So, you’re ready to jump into the virtual summit world. Congratulations! It’s an exciting place.
You may get a little overwhelmed at first – that’s okay. There’s a lot going on and it’s all pretty shiny. If you’re trying to figure out which virtual summit is best for you to attend, though, there are a few questions you can ask yourself!
1 | What do I need to learn right now?
This is the first question you need to ask yourself. Some virtual summits will be very focused (maybe specifically on productivity or marketing) while others will have a broad spectrum of topics (e.g. general business-related subjects). If there’s something very specific that you need to improve on, look for a summit that is zeroing in on that topic.
If you’re not quite sure what you need to learn right now, don’t worry – we’ve all been there. That’s when one of the general virtual business summits can be a great fit for you. They’ll offer you a range of subjects and may even be able to help you narrow in on what you really need to learn!
2 | Who’s speaking at this virtual summit?
The range of speakers can say a lot about a virtual summit. Now, just because you don’t recognize all the names of the speakers doesn’t mean it’s a low-quality virtual summit. They may just not be on your radar and could become your new favorite person!
That said, if every person on the panel is very new to their field and doesn’t have a great web presence, it may not be the best virtual summit for you to attend. Yes, they could have great resources to share, but it’s also likely that they’re just trying to get their name out there.
If you can find virtual summits with at least a few well-known names in their fields, that’s a much safer bet.
And if you have a little time, scope out the speaker’s websites and social media channels! Scroll through, see if you vibe or connect with any of them.
3 | Do you know anyone who’s attended a virtual summit by the host?
This can be just as important as the speaker list.
If the host has been a virtual summit speaker or has hosted another virtual summit in the past, chances are they know the drill. Virtual summits are very time consuming to host, require a lot of coordination, and can be challenging on the tech side.
If the virtual summit is being hosted by someone who’s never been put through that circus, they may not know what they’re in for and it could make the virtual summit prone to hiccups.
Because they’re so technology-reliant, virtual summits do always have the risk of tech hiccups, so don’t write them off just because of that possibility. I have seen virtual summits fall apart because a host doesn’t understand the importance of ensuring the reliability of hosts and things like that, though, so that’s where having an experience virtual summit host can be important!
4 | Do you have time to attend?
Okay, honestly, this is more to do with whether you should attend ANY virtual summits at the moment.
At Virtual Summit Search, we’ve seen a trend of virtual summits kind of disappearing during the summer. After all, that’s when kids are out of school, vacations are happening, everyone wants to enjoy the nice weather, and who’s going to sit inside watching a virtual summit? Not many people, that’s for sure!
Whether it’s summertime or not, you should take a critical look at your calendar before you commit to attending a virtual summit. If you have a big promotion coming up, a vacation, medical procedure, whatever… you may want to think twice about it. Virtual summits are great, but if you don’t have time and energy to absorb the information and put it to work, it could be a waste of your time or you could get super overwhelmed.
5 | If you can’t attend live, is the information valuable enough to watch the replay?
So, we just talked about how you need to have the time and energy to absorb the information from a virtual summit, right? If you can’t attend live, it can be harder to find the motivation to schedule the time to watch a replay.
We’ve all downloaded email opt-in incentives with the intention to go back and follow through…and then it’s sat in our computer files for a year and never been touched.
Virtual summits can be the same way.
That’s part of why virtual summits release sessions at certain times and only make them available for a limited time (unless you buy the lifetime access pass). Most of the time, we need an incentive to follow through on something, even if it’s going to be valuable to us. A time limit will do that for you!
If you totally can make it a point to follow through, then investing in a lifetime access pass for that specific summit might be worth it. I ended up buying a lifetime access pass to the Social Ads School virtual summit because I knew there was information I would need now, but there was also information that my skills and needs would grow into, so to speak. That’s the time that buying a lifetime pass is worth it.
If you’re planning to attend a virtual summit for some very specific information that you need to implement RIGHT NOW, giving yourself that ticking clock of “it’s going to be gone in 24 hours – I have to watch it ASAP” can actually be helpful.
So make sure to ask yourself if you’ll take that time to watch the replay if you can’t attend live… and if you’ll take the time to implement what you learned!
Conclusion:
Whenever you’re trying to figure out if a virtual summit is best for you and your needs, start by asking what you need to learn and keep going down the list. If the virtual summit fits into all five questions we went over above, it’s probably a good investment for you!
If it doesn’t mesh with all of those questions, then you may want to be a bit more picky about attending it.
Have your own tips or questions you ask yourself to figure out if a virtual summit is best for you? Let us know in the comments!
