MITRE's creative tactics engage conference audience during livestream gaps

Livestreaming a conference has become fairly routine. Keeping the online audience engaged over multiple days, however, remains a challenge. As the communicators at MITRE learned in 2018, it’s easy to get people to tune in for opening keynotes and other early activities, but the number of viewers dwindles quickly after the first few hours. How MITRE addressed this challenge—and elevated other elements of its livestream—has led to a first-place finish in the “Live Video” category of PR Daily’s Video & Visual Awards.

MITRE learned that during the breaks between sessions, people abandoned the livestream; after all, there’s nothing to watch. To keep people engaged during the breaks, the team introduced “LIVE from the ATT&CKcon couch.” This series of interviews with speakers delivered information and entertainment while conference-goers attending the event in real life took their breaks.

Other tactics included the introduction of “watch party” registrations (watch party toolkits featuring stickers, posters and giveaways were distributed before the conference) and person-to-person interaction via Twitter based on the use of the #Attackcon hashtag. Top tweets were read during the conference, giving the online audience a voice in the room. At the end of the conference, the best tweets were announced, and awards were mailed to online winners.

The tactics paid off with an increase in livestream registrations of 225%, including 98 registered watch parties. The team also delivered a 119% increase in livestream views and a 206% increase in the amount of time spent viewing the livestream.

Congratulations to Nancy Steelberg, Ed Foster, Debbie Mangis, Jamie Williams, Katie Nickels, Nils Granholm, Kelsey Jones Art, Aaron Tuttle and Jennifer Lang.