With more and more people opting to conduct their events online, virtual business events have become the new normal. However, keeping the attendees engaged throughout the virtual event seems difficult, it is not true. This article provides you with a few ways to make your virtual corporate events engaging.
Divide the Event into Small Sessions
Even the most attentive person tends to lose their attention after 30-60 minutes. While attending events virtually, the attention spans are even shorter and this might induce the attendees to drop off in the middle of the event. To avoid this situation, you should keep the sessions short. You can divide the event into small segments of 20-30 mins each. This will help keep the attendees interested and attentive throughout the event. Use the gap in between the sessions to interact with the attendees. You can also use this time to present the meeting agenda.
Conduct Live Polls
To avoid boredom during virtual business events, you can look for virtual event platforms that provide live polls and live chat features. Including 2-3 live polls within the event is one of the best ways to keep the attention levels of the attendees high. Live polls will also help you find out if the attendees are liking the event and allow them to share their thoughts, ideas and insights. Moreover, live polls will help you keep a track of the engagement levels and make the attendees feel that their opinion is valued.
Include Q&A Sessions
Virtual events can get monotonous and boring if there is no 2-way communication. Q&A sessions are a great way to establish 2-way communication in the event and make it interactive. These sessions allow the attendees to ask their doubts and keep them engaged throughout the event. This will help clear the doubts of the attendees making it easier to generate leads and increase sales. It will also help gather data about the customer's choices and preferences.
Leverage Gamification
Adding popular games to your virtual event will provide the attendees with an immersive event experience and keep them engaged throughout the event. You can also include a leaderboard challenge to develop a sense of healthy competition among the attendees. Make sure you look for a virtual event platform that allows you to add the games of your choice to the event. Gamification plays a vital role in improving the overall attendee experience. Using gamification will help add an element of fun to the event. You can also include multiplayer games to allow the attendees to play with each other. This will further boost the engagement and interaction levels.
Use Social Media Integration
Social media is the most powerful promotion and engagement tool in recent times. Integrating social media into your virtual event can help create powerful and immersive attendee experiences. You can add a social wall to the event to display the event-related social media posts in real-time. In other words, you can use the social wall to run the posts made by people using the specific event hashtags. This will help increase the attention levels of the attendees and keep them engaged throughout the virtual event. Moreover, you can also encourage the attendees to make social media posts using event-specific hashtags. This will further help boost the engagement levels.
Focus On the Quality of Content
Good quality and attention-grabbing content is the first step towards boosting engagement levels. Start posting crisp content before the event and be consistent throughout. Make sure that the content you post and create adds value to the audience and is relevant. Once the event is over, you can post highlights or recap of the event to make everyone feel valued and included.
Build Suspense
Adding an element of surprise is a great idea to boost engagement during the event and increase attendance to your virtual event. You can build suspense around a special giveaway during the event or a celebrity guest who will perform at the event. This will help build suspense among the attendees and amp up their excitement levels keeping them engaged till the end of the event.
Pre-event Polls
Pre-event polls are a great way to know the choices and preferences of your target audience in advance. Knowing what your customers want will help you fulfil their needs and expectations and will help make your virtual corporate events more engaging. Moreover, these polls will also help build trust with your customers and make them feel that your company cares for them.
Onboard a Celebrity Guest Speaker
Getting a celebrity guest speaker onboard is a great way to keep your attendees interested in the event. Research well before getting a celebrity speaker or performer onboard. Hire celebrity speakers depending on their popularity among your target audience. In addition to that, keep the performance of the celebrity guest speaker at the end of the event. This will help reduce the attendee drop-off rates and keep them engaged throughout.
Call Out Their Names
You can also call out the names of the attendees in the middle of the event. Addressing them by their names will keep them alert and help boost the engagement levels. You can either ask specific people to answer the question or simply ask them about their opinion on a subject. This will help keep their attention levels high.
Add a Physical Touch
You can add a physical touch to the event by giving out a bag full of goodies that can be used during the live event to help them stay engaged during the event. For instance, you can add a printed card containing the event agenda, names of the speakers and schedule of the event. You can also provide them with virtual giveaways like discount vouchers, e-wallet membership, etc. This idea can also work well if you are planning to host a virtual holiday party.
Final Words
Keeping the attendees engaged within a virtual event could seem like a challenge. But you don't need to worry! The above-mentioned tips and tricks will help you increase the attendee engagement and attendance.
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