Vito

Send timely updates

Vito's Announcement feature allows you to share a post directly to participants' email inboxes. Though it's best used sparingly, it's a super useful tool for sending reminders on or before the day of the event.

Post to the discussion feed

As we suggested in an earlier chapter, you can post messages to the hub well in advance of the event itself. Hopefully you've already been sharing updates about new speakers and what's going on behind the scenes to build anticipation. But now, you might want to switch your focus to providing more time-sensitive information, for instance when folks should join the hub.

Image description: Screenshot of an announcement post in the hub.

Start the stream with a countdown

If you can, begin the livestream at least half an hour before sessions are scheduled to start so that you can display a countdown timer on screen. Not only does this help build anticipation, but it reassures participants that they’ve arrived in the hub at the right time. You could show some bonus content or play music during this period or keep it simple with a branded slide, perhaps featuring your sponsors’ logos.

Answer folks’ questions

You may not personally have time to do this if you’re busy wrangling speakers and the like, but if you’re working as a team it might be a good idea to assign someone to this role (we’ll talk more about moderation in an upcoming chapter). You could set up a dedicated discussion feed for questions to make it easier to monitor or, if you’re the prepared type, you could create an FAQs page ahead of time with answers to common questions such as:

We’ve designed Vito to be intuitive to navigate, but some organizers like to also add specific way-finding tips for participants, such as where to manage profile settings or how to refresh the browser in the rare event that the stream freezes.

Keeping on top of comms helps your audience feel in-the-know so they can relax and focus on getting excited about the presentations.