speakers, and guide the event through its stages.

When deciding on a moderator, pick someone who is enthusiastic and who understands your audience. Your moderator is likely the first impression for your event, so choose someone who’s excited about it. By selecting someone who understands your audience, you’ll be able to build better relationships with them.

Forgetting to practice

Not practicing before hosting your live stream event is an easily avoidable mistake. Your speakers, moderator, and behind-the-scenes crew should all be familiar with the agenda, the virtual event platform, and their individual duties when hosting an event.

As with anything, practice makes perfect, and conducting just one practice run will allow your team to spot potential issues and overcome them. Speakers should have a rough set of notes and script for their speeches. The practice run allows them to see if they’re taking too long, finishing too early, or are right on time.

Make sure everyone is comfortable with the virtual event software. Test internet connection, get everyone logged in, and double check their camera and microphone. Once these are set up, the practice run will ensure that everything is working properly.

How Arena can help

Arena has powerful software tools that event organizers can use to improve their virtual events. To improve attendee engagement through instant messaging, group chat, polls, surveys, and Q&As, consider adding Arena Live Chat to your event. This tool can be paired with Arena Live Blog to share relevant updates as your event unfolds.

To collect user data from different touchpoints, build customer profiles, and understand your audience’s interests, you can also add the Arena Personas (beta) for CDPs. This tool keeps track of attendee information, engagement history, brand preferences, purchase history, and more.

Conclusion

When hosting an event, it’s critical to avoid these five common mistakes virtual events organizers make. Create a structured event, focus on the event goal, use online strategies for your event, assign an event moderator, and don’t forget to practice. By doing this, you’ll be able to create an event that gets results and provides a positive experience for your audience.

One way to improve your event structure, stay on topic, and engage your audience is by creating an effective virtual events script. A script can be used by speakers to guide them through their speaking points, remind them of what to say next, and keep them organized and focused on the goal. To discover how you can create highly engaging scripts for live coverages and virtual events, download our free eBook by clicking the link below.

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CDP and the Metaverse: how to control your data

Posted on December 10, 2021 by Arena

Before you launch your first metaverse project, there is a critical question you need to answer. How will you control metaverse data?

3 Reasons Why To Control Your Metaverse Data

Controlling your data in a metaverse environment is vital for a few reasons.

It won’t be easy to get feedback to improve customer service and future metaverse projects without control over your data. By controlling your data in this new area, you can stay competitive with future expectations.

Data and Security Compliance.

Your customers expect you to protect their data. At a minimum, you should fulfill local regulatory requirements like California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) or GDPR. Even if those laws do not directly apply to your company, it may be worth meeting those requirements to protect your requirements.

Finding success in marketing requires a commitment to testing and innovation. By tracking what works and what doesn’t in your metaverse, your continuous improvement efforts can continue.

Now let’s look at some of the data you might want to control in the metaverse.

Four Types of Metaverse Data Should You Protect

The specific kinds of data you put into the metaverse and get out of it will vary depending on your approach. A company that creates or uses a persistent virtual world such as Roblox will manage a significant volume of data. In contrast, a company offering a virtual metaverse event once or twice per year will have far fewer customer data profiles to manage.

Your metaverse experience will require a variety of types of content to engage customers. For example, you might create images and videos. For live virtual events in the metaverse, you may create a virtual event script. You might create metaverse content in-house, work with consultants or agencies. Before putting your content into a metaverse environment, get clarity on copyright and intellectual property first. For example, do you retain rights to the content, or are there any limitations to keep in mind?

Customer Data And User Data

You may welcome several kinds of users to your metaverse environments: customers, potential customers, and partners. Given the effort required to track users effectively, it is probably wise to focus on customers. The best approach is to use a platform like the Arena Personas. It makes it easy to track customer activity across multiple platforms, including website usage, interactions with sales, social media, and more.

Protecting analytics data related to your metaverse events and environments is essential. For example, you might offer a series of metaverse events aimed at different audiences like small business owners vs corporate executives. At a minimum, track time usage metrics like how long users stay in the metaverse environment. Further, track how many of your users interact with your metaverse offerings. Low usage rates may suggest that your approach to the metaverse may not be appealing.

Qualitative data is meant to capture any other kinds of feedback you may receive about your metaverse environment. For example, users may use Live Chat on your website to ask technical support questions. Keeping track of these questions and feedback is essential. If users struggle to access metaverse content, it is wise to respond to that feedback so you can keep improving. Further, you may also get comments on social media and email about your offering. These comments may give some valuable insights worth reviewing with your team.

