Virtual events have become a part of our daily lives ever since the world got hit with the novel coronavirus. It was an alien concept once, two years down the line, almost all organizations have started to host events online. But, not all events are as successful. Why? It’s because some lack audience engagement factors. Now, if you are struggling with keeping the audience engaged in your virtual event, worry no more.
Here is a virtual event guide that will help you to maintain engagement rates in your event till the very end.
Drop-in trailers:
Dropping trailers and creating hype about your virtual event is the first step in building the event’s engagement rate and maintaining it. Experts believe that giving a sneak peek of what is all going to happen in the event through trailers is an excellent way to spark engagement and excitement among your attendees. You can create some gripping trailers and post them on the brand’s social media to create a buzz among the attendees. It will compel your audience to attend the event and stay hooked to it.
Giveaways:
It is another proven strategy that can help you make your online event an engaging one. Data suggests that as many as 80% of the audience likes to purchase the brand’s official merchandise. Well, you can use this in your marketing strategy; conduct giveaways during the virtual show, and spark engagement in and around your virtual event. You can ask questions to the attendees while the show is going on and announce winners during its end so that the participants stay hooked to the event and the attendance rate remains in check.
Live Polls:
Next tool to make your virtual event engaging is by making your attendees feel involved. Web events might end up making your audience feel uninvolved. Well, this results in affecting their attendance rates. To avoid this, you can include features like live polls. With this feature, the audience can express their views, and the hosts get to know their reviews. It is a great way to boost the engagement rate as well as make your audience feel valued.
One-on-one interaction tools:
While it is easier for the hosts to keep the audience engaged, the same gets challenging in the case of web events. The reason is, people don’t get to meet each other face to face, and the screen doesn’t give the feeling of a real conversation. However, things have changed; all thanks to some top-notch Virtual Event Platforms that come with one-on-one interaction tools. You can use them and allow your audience to interact with each other. A few examples of such tools are audio/video chats, networking tables, B2B Meeting Scheduler, AI matchmaking, and more.
Social Walls:
Now that everyone is aware of the power of social media, and how our lives have been impacted by its presence, use it as a part of your strategy to spark engagement in your event. With this tool, you will expand your brand reach and make it engaging. The social wall feature gets all the social media posts around your brand and event together on a fixed platform. All you need to have is a certain hashtag or any filter related to the event. All the posts with the same hashtag, posted by anyone, get displayed on the social wall of the event. It is an excellent way to maximize the reach of your event.
Keynote sessions:
Talking about the next idea to make your show more engaging, you can have some keynote speakers at the event. You can invite renowned speakers or industry experts to share some knowledge with the attendees. It won’t only help you make the entire event experience of your audience better, but also keep them hooked to the screens. The thing is, we all get star-struck when it comes to popular faces. You can use that fact to grab people’s attention and drive engagement rates. To make it more exciting, you can also add a surprise factor, or host some contests. The winners get to have one-on-one interaction with the keynote speaker. What do you say?
Short sessions:
One subtle way to keep the engagement rate of your event high till the end without putting in the extra effort is by keeping the sessions short. What generally happens is organizers forget that online sessions are different from their in-person counterparts, and require different sets of rules. Even though people don’t believe it to be true, the term ‘Zoom Fatigue’ has a real meaning. Extended virtual sessions tend to leave people feeling exhausted and aren’t generally as fruitful as one would expect them to be. Along with this, they tend to affect the attendance and engagement rate of the brand and the event. Therefore, it is advisable to keep the sessions short and avoid delivering any information that isn’t related to the subject and doesn’t have any relevance to the event.
Collaboration:
Another effective way of keeping the engagement rates intact is by collaborating with famous faces and influencers. Seeing their favorite celebrities promoting your brand and event will automatically build a sense of trust among your target audience. There are high chances that the attendees will attend the virtual event and engage with your brand.
Visually appealing factors:
Let us talk about one factor that is generally overlooked by the organizers, yet plays a significant role in boosting your audience engagement rates. That is, adding visually appealing factors and making the event a feast to the eyes. Remember, ‘First impression is the last impression’ still holds the same value and meaning. And when it comes to things where the audience is involved, it all together becomes more important. While designing your virtual event layout, pay extra attention to the theme, colors, designs, and composition. Along with it, keep your brand marketing as your top priority. You can also use pop-ups and other elements that will do two jobs for you; one is keeping the audience updated, and the other, making the event layout visually pleasing.
We hope this blog helps you with keeping your audience hooked to the event and is as successful as you wish it to be.