What makes the sessions engaging during a virtual event?

Event engagement has been one of the most important focus-areas for event planners. It sounds fairly simple but in reality, it’s not an easy feat. As the attention span of attendees is decreasing considerably in the digital world, event engagement has become challenging. So far, event Technology has played a significant role in making physical events engaging. Now, in this COVID era, the industry is looking forward to virtual events. The aim to make the sessions engaging during a virtual event. Event planners are looking for ways to replicate physical event engagement in the virtual event ecosystem. Let’s find how this can be done-

Content

• Use your event analytics section from time to time to understand the attendee persona. Your event should be planned accordingly.
• Try to be strategic when planning the duration of the event. Although time isn’t a constraint with virtual events, Virtual events are relatively shorter than physical events to stay engaging.
• Divide your overall event into various different sessions (on the basis of agenda). This is helpful for both you and your attendees. More focused a session is on a topic, more engaging it would be!
• Don’t limit yourself only to event content. You need an immersive event experience to create an impact. We will cover this in further points.

Diversify engagement

• Now when your event is present digitally, you must make full use of the digital presence of your attendees.
• One good way to do this by engaging the event-goers present across various social media platforms.
• You can use your personalized event app in a more robust way for curating an event-dedicated community.

Smooth Onboarding

• One important aspect of engagement is that you must try to eliminate various conditions that lead to disengagement.
• Thus, it’s important to provide demo sessions to the attendees so that they know how to onboard or navigate without getting stuck.
• There are various ways to do so. You may create an instruction video and share it via an event app or through the on-screen reception at your virtual event.

Reception

• Even if you’ve worked on the event content to the best of your ability, your attendees need a very smooth virtual journey to reach out to you.
• To ensure constant manual assistance for attendees, make sure you have staff designated at the virtual reception area.

Guest speakers

• Keynote speakers, star speakers, or guest speakers- No matter which way we address them, but we know that they are going to be in limelight for most of the session.
• It is a must for you to provide your guests with the demo-tour of the virtual event tour. This saves them from any last-moment confusion.
• Also, Features like Backstage help in coordination and in coping up with emergency situations. It’s better if guest speakers are aware of the same.

Moderation

• Even if all your guest speakers are phenomenal, the absence of an effective moderator makes the event less engaging 
• In fact, a good moderator has the ability to compensate for the lack of quality speakers.
• A moderator is like the voice of the attendees, as they expect the moderator to take care of the value they’re getting out of the sessions.

Matchmaking 

• Networking is one of the most important reasons why event-goers attend events.
• Virtual event solutions help you match attendees with artificial intelligence (AI) to drive engagement and networking. This effortless matchmaking provides real value to the attendees.

Two-way interaction

• These days, event goers don’t attend the event to passively consume the content.
• For active engagement, it’s a must to keep the interaction two-way. Use features like Q&A and polls to involve your audience in the event. 

From the above discussion, it is clear that to make a session engaging, you need to focus on many other aspects. It’s only after a good mix of technology and strategy that a session becomes engaging for those attending it. If you’re looking for that perfect balance, click here to know how FLOOR by 10times is the best option for you!