How To Control Metaverse Data Step By Step

Use the process to control your metaverse data so that you achieve your business goals.

1. Create A Customer Data Inventory

While you may have multiple types of participants – customers, prospective customers, and influencers – in your events, it makes sense to focus mainly on customer data. The answer is simple. Ultimately, your business goals are likely mainly focused on customer loyalty, customer service, and revenue. Therefore, it makes sense to focus on controlling and managing customer data.

To build your customer data inventory, start with the following examples.

Customer Orders and Invoices.

Customer purchase activity gives you rich insights about which products are most popular with which customers. You can also use this data to identify your “VIP” customers by purchase activity.

Customer Relationship Management.

Whether you use Salesforce or another CRM, these tools give valuable insights into customer interaction. For instance, a B2B company might want to identify and invite multiple stakeholders to a metaverse event (e.g., executives, technical experts, procurement, and more) to maximize engagement.

Track which customers are interacting with you on social media. If you are active on multiple platforms, consider focusing on the top 2 platforms with the most followers.

The questions customers ask during live chat sessions can offer valuable insight. This data should be collected and protected.

Website analytics and usage data can provide insights on which content and products customers are most interested in. Protecting this data is worthwhile because it helps you optimize your marketing efforts.

2. Classify Your Customer Data

It takes time and energy to protect customer data. Therefore, it makes sense to focus your effort on the customer data that is most valuable. At a minimum, verify that you meet legal standards applicable to your company and jurisdiction. Some industries like healthcare and financial services may have additional data privacy and security requirements to meet.

After legal considerations are considered, look at the value of your customer data. You might emphasize live chat data logs from a marketing perspective because the questions help you create more effective marketing. When you first start customer data classification, it is best to keep your system simple with a few categories. You might use the following categories: Very Important, Important, and Minor Importance.

3. Identify Relevant Data For The Metaverse

In the previous steps, you created a company-wide inventory of your most significant customer data assets. As you develop your metaverse engagement, it is essential to identify which data will flow in and out of the metaverse. As a starting point, consider the following.

Customer Engagement Data
Questions
Product Data. Specifically which products generate the most interest in terms of purchases and inquiries.
Survey Data. Check if you have a recent customer satisfaction survey data set to reference.

In addition to the above data examples, it is vital to consider data flows. You will probably have data flow into the metaverse, and data flow out of the metaverse. An example of data outflow from the metaverse would be engagement data, such as which virtual experiences draw the most interest from your audience.

4. Test Your Data Tracking Capabilities With A Metaverse Sandbox

Testing your customer data with a metaverse sandbox is an excellent next step. A sandbox is a testing environment where you can see if your systems and processes are working effectively. You might ask a handful of employees to create dummy customer accounts and then interact with your company’s assets in the metaverse. Following the event, verify if your customer data platform was updated based on metaverse user activity (e.g., measure which users logged into the metaverse).

If data is not flowing out of the metaverse into your customer data platform, it is vital to quickly diagnose and fix that problem.

5. Update Your Privacy Policy and Procedures

Once you have a functioning link between your customer data platform and the metaverse, it is time to assess your approach to privacy. Your customers may ask how you will protect their data if they use your metaverse experience. Protect your company reputation by reviewing and updating your privacy policy to cover metaverse experiences.

In addition, discuss user privacy safeguards with any third parties you work with to create metaverse experiences. Once the privacy policy is updated, create training materials for your customer service support to address privacy questions if they come up.

6. Launch A Metaverse Experience

Your next step is to launch your first metaverse experience with live customers. When you first get started with new technology, plan for additional support. For example, you might want to add additional technical support staff to your live chat to help users. After your metaverse experience ends, send out a survey to users to gather their feedback.

7. Put Your New Metaverse Data To Use

Finally, evaluate the new data you have generated from your metaverse event. Start by checking the fundamentals like whether customer data profiles were updated to reflect participation in the metaverse. Second, look for additional insights like which aspects of the metaverse experience generated the most engagement. Based on these insights, you can make better decisions about your next marketing campaign.

The One Must-Have Technology For The Metaverse

You might think that virtual reality headsets are required to offer metaverse experiencers. Such hardware can help, but it is not required. The critical technology is a customer data platform! Without a CDP in place, evaluating whether your metaverse experiences are generating ROI will be very difficult. Click here to find out more about Arena Personas.

Webinar Platforms: Top 7 Solutions for Online Events

Posted on October 22, 2021 by Arena

There are so many webinar platforms on the market today that creating a shortlist is time-consuming. There is no single webinar platform suitable for every situation. A Fortune 500 company might want a webinar able to support thousands of attendees and provide detailed analytics. A small company might be more focused on an affordable price.

