Maximizing Audience Engagement with Event Platform Features

In the case of event planning, many people only focus on the setup like decoration, sound system, and lighting. However, they do not realize that the real challenge is keeping everyone engaged throughout the event.

Engaging the audience is all about how well you encourage the attendees to participate in the discussion and activities. And make sure your audience is not sitting around bored but enjoying the event to the fullest. But despite having a good speaker, content, and other arrangements, audiences may get bored in the event. That's why, 82% of event planners focus on platform features, which can bring a huge difference in the event.

Let's discuss the proven strategies for using platform features to make your audience engaged and excited throughout the event.

Why does engaging your audience matter in an event?

Audience engagement plays a huge role in an event for various reasons. If you arrange an event to promote your business products or launch a business, audience engagement is very important.

• Proves the event's value to the sponsor, stakeholders, and other clients.

• Improve connection to the guests.

• Increase purchases of promoted products or services.

• When the attendees are attentive,  they remember more of what you share during the event. 

• Audiences become more excited to ask their queries and join the discussion.

• If any improvement is needed in your business, the audiences give valuable feedback to change or include something in your business. 

• Engaging in events helps keep the guests amused before, during, and after the event. 

• Provide valuable insights into the planning of brand activities.

• Provides the brand an opportunity to understand its audiences better.

• When the event of a particular brand is more engaging, that brand gets more recognition from its customers. This causes its profit and revenue to increase. 

• Due to improving relationships with the clients, engaging events help grow the business. 

How can you develop the strategy for event engagement?

Event engagement is not just about arranging various event platform features or introducing something more. You have to understand how to use the features correctly to engage your audiences. To develop a strategy for engaging the event, you should focus on three stages of event management. 

Before the event

• Creating excitement: You can reach more people in your event if you engage the influencers to talk about the event. 

• Planning sessions: Select a speaker who is skilled enough to engage or excite the audience. And plan the session considering the convenience of the guests.

• Running surveys and polls: You can ask the attendees about their expectations about the event by running surveys and polls. 

• Arranging recreational activities: Use games or competitions to encourage people to register.

• Providing essential details: Get prepared for last-minute communication where you should provide the necessary instructions to the audience.

• Boosting registration: Use countdown campaigns to boost urgency in registration.

• Marketing and invitation: Use teasers and content focusing on the benefits to attract your audience. Try to create personalized communication to increase marketing and invitations.

• Create networking: Build opportunities for the attendees to contact before the event. You can gather ideas about improving the event through online conversations with the attendees. Conduct communication with the guests before the event through social media. 

• Encouraging interaction: Plan seating arrangements in such a way that each of the attendees gets a chance to discuss the topic among themselves. 
  

During the event

• Starting with an engaging keynote: Try to grab the attention of your guests from the beginning of the event and share live events. 

• Using technology: Create an opportunity to communicate with the speaker. Use live polls like live polls, event apps, and games to make the session interactive, so that the guests can ask any queries or share their opinion.

• Using various formats on the presentation slides: Make the presentation interesting by using some interactive elements to the PowerPoint slides like graphics, animation, videos, etc. 

• Provide the opportunity to discuss: Give some break in between the events. This will provide the audience with some opportunity to discuss and connect with each other. 

• Online discussion opportunity by using personalized hashtag: Provide the opportunity to discuss online during the event. 

After the event 

• Continuing the conversation: Provide a note saying thank you and continue the conversation by using feedback surveys. And ask the audience to give their opinion about future events. 

• Recap what you have discussed: Keep the event alive by providing recordings and highlights. This will help the guest learn what you have discussed in the entire event.

• Motivate the guests: Encourage the audience to share the discussion on social media. 

• Thank the audience and give an offer for the next event: Give a thank you note and start marketing for the future event with an exclusive offer. 

How can you use platform features to improve interaction with your audience?

You can use various platform features in your event. These features can help increase interaction with your audience. And you can select any event platform based on your requirements. 

• Certain performance indicator tools can measure the audience engagement level in the event.

• Using event planning platforms can help track various metrics like participation or attendance of audiences in any event. It can also track the activity of the audience on social media.

• Help collect event feedback from polls or surveys and track the results of games.

• Track the rate of app download and the rate of registration for joining the event. 

• You can collect and analyze various event metrics with the help of event management software. 

How can you understand that the event is engaging?

You can justify whether the event is engaging or not by observing the behavior of your audience. Various platform features like engagement apps, real-time surveys, and social media can help you here. And you can easily check the level of interaction and feedback of your audience. 

How can using modern technology take your event to the next level?

• Using virtual and augmented reality helps demonstrate the products, which can make the event more interactive. This technology is useful in virtual tours also. According to the market research report, online streaming and cloud services drastically boost the platform industry of virtual events. 

• Event apps make the event more engaging by providing a personalized schedule and various networking tools to the guests. These apps can also provide features for real-time engagement.

• Sharing updates on social media to a larger audience can help engage the people who can not attend the event.

• Using wearable tech in the event helps the guests connect with each other. It can also help run the event smoothly.
  

In the end: Make the audience enjoy your event

To execute a successful event, capturing and holding the attention of the audience is really important. When an event is more engaging, it becomes memorable too. Currently, in many cases, the success of an event depends on how well you can use the event platform features.

So, we have tried to discuss how you can maximize your audience engagement by using various event platform features. You can share this discussion with others who are concerned about engaging the audience in their event. If you have ever used any platform features in your event, share your experience in the comments below.