When it comes to hosting online events, it is crucial to let your creativity know no bounds to keep your attendees hooked till the end. Replicating the in-person event experience in a virtual event requires out of the box thinking and a lot of pre-planning. But don’t fret! Read further to find out about some of the ideas to make your online event more compelling.
Keep Shorter Sessions
An online attendee is prone to a lot of distractions that are just a click away. Therefore, the strategies of an in-person event would prove ineffective in the case of online events. Despite the unique engagement features, any person would find it hard to watch a long session alone, sitting in a room. Moreover, studies suggest that the concentration spans of humans tend to be around 20 minutes. As soon as an online attendee loses concentration, the temptation to click away increases. Therefore, you must try to break the event into smaller sessions, preferably 20 minutes each to increase the attendee’s focus on the content. Keeping shorter sessions is the key to hosting a virtual event.
Use Ice-breakers
Whatever event you are hosting, if the attendees do not feel comfortable speaking and refrain from participating, you won’t meet your objectives. Using ice-breakers at the beginning of the event and in-between the event as and when required will help set the mood for the meeting and get the attendees comfortable. You can start by asking a general question or playing an ice breaker game such as ‘Never have I ever.’ In addition to making everyone comfortable, ice-breaking sessions are also a great way to boost in-event engagement levels.
Mix Things Up
While getting a good speaker to host the event is a great idea, keep in mind that even the best speaker can get tired and lose their charisma after a few hours of non-stop anchoring. Moreover, it can get boring after some time. To avoid this situation, consider adding variety to your content. You can also include videos, presentations, and footage. This is a great way to boost engagement and create visual variety.
Provide 3D Event Experience
Replicating an in-person event experience is a great idea to make your event more compelling. Getting an online event platform that uses animation to provide a 3D virtual event experience can help you make your virtual event more compelling. Moreover, you must search for virtual event software that allows you to customize your event. The customization feature will allow you to add the elements that you think your attendees might like thereby increasing engagement.
Include Live Polls
Including 2-3 live polls or in-event polls into your online event can instantly spice it up and encourage the attendees to show high levels of participation. It is one of the best and easiest ways to keep your audience alert and on their toes. Most virtual event solution providers present in the market provide the live poll feature. The number of live polls you should include depends on the length of the program. If the event is too long, you can conduct 3-4 live polls and 2-3 if the event is short. you can also use this opportunity to gather useful information about the attendees that can help spruce up your event’s engagement. For this, you need to frame the polls questions smartly in a planned manner.
Use Crisp Content
Great content is one of the ways to boost in-event engagement. Consider using pre-event content to increase the excitement and make more people register for the event. In addition to this, create witty and humourous content for the event. Mix up the content with jokes, slides and presentations. You should also create post-event content to stay in touch with the attendees and keep them updated about your future products and events.
Use Push Notifications Effectively
Even though you might think that push notifications are troublesome for your audience, using push notifications smartly can add value to them instead. Rather than sending direct push notifications, you must get creative in your approach and send push notifications such as ‘take a break and flex your muscles’, ‘time for a game break’. You can also take this opportunity to show the stats of the event like the number of people attending, number of likes and shares.
Include Q&A Sessions
Including Q&A sessions is one of the best tactics to boost engagement and make your virtual event more compelling. It lets the attendees speak and interact with the host and other attendees. You can include Q&As after each session. Consider having an expert for answering the attendee’s questions. Rather than concentrating all the Q&A sessions at the end of the event try to scatter them evenly throughout. This will help keep the participants hooked and engaged. You can also ask virtual event survey questions from the attendees.
Gamify Your Event
Gamification is another great tactic to make your virtual event more compelling. You can either create a separate event app and keep them engaged while playing or gamify the event website. To make it more exciting, you can include rewards points and gifts. Moreover, you can include quizzes and challenges to develop a competitive spirit among the attendees. You can also promote your products by rewarding the winners with discount vouchers or offers on your brand products.
Call Out Their Names
Calling the attendees by their names can lead to an enhancement in their alertness levels. You can call out individual attendees to answer a question or share their thoughts or insights on a particular topic. It will help personalize the sessions and keep the attendees alert.
Promote Networking Through AI Matchmaking
Another compelling way to boost engagement and make your event successful is to use AI matchmaking. You can leverage the power of technology to help the attendees find the right people to meet. AI matchmaking analyzes the data regarding the interests and objectives of the attendees and matches them with the most relevant people. Using AI matchmaking will help boost in-event engagement.
Takeaway
Thinking different and planning beforehand is the key to hosting a successful virtual event. The ideas discussed in this article can be of great help in making your virtual event successful.
