You have decided to use the virtual event feature with pr.co. Fantastic. We are here to help.
Organizing an event takes time and preparation. Sometimes it even brings a bit of stress. We know it can be challenging; we have been through it ourselves. That’s why we have spent a lot of time and attention on designing and building an easy and stress-free experience to create and host events with pr.co.
This guide will walk you through what a virtual event is, how it works in your newsroom, and how to create one from start to finish.
Read on, or jump right in:
What is a virtual event, and how does it work?
A virtual event is an online video livestream that people watch inside your newsroom. Instead of watching the video on YouTube or Vimeo, people watch it on your branded newsroom. We embed the video on a special event page with all the press information and event details.
A virtual event can be any type of online (press) event: a conference, a product launch, a live event, a webinar, an interview or AMA, a meeting, you name it.
You can decide to pre-record your event for a picture-perfect experience or stream it live. If you want, you can invite viewers to participate through chat, start polls or Q&A sessions.
What type of event you want to organize and how you want viewers to engage is all up to you. We ensure your YouTube or Vimeo livestream video is embedded correctly inside your newsroom, and your viewers have a great experience without any technical hiccups.
Virtual events in your newsroom
Like we said above, virtual events have their own event page in your newsroom. This page has two states it can be in depending on whether the event is live or not. [image of events page]
Announcement state
When you have published your event, the event page is in the “Announcement” state. Visitors get an impression of your event, can see when it starts, read what it’s all about, and add the event to their calendars.
Watch state
The moment your video stream is started on YouTube or Vimeo, the video is the center stage of the page and instantly starts to play. Viewers can engage through the chat and other features you have enabled.
Promotion in the newsroom
A day before the start of your event, a full-width banner on every newsroom page appears. The banner persuades visitors to join the event. When the event is live, a “Live now” badge is shown next to it.
Create a new virtual event: all the steps explained
We have dedicated a lot of attention to making the virtual event creation process easy. It might seem like you need to fill in a lot of details, but actually, it is very straightforward.
To create a new event:
Navigate to Events from the sidebar
Click + Create new event in the top bar
In the modal that opens, click + Create virtual event
You have now entered the Event editor. At the top, you see there are four steps to go through:
General event settings
Video settings
Publish date
Publish/Schedule your event
And on the right side, you see a preview of your event. This preview will get more detailed over time the more details you fill in. Want to preview what your event looks like in your newsroom? Click to preview the announcement and watch pages.
Step 1: General event settings
These are your general settings. Make sure to fill in all the fields.
Event title: Choose a catchy event name.
Event link: This link is automatically created from your event title. You can, however, change the URL slug if required.
Description: Add a summary to inform your viewers about what they can expect from your event. The description is used on your event page and when it is shared on social media.
Start date: This is an important field to fill in correctly. You need to ensure the start date and time are identical to what you have selected on YouTube or Vimeo(!). If the start date differs from what you have chosen there, we cannot guarantee the event in pr.co goes live on time.
Estimate end date: Pick the time you expect the event to end. Our system will only mark the event as ended once the linked video source stops streaming.
Featured image: The featured image is used as a background image on your event page and as the social media share image. Upload an image with the dimensions of 1200x800 pixels for best quality.
Spokesperson: Select the spokesperson to put forward as the primary contact for the virtual event by selecting them from the dropdown list. If you don’t see any spokesperson, you need to add one first.
Language: Select the language your event is in.
Have everything filled in? Save & Continue to step 2.
Step 2: Video settings
Select video streaming platform
There are two video streaming platforms to choose from: YouTube and Vimeo. Don’t know which one to use? Read Which video streaming platform should I use for my virtual event? before you continue.
Link video source
After you have selected your streaming platform, all you need to do is link the video source.
Paste the video link in the Link video source field, and you will get a green confirmation check when it’s linked, and the video appears above. That’s it; your source video is now embedded on the Watch page. You can preview the Watch page to check if it works.
Live chat
Want to allow event participants to engage through live chat? Make sure to enable it here and on your streaming platform(!).
Linked your video? Save & Continue to step 3.
Step 3: Publish date
Choose whether to Publish now or schedule for later. The only thing to watch out for when you schedule your event is to ensure the publish date is before your start date.
Decided when to publish? Save & Continue to step 4.
Step 4: Publish/Schedule your event
Like in the Campaign editor, go through the checklist to ensure you have everything filled in and set up correctly.
The event timeline shows you a visual representation of which activities will happen in the future.
Once you are ready, either click Publish or Schedule to complete the event creation process.
Congratulations! You have created your virtual event. All you need to do now is share the event link with journalists, stakeholders and other people to get them to join your virtual event.
A virtual event starts and ends streaming automatically, read more about how that works in detail below.
Starting and ending the livestream
Starting and ending is handled by your streaming platform
You don't need to manually start or end your event in pr.co. Starting and stopping your livestream video is done on the streaming platform (YouTube or Vimeo) you chose to use. The moment you stop the livestream, we “hear” this from the streaming platform and will mark your video as ended. As long as the source video is linked successfully and the start dates are identical in the platform and pr.co, your livestream video will start and end smoothly.
Event states
These are the states your event goes through:
Draft: any event that is in draft and isn’t scheduled or published
Scheduled: any event that is scheduled for publication.
Published: any event that is published in your newsroom (and publicly available).
Archived: any event that has been archived. Archived events are not shown in your newsroom.
Waiting to go live: a virtual event that is published and will go live in the future
Live now: a virtual event that is live streaming right now.
Ended: a virtual event that was live but has ended.
Questions? Send us an 📩 at hello@pr.co