Case Study: Fishburners
Leading tech incubator uses video messages for audience engagement during live and virtual events
110 videos
collected in 2 minutes
30 % increase
in social traffic and likes
80% engagement
of audience
OVERVIEW
Client: Fishburners
Project: Audience engagement videos at their pitch events
Type: Community engagement
Summary: Co-working space Fishburners collected motivational messages from its community members to support one another during a COVID lockdown.
ABOUT FISHBURNERS
A community-based technology incubator and co-working space
With campuses in Sydney, Australia and Hangzhou, China, Fishburners is a world-class not-for-profit startup hub. Its mission is to create successful startups and small businesses through inspiration, education, support and connections. It is behind many global startup success stories including Koala, Dgraph and V2 Food. Fishburners also supports the largest community of startups in Australia through regular pitch nights, education seminars and mentoring sessions.
“Audience engagement is always hard to replicate for virtual events. So we love the way Vloggi allows audience questions and video messages that can be incorporated into the live event. During a recent hybrid pitch night we were really excited to see hundreds of video clips uploaded not only by those in the room, but also from those watching at home. We were even more blown away to see the final compilation video on stage within minutes ”
Hannah Johnston
Marketing Manager, Fishburners
The challenge
The Fishburners Friday night pitches and drinks is the must-attend for all those in the Sydney technology community. Up to 700 members and visitors attend each week in a custom-built event space within the Sydney Startup Hub.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Fishburners had to move its events partially or wholly online. Fishburners needed tools to take their community and audience engagement online – and fast. The incubator also needed a way to run hybrid events that featured both live and remote participants.
The solution
Fishburners now deploys Vloggi across a number of its hybrid and virtual events. The video clips provide an invaluable way for founders, staff, alumni and investors to interact with each other in parallel to the live stream.
Fishburners uses the platform to collect video submissions from attendees across a few events. The famous pitch nights now feature 30-second elevator pitches filmed at home; the team runs regular morale-boosting video contests; and new companies joining the hub submit video résumés to enhance their profile.
However the most impressive use of the technology was during the Investor Ready pitch night of June 2021, when over 250 attendees simultaneously uploaded a clip of themselves waving. The resulting compilation, featuring the attendees’ name was displayed back on stage within minutes. Over 50% of the audience, both in-person and watching at home, participated.
However the most impressive use of the technology was during the Investor Ready pitch night of June 2021, when over 250 attendees simultaneously uploaded a clip of themselves waving. The resulting compilation, featuring the attendees’ name was displayed back on stage within minutes. Over 50% of the audience, both in-person and watching at home, participated.
The result
Fishburners video compilations that it posts on social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook now outperform written posts. A recent At Home with the Fishburners video compilation, focusing on the mental health issues surrounding isolation and working-from-home had over 1,500 views, 50 likes and 10 comments.
Previous video campaigns run by Fishburners have had similar impact.
But for the not-for-profit organisation, the benefit of Vloggi is also around cost and speed of Vloggi. “We do not have resources to deploy on video editing, let alone sourcing footage, so Vloggi gives us an easy way to collect and curate the content created by our community,” said Hannah Johnson, marketing manager at Fishburners.
“Vloggi provides us a way to maintain the crucial community engagement that Fishburners provides its members, even during times of lockdown.”
Nicole O'Brien
CEO, Fishburners
Boosting morale during lockdown amongst community members
As offices again closed in July and August 2021 in Sydney, due to Covid-19 restrictions, Fishburners compiled video messages from members to boost morale and create a sense of belonging amongst remote teams who were complying with government stay-at-home orders.