To help you save time, use this guide to the seven best webinar platforms and see how they compare in features, integrations, and more.

What Is The Goal Of Your Webinar?

Before diving into the specifics of the best platform for webinars on the market, let’s consider goals for a moment. Webinars are typically offered for three reasons. First, sales webinars sell products and services (a good strategy for higher-priced products over $500 or $100). Second, a business can use a webinar as a lead generation tool – invite attendees to book appointments following the webinar. Third, some organizations use webinars to deliver educational content.

Don’t forget to check some great resources for virtual events for education and e-learning, sports, news publishing, and ecommerce at Arena’s website.

Take a few minutes to get clear on the goal of your webinar. Now, let’s take a look at some of the webinar platforms on the market.

1) Arena Live Chat

Capacity: there is no limit on the number of live chat attendees.
Free Trial Available: there is a free 14-day trial.
Integrations: multiple integrations are available, including Arena for WordPress.

Arena Live Chat is an excellent solution for making your audience part of the conversation. When you give webinar attendees the ability to connect and ask questions, you’re more likely to achieve your goals. Once you select a video platform for your webinar, consider adding Arena Live Chat to give webinar participants a voice in the event. See how to enhance the e-learning experience by adding Live Chat, for instance.

2) GoToWebinar

Capacity: depends on the plan. The Starter plan is limited to 100 participants.
Free Trial Available: Yes, there is a 7-day free trial.
Integrations: GoToWebinar includes integrations with G Suit, Salesforce, Microsoft Teams, and other apps.

GoToWebinar is one of the best-known webinar platforms on the market. Capterra has also highlighted the app as a top performer for live streaming. The app includes the ability to track attendees, record sessions, and run virtual classrooms.

3) WebinarJam

Capacity: depends on the plan. The basic plan is limited to 500 attendees.
Free Trial Available: there is no free trial available. However, the company offers a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Integrations: WebinarJam integrates with sales and marketing apps such as Aweber, MailChimp, GetResponse, ClickFunnels, and LeadPages.

This cloud-based webinar platform gives users several helpful features to engage your audience. You can record webinars, run the event with multiple hosts and use polls to keep your audience engaged. The lack of a desktop app might turn off some users.

4) Livestorm

Capacity: depends on the plan. The premium plan starts with a capacity of 100 attendees, while the enterprise plan can support up to 3,000 attendees.
Free Trial Available: Livestorm offers a free Starter plan to run 20-minute events with a small number of people.
Integrations: Livestorm has an impressive suite of native integrations such as Slack, Pipedrive, HubSpot, and Intercom. In addition, you can also use Zapier to connect Livestorm with other platforms.

This browser-based webinar tool is easy for people to join with a single click. Capterra has recognized Livestorm as an “emerging favorite” in three categories: live streaming software, video conferencing software, and webinar software. This webinar platform also makes it easy for attendees to join the conversation. It includes screen sharing, polls, and chat features. If you are looking for a webinar platform that can do double duty as a video platform for sales, Livestorm is a good option.

5) Zoom Video Webinars

Capacity: up to 50,000 people (possibly the highest capacity webinar platform on the market)
Free Trial Available: there is no free trial for Zoom Webinar. However, you can use essential Zoom Meetings with up to 100 participants for free (subject to a 40-minute limit).
Integrations: Zoom Webinars offers an impressive variety of integrations: Zoom for HubSpot, Intercom, Domo, Eventbrite, Rev, MixMax, and dozens of others.

Zoom is best known as a video conferencing app. However, the company also has a webinar capability. While Zoom has a strong reputation as a video conferencing tool, it is less well known as a webinar platform. Zoom Webinars stands out for their scalability. It is tough to beat Zoom if you need to deliver a presentation to thousands of people with many different presenters.

6) Webex

Capacity: depends on the plan. The Business plan supports 200 participants, while the Enterprise plan has “customizable” limits.
Free Trial Available: there is a free plan available that can accommodate up to 100 people for a 50-minute session.
Integrations: The Webex App Hub supports many popular apps such as Salesforce, Zapier, and security tools.

Webex is the webinar solution created by Cisco. The company has a good reputation for creating robust communication tools for corporate users. The platform’s paid plans include support for MP4 recordings, the ability to stream meetings from Facebook Live, and toll-free phone numbers for people who prefer to join by phone.

