Why do people go to events and conferences? Aside from the chance to discover something new, network, see notable speakers, or just get out of the office for the day, many tend to go for the experience itself. Here at ImageThink, we’re in the business of enriching that experience.
From live, on-site graphic recording to remote conference support, ImageThink partners with clients to create successful, memorable event experiences. But as we, event marketers, and business leaders know, the promotion of the event is over half the battle in deeming an event successful. That’s why we not only work to captivate audiences live and in-person, but also create visual assets to aid event promotion and engagement online. Read on to learn more about a client-loved, and valuable visual asset – visual bios.
What’s a visual bio?
A visual bio offers an experience not unlike looking at a snapshot of an individual in augmented reality. Through a fully illustrated, or semi-illustrated lens, ImageThink visual bios create personal headshots to highlight speakers and individuals. Visual bios anchor this image with notable attributes, traits, and areas of expertise. Essentially, visual bios show who a person is, or what they will be talking about, at a glance. Most importantly, they make it FUN, for attendees and speakers alike.
ImageThink visual bios can be entirely illustrated or can include a combination of photographic and illustrative elements to communicate to the viewer. Used to commemorate, or celebrate individuals within organizations, visual bios have more recently become a way for businesses to promote event speakers, familiarize their audience with graphic recording, and build anticipation for an event or conference. Perhaps this is because visual bios allow for cohesive visual assets by emulating event themes and company branding, but we’ll let you be the judge of it.
Leveraging Your Speaker List to Promote Your Event
An insightful blog by Gleanin confirms what we all know: that event speakers are a source of influence and reach, especially to a niched audience of potential attendees. Too often, though, this innate value is vastly underutilized. Your set list of speakers is a source of power you can leverage to ensure the success of your event. Good news for you – ImageThink visual bios shine a spotlight on your speakers and provide these important individuals – and ImageThink – with the tools they need to become active agents in the promotion of your event.
The experience of receiving something that is custom and made for you is undeniably a luxury. It feels special, heartwarming. Visual bios take portraits up a notch by offering not just a custom gift, but a portrait of your interior and exterior value. With a beautiful, bespoke, and explanatory visual asset like this, your speakers will want to share their participation in your event, even long after it has happened. Think marketing collateral, everlasting.
Building Event Anticipation Through Fully Illustrated Visual Bios
Wild for Planners is a collective of planner enthusiasts and creatives. Each year, Wild for Planners hosts their GO Wild Conference, bringing their community together to network, make memories, and listen in on inspiring speaker sessions. For this year’s GO Wild, they wanted to go bigger – so they enlisted the help of ImageThink to capture talks live at the Washington venue and announce their impressive list of speakers in a massive social media campaign.
ImageThink created over 25 fully illustrated speaker spotlight timelapses and stills, and visualized snapshots of activities to happen throughout the three-day-long conference. Branded with their unique pastel color palette, and packed with a glimpse of what conference sessions would include, Wild for Planners was now equipped with a deck of visual assets to promote and build excitement for their annual event. In a coordinated effort with ImageThink and GO Wild Conference speakers, Wild for Planners used Instagram to promote the time-lapsed visual bio of each event speaker and event activity.
The social media announcements were a smash hit, accruing thousands of likes, comments, and social interactions across the board. Members of their community excited about new and returning speakers and their ideas, and impressed by the innovative speaker reveals. With the launch of the speaker list online, the conversation about the GO Wild Conference grew with increased excitement and ticket sales. And, just about a month away from the conference itself, the impact continues to grow.
Today’s conference crowds desire visually enriching, exciting experiences. With ImageThink visual bios, you’ll not only deepen speaker partnerships, but you’ll also build anticipation and excitement. To take your event to new heights, contact us today so we can start illustrating your speaker list.
