50+
Broadcasts
175+
Remote Guests
5+
POLITICO Team Members
Founded in 2007, POLITICO is a global news organization covering all things politics and policy. The company’s Events team uses Socialive to produce video content on pressing issues such as the impact of COVID-19, racial justice, and the unprecedented 2020 election.
With the rise of the pandemic, publishers like POLITICO were forced to rethink how to deliver news to readers in a critical time. Leveraging Socialive, POLITICO transformed its in-person events into engaging virtual events to congregate viewers for informative conversations on its digital channels.
Industry
Media
Solution
Virtual Events
“Socialive allows us to take the content we’re creating in the newsroom, and complement that with video programming.”
Courtney Rohrbach | Senior Director, Event Production
CHALLENGE
Staying On Top Of A Fast-Paced News Cycle
To harness the power of the newsroom and equip its audience with impactful information, POLITICO transitioned from live to virtual events. The Events team looked for a video creation platform to help them keep up with a dizzying news cycle. In search of a flexible solution tailored to their video needs, they encountered several problems:
- High video production time, cost, and complexity
- Inability to integrate with POLITICO’s product and teams
- Low production value
- Lack of customization
In addition to figuring out how to efficiently package and distribute video content, the team wanted to simplify their end-to-end video workflow and scale video creation with its existing resources. In an era of social distancing, it was also key to land on a solution built for team collaboration.
SOLUTION
Using Socialive To Elevate and Accelerate Virtual Event Production
POLITICO partnered with Socialive as a solution to produce high-quality live and live-to-tape video content for its digital channels, particularly for its website (50 million monthly unique visitors), Twitter (4.3 million followers), and Facebook (1.9 million followers). The team has produced a wide range of virtual events leveraging marquee franchises and leading talent from the newsroom. They broadcast:
- Political commentary around key events like the 2020 Democratic National Convention and Republican National Convention
- Virtual interview series, such as Playbook and Four Square that dig into the latest political news
- Roundtable discussions bringing communities together, such as this post-election conversation on women candidates and what progress still needs to be made
- Town halls highlighting issues such as inequality in America
By leveraging key Socialive features — especially, remote video capture and production, the ability to mix live and recorded video, branded graphics, and split-screen layouts — POLITICO’s Events team enhanced its virtual event content to provide viewers with value and knowledge.
In a virtual interview with POLITICO in October 2020, Bill Gates used Socialive to discuss his philanthropic efforts to contain the pandemic, develop a vaccine, and improve testing.
The news outlet brought in Socialive for political convention coverage, and has now expanded its use to several different parts of the company to produce ten videos per month. Leaning on Socialive’s ability to clip video snippets to repurpose short-form insights, POLITICO has seen improvement in collaboration between its Editorial and Video teams. Since implementing Socialive, the Events team has also been able to increase and enhance virtual event output — all while driving down production time, cost, and complexity.
In August during the 2020 national conventions, POLITICO leveraged Socialive for a virtual interview with guest Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“Socialive is a great product. It has afforded us the opportunity to stretch our legs and experiment with different types of programming.”
Courtney Rohrbach | Senior Director, Event Production
OUTCOME
POLITICO Scales Video Creation While Pushing The Envelope
In five short months of integrating Socialive, POLITICO hit the ground running by producing professional grade virtual events more efficiently. Socialive enabled the small but mighty Events team to stay up-to-speed on the busy news cycle and keep audiences informed. Ultimately, they generated:
50+
Broadcasts
175+
Remote Guests
5+
POLITICO Team Members
5
Months
Set up for success by Socialive’s partnership-oriented Customer Service team, POLITICO’s Events team has taken it upon themselves to get creative and experiment with different types of virtual events. The team plans to continually increase its virtual event output as they explore all that Socialive has to offer.
“Our integration with Socialive is amazing. The team is so supportive and ensures we are equipped to create excellent programming.”
Courtney Rohrbach | Senior Director, Event Production