In this digital world, marketers and event organizers are shifting from in-person events to online events. They have become more common and famous due to the Covid-19 pandemic. There are different benefits to considering virtual events. Online or virtual events allow businesses and companies to reach a wider audience and save money and effort. Compared to in-person events, virtual events are more accessible and cost-effective. But when it comes to virtual events, audience engagement plays an essential role to make or break your live event.
You can elevate your virtual events to the next level by increasing audience involvement during them. Because it’s so simple for your audience to become sidetracked when attending your events online, it’s crucial to create compelling events. So how exactly do you keep an online event interesting? In this session, you will find the best tips to make your online event more engaging and interesting.
Top Proven Ways To Engage Your Online Audience
Live Polls
One of the most engaging features that can be employed during any kind of virtual event and have a lot of potentials is live polling. By running polls, you may gather data, get insightful feedback in real time, and increase the sense of participation among attendees. Additionally, this will encourage users to stick around until the very end of the event to see the polling results. Always make sure that the audience feels like they are contributing and their opinion is respected in order to provide a pleasurable experience.
You can choose the type of polling according to the size of your audience. For instance, you can use word clouds if you have a group of 10-25 people. You can consider multiple choice questions if you have a large number of people (more than 100). Live polling is the best way to start a conversation and interact with the audience. So consider this tool to achieve an engaging online event.
Gamification
Whether it is an offline event or a virtual event, gamification is an ideal option to increase audience engagement. Offline events include an exhibition hall where sponsors promote their products and services. Virtual event platforms allow you to do the same. The virtual show platform includes a virtual booth that allows sponsors to promote their brands.
If you want to encourage the audience to visit your virtual booth, you can consider gamification. For instance, for each virtual booth visit, participants will get some points and can win a prize. You can hold a small competition at each virtual booth to encourage interaction between participants and the sponsors. It’s a fantastic way to start a conversation.
Q&A Sessions
A Q&A session is another fantastic element that can help you enhance the value of your event, similar to live polls. Attendees can ask questions to hosts and speakers during Q&A sessions to learn more about the subjects covered throughout the event. Q&A sessions are frequently seen as a standard in online conferences and are excellent for encouraging an exchange of ideas, knowledge sharing, and more. In order to keep the audience interested and motivated, incorporate a leaderboard into the virtual lobby.
Survey And Knowledge Tests
These are great to collect some important data and share knowledge. Conduct a knowledge test to check if your attendees were involved in your online event. Whether it is a live or On-demand event, you can conduct a survey after each session. It can help you to collect real-time feedback and offer an opportunity to improve your next live event. These tactics can help you to encourage your attendees to provide their valuable input.
Break-Out Sessions Or Rooms
In order to maximize audience engagement, creating an opportunity for interactive learning is essential. For this, you can create break-out sessions or rooms that allow your participants to meet and interact with each other and the speakers.
A break-out session allows for dividing a large group of participants into small groups. These break sessions are beneficial for the attendees who feel uncomfortable speaking and asking questions in front of a large group. Participants can discuss the event topic in more detail during the break-out session. They can also ask questions if something was unclear in the event.
Networking Lounge
It is a virtual place where a participant can interact with hosts, sponsors, or other participants. A networking lounge allows participants to do group discussions, one-on-one conversations, and more. A networking lounge has become a necessary component of virtual events and is excellent for engagement because networking is one of the most significant reasons why events take place.
Final Words:-
No matter how small or big your online event is, these tips and strategies will help you to keep your audience engaged and involved. If you are going to host a virtual event, you need to use something creative and use different audience engagement strategies in order to keep attendees focused and inspired. You can also connect with a virtual event service provider to boost audience engagement. They offer virtual event software that includes different interactive tools and features such as live polls, chat, surveys, Q&A, and more.
