This past Monday, March 22, Symposium VIP Cheryl McColgan held a nutrient-rich, lively SymCast titled “Cook Along Live: Learn More About Keto and Ask All the Questions!” As the founder of Heal Nourish Grow, a wellness, advanced nutrition and healthy lifestyle brand, Cheryl is fiercely committed to sharing her hard-fought health insights gleaned from her own personal transformation journey with others to help them reach and maintain what she terms “ultimate wellness.” Her vibrant, content-centric site contains articles, videos, interviews, recipes and more that inspire her audience to make better, healthier (but still delicious!) choices every day.
Spoiler alert: Cheryl shares the one fundamental food shift everyone can make today to eat, feel and live healthier in the long run — whole foods! More than just the name of one of the trendiest grocery stores in America, “whole foods” are raw, natural, one-ingredient eatables that have never been packaged, processed, refined or added to. Some examples of whole foods include fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds, whole grains, meat, fish and eggs.
Throughout Monday’s SymCast, Cheryl walked viewers through how to cook a keto version of Mexican Pozole (a traditional, light chicken/vegetable soup), while seamlessly peppering in additional insights into living the keto lifestyle. Keen on keeping the audience engaged and highlighting every single step, Cheryl leveraged the OBS virtual camera to quickly and easily switch between the stove view and the cutting board view. The result was a professional, polished, multi-camera angle video presentation, which Cheryl credits as an added educational benefit of her prep for the Symcast.
Cheryl expressed her delight from doing the SymCast, stating that she especially enjoyed the live interaction with her audience and their questions via the group chat. With the chat’s intuitive format, clear comment presentation and ability to resolve questions in real-time, she felt as though she was able to engage with, involve and support her active viewers in a fresh and valuable way. She promoted the event across her Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages — and was able to refer participants directly to her website and Amazon page throughout the broadcast.
Cherly’s advice to other SymPros, based on her experience? Be sure to do a test run first to confirm you are comfortable with the platform and have all of your technological bases covered ahead of your SymCast. She also reminds hosts that the very nature of live events inherently includes unforeseen factors, and they shouldn’t be discouraged if a stream doesn’t go perfectly as planned. The focus should always be on your audience and the experience you are providing them, no matter what size or variety of viewers join your broadcast. She suggests that hosts lean into their viewers and allow them to help direct the event’s flow and fun. Above all else, keep going until it is done.
Overall, Cheryl considers the SymCast a smash success and looks forward to finding new and exciting ways to leverage the platform to continue providing value to her audience.