7) Adobe Connect

Capacity: varies depending on the plan. The middle tier offering (Adobe Connect Webinars) starts with 100 participants, but you can pay for a higher capacity limit.
Free Trial Available: yes, Adobe Connect currently offers a free 30-day trial.
Integrations: Adobe Connect has fewer integrations than some of its competitions. Available integrations include ScheduleOnce, Blackboard, and SAP Enterprise Learning.

Adobe is best known for its graphic design apps. However, the company has also offered a webinar tool for several years now. The video app includes support for multiple hosts, polls, file sharing, and recording. That said, some reviewers have experienced problems with the product’s video quality.

Note that running Adobe Connect may require that you have Adobe Flash Player runtime installed. If you are aiming to maximize attendees, this requirement could be a problem.

What To Do After Choosing Your Webinar Platforms

Sorting through the webinar platforms to find the right tools for your company is just the first step. You have to give just as much attention to the content of your webinar. To help you craft a compelling experience, download Arena’s free ebook: How to Create Live Events

The 7 Best WordPress Plugins For Live Events

Posted on October 14, 2021 by Arena

Live events have emerged as a cornerstone of meaningful engagement. With the foundational strength of WordPress, selecting the ideal plugins is instrumental in shaping superior live experiences. Dive deep into this curated guide to curate exceptional live events.

Integral Considerations for Plugin Integration

Developer Engagement: Right functioning of a plugin heavily relies on persistent developer involvement. Neglected plugins may conflict with evolving WordPress versions, jeopardizing site security and operability.

Evaluating Costs: Although an upfront investment, premium plugins generally offer advanced features and unwavering support, distinguishing them from their free counterparts.

Optimizing for Performance: Striking a balance is pivotal. Prudent management of active plugins ensures a website remains responsive and user-centric.

Championing Live Events with Leading Plugins

1. Arena WordPress Plugin

Rating: 4.1 out of 5 stars
Last Update: 11 months ago
WordPress Compatibility: 3.6.1 or higher
Notable Features: With functionalities such as Live Chat and Live Blog, this plugin seamlessly meshes with popular social platforms.
Description: The Arena WordPress platform elegantly bridges live interaction with social media synergy. Integrating the Arena Live Blog is straightforward and poised to elevate your content landscape. Follow this clever 7-step guide to install Arena Live Blog in your WordPress website. Take a sneak-peak at what you can do buy adding social content in the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxgRBLN5cGU

2. Embed Plus for YouTube

Rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars
Last Update: 2 months ago
WordPress Compatibility: 4.1 or higher
Notable Features: An avenue to directly embed YouTube live streams, while maintaining GDPR adherence.
Description: Ideal for funneling your YouTube audience onto your website, this plugin goes beyond mere streaming, offering diverse playlist curation avenues.

3. WPStream

Rating: 4.7 out of 5 stars
Last Update: September 2021
WordPress Compatibility: 5.6 or higher
Notable Features: Versatile video platform support and encrypted content delivery.
Description: Tailored for businesses inclined towards a pay-per-view model, WPStream stands out as a potent tool in the world of live-streaming.

4. Easy Video Player

Rating: 4.1 stars out of 5 stars
Last Update: 3 months ago
WordPress Compatibility: 5.5 or higher
Notable Features: Direct embedding capabilities for an array of video formats, complemented by autoplay features.
Description: Beyond its prowess in live stream facilitation, it offers an archival route for videos, fostering a rich repository for audience revisit and instructional sharing.

Supporting WordPress Plugins

The WordPress plugins above provide the basic components for a successful live event. However, your business website may need more functions to be healthy. Check out these WordPress plugins to keep your website functioning smoothly.

5. Jetpack

Rating: 3.9 stars out of 5 stars
Last Update: 4 weeks ago
WordPress Compatibility: 5.7 or higher
Notable Features: Holistic backup solutions with daily and real-time modalities.
Description: Conceived by Automaticc, spearheaded by WordPress stalwart Matt Mullenweg, Jetpack is synonymous with robust data backup and fortified security.

6. Yoast SEO

Rating: 4.8 stars out of 5 stars
Last Update: September 2021
WordPress Compatibility: 5.6 or higher
Notable Features: Comprehensive SEO toolkit with diverse language accompaniments.
Description: Yoast SEO’s footprint in the WordPress cosmos speaks volumes of its effectiveness. For those banking on SEO-driven traffic, it emerges as a nonpareil choice.

7. W3 Total Cache

Rating: 4.4 stars out of 5 stars
Last Update: 4 weeks ago
WordPress Compatibility: 5.6 or higher
Notable Features: Enhancements to optimize website responsiveness across a myriad of devices.
Description: In the age where loading speed is tantamount to user retention, this plugin is crucial. Its intricate setup necessitates technical prowess, underscoring the importance of professional oversight.

