The Ultimate Guide to Expert Event Content Curation

Does your digital marketing strategy involve hosting physical or virtual events? Or even if you don’t organize them, do you attend many of these events?

Then you should try curating event content as part of your content strategy. It can be a great way to continue benefiting from the event in the long term.

From event videos and expert interviews to testimonials and presentations, a successful event can be a treasure trove of valuable content for your company blogs, newsletters, and social media accounts.

But where do you begin?

Read on to learn five ways to ensure effective event content curation and keep your digital content calendar full.

What Is Event Content Curation?

Content curation is often confused with content creation—but the two are different.

Event content curation is the process of sifting through, selecting, and presenting already-existing event content–whether created by you or other people—that matches a specific theme or objective. The curated content can be shared across various social media marketing channels, be used in email newsletters, posted on a website, and others.

For instance, an event content curator might select specific snippets of presentations by event speakers then post them on social media. 

Here is an example of this type of event content curation. Salesforce shares three takeaways from speaker sessions during the Dreamforce event held in 2023:

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On the other hand, a content creator will craft fresh content from scratch. In this case, that fresh content or original content would be the Dreamforce 2023 event. It was crafted based on original research from a variety of sources. In other words, Salesforce, which organized the event, is an event content creator just as it is an event content curator.

Does this mean an event content curator should always assume a passive role? All they’d need to do is record the event as it happens then sift through that material to come up with repurposed content, right? Well, not exactly.

An event content curator can also instigate the content creation process. For instance, they can go out of their way to interview participants and seek feedback on the sidelines of an event. Or they can invite speakers right after an event to elaborate on specific topics previously discussed there for their target audience. But because this content they ultimately create would not have existed without the original content–the event–their tactics are still considered part of an event content curation strategy.   

5 Tips for Effective Event Content Curation

So, how do you perform event content curation? Follow these tips for the best results:

1. Make the most of every minute of sessions

Every session can be a source of valuable content in event content curation. So, you want to record all these details from start to finish. The more you record, the more content formats you can derive from the original event material.

Here are some of those content formats you can leverage in your digital content curation strategy:

• Bite-sized social media video clips: You can repurpose the video content you recorded during the event into shorter, bite-sized clips suitable for sharing across various social channels. Short-form videos can play for less than 60 seconds to up to five minutes.  

Here is an example. 

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Hubspot derived video snippets like the one above from its main Inbound event footage to emphasize interesting quotes by speakers:

• Infographics: You can zero in on event presentations to create infographics you can publish on your social accounts and/or website. Highlight some speaker quotes or key takeaways per session, for instance.

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Gartner, for example, created an infographic highlighting a key statistic mentioned in its webinar on how to avoid burnout. It posted the infographic on its LinkedIn account.

• Blog posts: Why not transcribe some of the sessions and create blog posts out of them? Shopify, for instance, created a roundup of all the announcements it made during its Shopify Unite summit in 2021. The blog post was posted on its website:

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Here’s another example. Sagefrog attended the Inbound event in 2023. When curating event content, it came up with this blog post detailing its key takeaways from the Hubspot event:

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The good news is, when curating event content this way, you can save even more time with AI templates. After all, with the tool, you won’t have to sift through your entire transcript to determine what can be repurposed into blog posts. Just upload a transcript of the session to a summary generator template then specify the number of bullet points you want. 

The tool will automatically create as many session takeaways as the number of bullet points you specified. 

2. Make exclusive content 

Why not go out of your way to create exclusive content during the event? For instance, if you find a high-profile attendee, go ahead and interview them on the sidelines. The thoughts of an attendee who’s also a famous marketer on marketing trends can also make for an excellent blog post or infographic. 

If you’re attending a company trade fair, interviewing exhibitors can help you in your event content curation. You could write about their own success stories or the products they plan to launch based on those event interviews, for example. You could also check out the event behind-the-scenes. Maybe you can record how some of the speakers prepare backstage before their presentations? Then post the short behind-the-scenes clips on your site or social media.

Here’s the good thing about going out of your way to create exclusive content as part of your event content curation strategy: you can ensure your final curated content will stand out. While others were focusing on recording the event’s main sessions, you were out there coming up with your own topics that weren’t covered by speakers.

