Virtual events became the new normal with the advent of unforeseen circumstances. Today, almost every organisation around the world is hosting virtual events at scale. But, to make any virtual event successful, attendee engagement is the major criteria. As attendees partake in virtual events via screen staying for long hours is nearly impossible. Thus, resulting in a short span of attention. However, achieving ultimate engagement at virtual events from attendees became really difficult.
Engaging attendees at live physical events might be a tricky task as you have to keep hold of them all at once. However, you might be thinking that engaging attendees at virtual events becomes even tougher. But let me clarify, it’s just a sole myth.
A recent study reports that a large percentage of attendees are more likely to participate and engage with virtual events. An increase in participation and engagement has been recorded with various virtual event engagement activities like Q&A sessions, live polls, quizzes, and more. Sounds interesting right! Gear yourself up to create the most exciting, innovative, and engaging virtual events.
In this blog, we will unveil the most exciting ways to boost virtual event engagement and make your event a grand success by delivering bespoke online event experiences.
Effective Ways to Boost Engagement that Keeps Your Attendees Hooked
1. Enable Live Chats to Forge Groups to Engage
Make your virtual event as interactive as possible. It is a first step towards boosting engagement at virtual events. Allow your participants to interact with each other freely either by having a 1:1 discussion or by having group chats. Additionally, allow your participants to share their valuable feedback that better shapes the event when you plan to host it next time. An ample number of virtual networking tools are available that allow attendees to have meaningful conversations at the event. However, communication is the key to engage more participants at the event. Motivate your attendees to connect and network with others via various networking tools such as:
- Live Audio/Video 1:1 and Group Chats
- 2-Way Interaction
- Virtual Networking Tables
- Business Card Exchange
- B2B Meeting Scheduler and more
2. Organise Live Polls and Q&A
Live polls and Q&A are an effective way to boost engagements at virtual events. It breaks down the barrier between attendees, speakers, and hosts by enabling them to share their opinions in real-time. Organising live polls and Q&A keeps attendees hooked, thus motivating them to stay more.
3. Introduce Social Walls
Integrating social media walls during breakout sessions is an effective way to maximise engagements at virtual events. Social walls curate the feeds from all social channels that have relevant event hashtags in a single place. Thus, enabling attendees to have discussions during the event.
4. Great Speakers
The speaker plays a key role in engaging attendees at virtual events. While searching for the speaker ensures that he/she holds years of expertise in the subject and tone of the event. The speaker should be excited about the event and should have enough knowledge about the subject of the event. A surprise opening to the event featuring some celebrities keeps attendees hooked with the virtual event walkthroughs.
5. Integrate Virtual Games to Boost Engagements
Make your virtual sessions more engaging by integrating AR/VR digital games. It helps in boosting excitement in the event while keeping attendees engaged for long hours. You can integrate games like spin the wheel, trivia, crossword puzzles, tic-tac-toe, shooting games, and more. Innovative digital games break the monotony amid sessions while keeping attendees hooked throughout. You can even offer giveaways to the top 5 winners to motivate attendees to fully participate in the games.
6. Set Up Selfie Photo Booth
Who doesn’t love to get clicked? I think no one out there. Add more fun and excitement to your virtual events by integrating branded selfie photo booths to your events. It helps in keeping attendees excited as well as engaged with your event while getting clicked with the branded photo booths.
7. Introduce Leaderboard Challenge
Award participants with extra 100 points who register early for the event and stay till the end. Additionally, you can offer points for each activity like visiting a specific booth or attending a session. It will help attendees navigate the complete event in the lure of earning more points. Thus, resulting in keeping them engaged throughout the event. Offer discount coupons from these earned points to participants who make it to the list. It will definitely boost attendance as well as participation at the event.
8. Leverage The Power of Hashtags to Boost Engagements
Integrating the most trending hashtags always works well to enhance the reach as well as boost engagements at any event. Virtual events are no other exception! Create innovative and eye-catchy hashtags to boost participation at virtual events. Create a buzz about your upcoming event on social channels a month before an actual event by creating hashtags. It will help in maximising the reach and start boosting engagements for your event even before the event starts.
9. Reach Out to Influencers
Today, Influencers are immensely popular on social media with large followings. Reaching out to influencers to promote your virtual event will definitely help you to boost engagement at the event. Ask them to talk about your upcoming events on their posts and motivate their followers to be a part of the same. It will help in boosting your attendance as well as engagements. As the general human tendency says “if the one we follow and like is asking us to access something there is definitely something special about it”.
10. Introduce Ice-Breaker Activities Amid Sessions
Long sessions are tiring and when you watch it online it becomes even more tiring. Staying up for 2 hours non-stop and listening to a session where you do not know anyone is a daunting task. Thus, resulting in people dropping out in mid. Introduce ice breaker activities amid sessions where attendees get to know each other well. It not only helps in accelerating engagements at virtual events but also motivates attendees to share their experiences on social sites. Thus, resulting in enhanced reach.
Conclusion
In this blog, we have listed some top hacks to boost attendee engagement at virtual and take your event to another level. If you have not yet thought about it, now is the time to leverage the smart tips and get started!
Are you planning a virtual event? We have lots more ideas and strategies to host an engaging virtual event. Get in touch with us anytime!