Embracing the Future of Live Events on WordPress

Harnessing the vigor of live events is an art and science combined. Though WordPress might not be inherently tailored for live broadcasts, plugins, especially Arena, infuse it with this dynamism. Embark on this transformative journey with a 14-day free trial of Arena. Once enmeshed with your site, a vista of unparalleled live events beckons.

For aspirants in the live events spectrum, this comprehensive 10-step checklist ro a successful event serves as the gold standard to ensure great results. The symphony of apt tools and visionary strategies crafts marketing masterpieces.

Building Your Live Stream Video Chat App Toolkit

Posted on September 30, 2021 by Arena

You want to start live video streaming, but getting started can feel intimidating. You might look at experienced people on Twitch, YouTube, and other video streaming services and become overwhelmed.

Solving Live Stream Overwhelm

Take a deep breath….

Now take a moment to recognize what you have to share with the world. You might love to help users learn how to use new software—or sharing your analysis about breaking news stories. The world needs your perspective in a live stream video. Your next step is to learn about live video streaming tools so you can get started.

Building Your Live Stream Toolkit Step By Step

1. Choose a video streaming app

Live video streaming has exploded in popularity since 2020. That’s good news because you have many choices. The most popular options for live stream video include Livestorm, EventMobi, GoToWeb. BlueJeans according to Capterra. Many live video streaming services offer a free trial, so you can try the service before buying. In addition, you can use social media platforms like Facebook to share your live stream.

2. Select a live chat platform

Using a chat application is one of the lesser-known ways to make your live stream video more interesting. The reason is simple. By using a live chat platform, your audience has the opportunity to ask questions and connect with new friends. Arena Live Chat is an excellent choice for more significant events because it comes with moderation tools to discourage profanity and other problems.

While it is possible to have a live stream video without live stream chat rooms, it is not intelligent. If your audience wanted a one-way experience, they would turn on their TV or watch Netflix. On the other hand, a live stream chat is a social experience where you can connect with other people.

3. Test your audio-visual equipment

At a minimum, a live stream video host needs a high-quality camera, microphone, and speakers. Many laptops include these capabilities by default today. Use a website like X to test your equipment. Next, set up a test session with one or two other people. Using the live stream live chat, ask them if they can hear you.

If your audio-visual equipment is working well, take the time to buy a backup. Specifically, buying a backup pair of headphones with a microphone is smart. Headphone and microphone wires tend to break down over time (or even get chewed by pets!). To avoid frustration, buy backup equipment now.

Tip: Are you planning to offer a live stream video in the evening? Get a lamp or ring light to light up your face.

4. Check if your Internet service is ready for a live stream

The quality and speed of your Internet connection is a critical factor in launching a successful live video streaming experience. The fastest Internet providers like Google Fiver, Xfinity, and Verizon offer fiber-optic Internet services. These services have average download speeds of over 100 Mbps, according to HighSpeedInternet.com. If fiber-optic service is not available in your area, ask your Internet service provider about the fastest service they offer.

If you already have a high-speed Internet connection in place, take a look at your wireless router. To maximize performance, connect your computer to a router with an Ethernet cable. If that option is not practical, make sure your wireless router offers the best speeds

Finally, make sure that your Internet connection can run live stream video. Tell other people about your plans if you are running a live stream video from home or the office. Ask them to avoid using online gaming and video conferencing for the duration of your live stream video event.

Brainstorm ideas for a live stream video

Buying, testing, and learning how to use live stream video tools is an excellent first step. However, that is just the beginning. The next step is to develop compelling content and ideas to attract your audience. Discuss the following ideas with your team and see which one resonates with you the most.

1. Provide commentary on an event

Providing commentary on breaking news or a significant business event like Apple’s WWDC for developers is an excellent way to get started. The next step is to find an event relevant to your audience and business. For example, a company that sells branded Marvel merchandise might organize a live stream based on the release date of a Marvel movie or TV show.

Once you select your event, take some time to prepare a script or speaking notes to guide your presentation. For more insight into preparing an engaging script for a virtual event, check out the virtual events script guide.

2. Launch new products

You can also organize a live stream video session to promote a new product. Make sure you include a live chat platform in the event. With new products, customers are more likely to have questions for you. For example, your customers might ask about express shipping options and shipping times around the holidays. Ask your customer support staff to prepare answers so that they can quickly respond to questions on the live chat application.

