Planning an event from start to finish isn’t an easy to task. You must create a guest list, find a suitable venue, negotiate deals with service providers, send out invitations, distribute content to attendees, and more. Thankfully, though, there are several web-based tools that can make this process a little easier.
Google Maps
Wouldn’t it be great if you could show attendees where an upcoming event or party is being held instead of trying to explain it? Using Google Maps, you can. Just pop the Google Maps code into your company’s website. Whenever an attendee is logged into his or her Google account and visits this page, they can access turn-by-turn directions to reach the venue from their home or place of work.
To embed a Google Maps view of an event venue on your company’s website, open the Google Maps, click the main menu (looks like three horizontal lines) and select the Share or embed map option. Next, switch from the Share Link to the Embed Map tab, and copy the code to your clipboard (right-click ‘copy’). Open up your company’s website or blog and paste the code into the source code of the area where you want the Google Maps view of the venue displayed. Now save the changes and preview the page to make sure it works.
Google Docs
Notice a pattern here? The search engine giant’s cloud-based word processor Google Docs is another powerful web-based tool that professional event planners shouldn’t overlook. It features many of the same formatting options as Microsoft Word and Apple Pages, but with one distinguishable difference: all documents are saved to the cloud, meaning event planners can collaborate on documents with other organizers, vendors, and corporate executives. For instance, event planners can create a guest list using Google Docs, allowing other organizers to add names to the list as well. Because the guest list is stored on the cloud, you can grant other users permission to access and edit the list.
Of course, this is just one of the many ways in which Google Docs can be used to plan an event. You can also use it to collaborate on itineraries, share journals, obtain feedback, and more.
Slideshare
Founded in 2006 and later acquired by the social media network LinkedIn, SlideShare is a free-to-use website for sharing presentations. Much like Google Docs, Slideshare allows event planners to collaborate on documents with other like-minded organizers. The key difference between it and Google Docs, however, is that SlideShare is focused on presentations (hence the name). If you show a PowerPoint presentation to attendees during the event, you may want to upload that presentation to SlideShare so they go back over it later.
Note: you can set your presentations to private by following these steps:
- Log into your SlideShare account
- Select “My uploads”
- Find the presentation that you wish to make private and click the Edit tab
- Choose Settings
- Click the “Privacy Settings” tab
- Click Private
- Save and close