With the COVID-19 lockdowns forcing more events to be canceled, many event organizers are opting for digital functions instead, where you can replicate much of the same information sharing - though, of course, without the benefit of in-person connection.

Catering to this, LinkedIn made its Events option available for all company pages early last month. And now, LinkedIn's looking to add more capacity for hosting professional events, by adding LinkedIn Live into the events stream, which will enable the full broadcast of your virtual functions direct on the platform. 

As explained by LinkedIn:

"We've accelerated our product roadmap to bring you a tighter integration between LinkedIn Events and LinkedIn Live, turning these two products into a new virtual events solution that enables you to stay connected to your communities and meet your customers wherever they are. This new offering is designed to help you strengthen relationships with more targeted audiences."

Functionally, the new offering does add anything new - you broadcast your event in LinkedIn Live, and you host the event info on a normal event page. But now, you can limit the broadcast of your LinkedIn Live video to only those who have chosen to attend (or your company page followers), while the related event discussion and any additional content will all also be hosted on the one, dedicated page.

That, in the case of live-streaming, is particularly important - according to LinkedIn, LinkedIn Live broadcasts generate 23x more comments, and 6x more reactions per post than native video. With this new integration, all of that related discussion will be hosted on the event page, helping to create a more all-encompassing event solution. And once your event is over, the video content will be added to the 'Videos' tab on your company page, so you can keep it on hand for future reference.

For attendees, the process is simple - when you click/tap "Attend" on a virtual event, you'll be notified via LinkedIn when the stream goes live. You'll then be able to attend the event and engage with attendees - not other sign-up details or qualifiers required (event organizers will be able to access a list of attendees, along with selected LinkedIn profile information).

As noted, functionally, this is not a massive upgrade, but it does provide another way to create simple events, which are hosted on the platform where many of your business connections are already established.

And given the rising usage of the platform, and the noted engagement stats for LinkedIn Live broadcasts, it may well be worth testing out with your next function.

You can read more about LinkedIn'' virtual events here.