3. Invite guests to your live stream video event

What if your company has a small audience? Offering interesting commentary or promoting new videos in a live stream video may not attract much interest. In this situation, consider inviting outside guests to your video live stream. To find potential guests for a live stream video, search for podcast guests.

To find relevant people, search Google like this: “NICHE podcast guest” or “NICHE podcast interview” (e.g. fashion podcast guest, politics podcast interview or electronics podcast guest). Once you have a list of 10 people, look them up on social media and see how many followers they have. Start by contacting people with 1000 to 10,000 followers.

How To Add A Live Chat Platform To Your Event

You probably already have a webcam, microphone and a preferred live video streaming service. There is just one more tool you need to add to create an engaging experience: a live chat platform. Reach out to Arena for a live chat platform demo.

10 Steps to create a Virtual Event

Posted on September 13, 2021 by Arena

Offering virtual events is a cost-effective way to attract customers and grow your audience. However, it is not the Spring of 2020 anymore. Poorly produced virtual events are no longer good enough. Use this 10-step checklist to improve the quality of your virtual events.

Why You Need A Checklist For Virtual Events

A checklist is a standard series of steps you use every time to increase performance and reduce mistakes. As Atul Gawande points out in his book “The Checklist Manifesto”, checklists are one of the easiest ways to reduce mistakes in surgery, flights, and other situations. By working from a checklist, you can avoid making the same mistakes in your virtual events. Use this audit checklist on each event you hold, and you will start to see engagement increase on your live chat, live blog, and videos.

Pre-Event Planning

1. What Is The Goal Of Your Virtual Event?

Start by writing out a short answer to the question: “What is the goal of this virtual event?

Common goals for virtual events include:

Increased engagement. Increasing engagement may lead to higher conversions or advertising revenue.
Grow your audience. Set a specific goal, such as adding 500 or 5000 people to your email list of social media following.

2. What Does Your Audience Want?

Knowing your goal is a good starting point, but it is only half of the equation. You also need to spend a few minutes covering the needs of your audience. Discuss the following questions with your virtual events team to get ready.

What questions do we get from customers? Look at your support email, live chat records, and social media to see what questions people ask you.
What successful live events have competitors offered? You can take inspiration from the virtual events offered by other companies. For example, an eCommerce company might look at the events offered by Amazon Live to inform their approach to live events.

3. What Technology Will You Use?

There are several choices to make in selecting technology for virtual events.

Webcam and microphone. Buy and test the best webcam and microphone you can afford and buy a backup just in case technical problems occur.
Lights. Buying a ring light may be helpful if you are planning to appear in the video.
Live Chat. Using Arena Live Chat is an excellent choice because it automatically can block profanity and can be installed in a few minutes.
Live Blog. If you have a team of reporters and experts who are ready to share their insights, use Arena Live Blog.

4. Promote The Virtual Event

Make a plan to promote your virtual event several days before the event. For example, you might ask your three special guests to post that they will be joining your event on social media.

Make sure you complete one or more of the following promotion events to maximize attendance and engagement at your live event.

Email Promotion. Send an email to your email list announcing the event.
Social Media Promotion. Choose the social media platform where your brand has the largest following and post about your event.
Website Promotion. If your website has a large amount of traffic, promoting the event can drive attendance. Consider posting an announcement banner at the top of your home page.

The Day Before The Event

In less than 24 hours, you will be running your live event. This is your opportunity to practice and gain confidence with your tools and content.

5. Test Your Virtual Events Technology

Taking 30 minutes to test your virtual events technology is an intelligent decision. For example, schedule a live blog or live chat session with a few colleagues. Start by asking everybody to make posts. Once that is done, experiment with advanced features like using polls and using a custom avatar.

6. Practice Your Virtual Event Content

Practicing your presentation is an easy way to become more confident. The exact details of your practice will vary depending on the format of your event.

Practice Speaking. Take a few minutes to practice your presentation if you are giving a talk at a virtual event. In general, a comfortable speaking speed is 100 words per minute. Keep that guideline in mind as you develop your presentation.
Make Notes. Some virtual events cannot be fully scripted in advance, such as journalists covering an election. In that case, you can prepare differently. Make a list of experts you plan to interview for your live blog, or have specific questions to ask your audience.

Tip: Keep asking yourself if your content encourages engagement. This means asking questions of your audience and taking the time to respond to them.

Day of Event

7. Double-check your settings

Remind everybody participating on your virtual events team to review their settings. In particular, check the following settings 30 minutes before the event.

Audio. Check your audio settings to make sure you are ready to speak.
Video. Check that your webcam is connected and ready.
Close all other apps. When you’re distracted, audience engagement will suffer. That’s why we suggest closing all other apps and web browsers that are not needed.