3. Develop deep connections with speakers

Establishing strong relationships with event speakers should be part of your event content curation strategy.

After all, you could use their help when curating content even way after the successful event. 

For instance, you could invite them to appear as guests on your podcast to elaborate on a topic they discussed during the event. 

For that same purpose, you can ask them to contribute guest posts to your website.

For instance, TED Talks publishes blog posts from their event speakers. The blog posts expound on the speakers’ previous presentations. 

Here’s a blog post by Seth Godin on bad ideas:

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It’s a clear offshoot of this Ted Talk on ideas he conducted before:

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But how do you develop deep connections with your speakers? Here are some useful tips for you before and after the event:

Before the event:

• Send personalized outreach: If you’re organizing your own event, when contacting potential keynote speakers, personalize your communication. Reference specific reasons why you believe they would be a valuable addition to your event, citing relevant accomplishments or contributions to the field.
• Open communication channels: Establish open lines of communication with speakers through email, phone calls, or video conferences. Ensure they feel comfortable sharing their ideas, concerns, and preferences regarding their participation.
• Collaborative planning: Involve speakers in the content development process to ensure alignment with audience needs and event objectives. Collaborate on session topics, formats, and key talking points to create content that resonates with attendees and delivers actionable insights.

Post-event:

• Express gratitude: After your successful event, express gratitude to the speakers for their contributions. Send them a personalized thank you email instead of a generic one. This way, they’ll conclude you really value their contributions. After all, you did take the time to write your letter.

If you didn’t organize the event, you can still send them a message, this time, complimenting them on the valuable insights they gave during the event. You can also share your own thoughts backed by research. All this presupposes you got their contact details during the event, of course.

• Share their work: Whether you organized the event or were just a mere attendee, share the work of event speakers on social media. The more you make yourself visible, the higher the chances they’ll oblige if you ask them to write about event-related topics for you or be your program guest.

You should know that good relationships are never one-sided. So, if event speakers ask you for a favor, oblige (for as long as it’s feasible and not unethical, of course). You want to show them they can expect the same help from you.

4. Leverage social conversations among delegates

If you organized the event, you can leverage the social conversations among delegates when curating event content.

There are benefits to this strategy. Apart from the fact that you can fill your content calendar with interesting material, you can also promote your event to other potential attendees.

You can set up Google Alerts to monitor the web for any of these conversations. Then just share the relevant posts on your social platforms.

Another option is to create a unique hashtag related to your event. This will allow you to easily keep track of conversations.

For example, WindEurope created the #WindEurope2019 hashtag on X (Twitter) for its 2019 Conference & Exhibition:

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Just make sure your event hashtags are simple and memorable. You want them to be event-specific as well. Make them short, too. If your event name is too long, consider abbreviations. 

5. Conduct feedback session

Here’s another tip you can follow if you’re the event organizer. Why not conduct a feedback session as part of your event? You can repurpose that feedback from speakers and attendees into social media posts, blog posts, infographics, and more. 

With this tactic, you can also create social proof for your event and upcoming ones. If potential attendees see your event participants had a great time, they’ll likely attend the next time around. If potential speakers find respected industry figures found the sessions interesting, they’ll likely want to speak at your next event as well.

Conducting a feedback session is pretty straightforward. You can send out surveys per individual session to ask whether what the content participants heard was meaningful. Send speakers similar surveys at the end of each session. You can ask them about the speaker event experiences and what can be improved.

As a bonus tip, implement the valid feedback the next time around, of course. Coupled with a good event ticketing platform, you can ensure an increase in event attendees for the enhanced attendee experience. More industry figures will want to share their insights, too, if you show you take extra good care of your speakers.     

Become a pro event content curator

Curating event content is a good tactic to boost your digital marketing strategy. The good news is, it doesn’t have to be difficult.

Whether you’re the event organizer or a mere attendee, just make the most of every minute of the event. Go out of your way to create exclusive content as well. Don’t forget to develop deep connections with speakers who can help you when curating event content afterward. 

If you’re the event organizer, leverage social conversations as part of your event content curation strategy. Conduct a feedback session as well. The insights you derive from this can make for excellent content. 

Now that you know the secrets to becoming a pro event content curator, go ahead and become one! With Scoop.it, event content curation has become as easy as ever.