8. Start the virtual event early

Let’s say your virtual events team has scheduled the event to run from 7 pm to 9 pm. In that case, launch your live chat or live blog by 6:45 pm. This will give you time to post a few messages before the audience appears. If your audience sees a blank page or an empty chat room, your audience engagement may be slow to build.

Post Event

9. Collect feedback

Within 24 hours of running the event, collect feedback from your audience. Start by collecting numbers, like how many people attended the event or how many people posted messages in the live chat. If possible, search on social media for a few minutes to see what people posted about your events.

10. Complete your virtual event Debrief

Your final step is to have a short debriefing meeting with your virtual events team. Like any post-project effort, the focus is on improvement. To start the discussion, ask your team what went well (e.g., the audience loved asking questions to the fashion influencer in our live chat). Next, make a list of what didn’t go well (e.g., attendance was below expectations)

Get Your Free Live Event Guide

For more tips on organizing a successful live event, download a copy of our “Virtual Event Power Script” ebook.

How To Make Powerful Live Shopping eCommerce

Posted on September 3, 2021 by Arena

How to Make Powerful Live Ecommerce has become the first obsession among today’s top online retailers.

If live sales is a trend that will remain in the future, it is too early to say.

However, this is definitely the hot spot today when it comes to online sales.

It’s not hard to guess why.

Combining the convenience of traditional ecommerce with the dynamics of video streaming, Live Ecommerce has brought all the casual characteristics of stores and physical markets to the homes of consumers.

And the result could not be anything other than a resounding success.

In China, for example, where the format was first launched, the main presenter-sellers have already been elevated to the status of superstars.

In other places, large brands such as Amazon, for example, draw on the influence of celebrities such as Carla Stevenné, Gabrielle Union and Jessica Alba, among others, in their live sales. Shoply relied on an integration with Arena’s API to create a brand new revenue stream from Live Shopping: Shoply.tv.

After all, anything goes to win over the consumer.

But anyone who thinks that the phenomenon is restricted to the major players in internet retail is mistaken.

7 Steps To Make Powerful Live Ecommerce

With the popularization of video streaming, added to the dissemination of audience engagement tools, it is now perfectly possible for any ecommerce to promote a Live Ecommerce.

With this in mind, Arena prepared an infographic with the seven fundamental steps to be taken so that you know how to make a Live Ecommerce. And for your experience in the format to be synonymous with efficiency.

That is, boosting sales.

Check out this awesome infographic Arena has assembled to set you up fpr success.

Conclusion

Live sales literally brought new life to the ecommerce universe.

But as it happens in any new format, it is necessary to study and understand its nuances and peculiarities so as not to waste time or unnecessary efforts.

With the tips above, you can get into the mindset to structure your live streaming sales.

Good planning is at the base of every project that is intended to be successful.

And when it comes to how to make Live Ecommerce sales, remember: engaging the audience is paramount.

All You Need to Know About Content Moderation

Posted on March 1, 2021 by Arena

If you are about to, or now managing an online business platform, you might have known already or have been researching about the world of content moderation. Also, you must have heard this popular opinion – the online platform kind of business is not that easy.

Well, yes sure! It is not, but if you have the right strategy to operate it, alongside ways to overcome possible problems related to it, as well as the knowledge of some other factors that should be avoided and considered in order to get that fast and efficient result, then you are good to go. But if you don’t have any, don’t worry! We got you covered!

What is content moderation?

There are millions of content online, but not all of them are effective nor meet readers’ expectations. This is where content moderation comes into place. In simple words, content moderation is the process of screening, approving, or removing user-generated content based on some guidelines in order to establish clients’ trust, and maintain compliance with regulatory requirements.

There are lots of reasons why content moderation is important. First, it screens content that is submitted by a certain user to know if the posting guidelines are being violated. Second, it is an effective way for a business to keep a positive reputation which guarantees a decent relationship with clients, thus advances higher accommodation and satisfaction among users and clients.

What is human moderation?

Human moderation or manual moderation is another type of moderating content, however, the one behind it of course – human. Human moderators manually monitor and review clients’ or users’ posts on a particular online platform.

Moreover, human moderators also ensure the protection of all users or clients from scammers, anomalies, or any type of harassment that occurs in social media. They are also responsible for maintaining the quality and standards of a particular social media platform.

What is automated moderation?

Automated moderation is an automatic process of moderation that automatically determines any-user generated content. In this kind of moderation, contents that are being rejected or published are done based on the pre-defined guidelines by a highly intelligent computer bot that closely monitors the system 24/7.

Automated moderation resolves any physical or psychological stress from human moderators as it can minimize the response time, improve the quality of service, save time, and increase cost quality outcomes.

How important is content moderation in enhancing customer experience?

Utilizing social media platforms is an effective way to connect with customers regarding a particular business you have to offer. With social media, you can create customer service and build strong customer relationships without having to meet them in person.

In line with this, effective and efficient content moderation can help you know your customers better, engage with them in real-time, establish customer loyalty with your brand, and achieve user retention as it offers good credibility of the event.

Nowadays, every brand is always active on almost every social media platform. In line with this, content moderation is of great help in monitoring social media accounts, comments, images, and videos, as well as categorizing and indexing business offerings.

Content moderation can also help you with online reputation management. Your online reputation is very important for the success of your business. As you might have known, whatever people post or publish online regarding your business, true or not, all have a significant influence on your business reputation.

And, content moderation can help you fight against harmful content, address clients’ criticisms, and most importantly, feature important and helpful feedback from customers.

Content Moderation in Building Relationships with Customers

As have mentioned above, content moderation can help you build strong connections with your clients or customers. You can use content moderation to make your customers feel satisfied with your services offered by personalizing your responses, as well as keeping them in the loop with any timely news like product updates. With this, the strong relationships you have with them can help you achieve repeat and referral business.

What are the things you should keep in mind when moderating content?

There is a wide range of factors to consider with content moderation. This is very important in order for you to achieve the content that best suits your business. These factors also depend on what platform or site you are using. However, regardless of what site, platform, or business you are having, these are the top 7 things you should keep in mind, or better – do!

Select the best content for your business

There is no one else in the world who knows your business better than you. You know best what your products and services are as well as your users or customers. So, you can use these to help you create the most outstanding content out there that best meets their expectations.

Choose the best content moderation to utilize for your content.

With the best content you have, choose the best content moderation method to utilize. Aim to stand out amongst others. You can do this by using the best content moderation method that is not only suitable for your content and business but also fit your platform’s specific needs.

Always make your content personalized to your customers’ needs.

When your customers feel special, they usually go back to you over and over again. With this, it will drive your repeat and referral business, which often results in more positive business outcomes. That is why, when creating content, make it as personalized as possible, moderate it according to the needs of your customers as this often results in increasing engagement which will lead to more loyalty and conversion rates.

Moderate all your content consistently

Whether you are running your online business via Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms or sites, it is very important for you to make appealing and pleasant content that will surely attract new customers or retain your existing customers. This can be done by moderating your content in a consistent manner. This means that you have to be very meticulous in choosing the right format, images, videos, and other visual factors that will be incorporated into your content.

Establish concise rules and regulations

Establishing concise rules and regulations is one of the most important things to do when moderating content. Therefore, these rules and regulations should be clear for all who are involved in moderating your content, be it from the data analyst to the human or automated moderators.

Utilize all your resources

Every content moderation tool and equipment matters, right? This is why you need to utilize them in the best possible manner. Sometimes, you might see yourself overwhelmed with the available resources in the market, some are paid, some are free.

In this case, it’s very important for you to consider these resources carefully, prioritize the ones that offer innovation and growth as these often boost success to your online platform business.

Quality over quality

Sometimes you have a lot of ideas, and you want all of these to be utilized. This often happens to almost everybody, but always remember that quality is more important than quantity. Quality content builds your customers’ trust, resulting in acquiring more revenue and success for your online business platform.

Customer Interaction

Your interactions with your customers are vital to your business success. Customer experience can make or break your business. That is why you as the business owner have to make these interactions as smooth and flawless and possible.

There are various ways for you to engage with your customers, you can do this through Live Chats, Live Blogs, posts, tweets, comments, etc. Regardless, when interacting with them, you should be timely when responding to their inquiries, make it personalized, maintain positive emotions when commenting, reposting, and retweeting, and most importantly, always include available links for FAQs in your content.

Conclusion

Nowadays, the online platform business is very competitive. Therefore, you should moderate your content for you to stand out amongst the others. Always think ahead, know the strengths and weaknesses of your business, and engage with your customers frequently in order for you to be able to know them well, alongside their weak points and needs. Try also to utilize the tips mentioned above.

Additionally, you can also utilize Arena when engaging with your customers through Live Chat, Live Blog, and other Customer Engagement ideas. Arena is easy to integrate, perfect for conversations, community chat, as well as ratings and reviews.

Are you ready to drive more revenue to your business?

Now, try the Arena for free!